Some two-thirds of the world’s biggest asset managers have seen interest in their corporate brands decrease or stagnate, Peregrine Communications, a marketing and communications outfit, reported Wednesday.
Peregrine’s Global 100 report found that 61% of firms had experienced no gain or a drop in their organic Google search volumes this year through August, while individual managers experienced an average 17% increase in inbound Google search interest for their brand.
As a result, Peregrine said in a statement, a majority of firms are lagging a handful of strong performers that are generating robust results with integrated marketing communications.
“The asset management industry is going through a period of profound change and this is reflected in the fact that nearly two out of three fund managers are experiencing no growth or declining interest in their brand,” Peregrine’s head of analytics Josh Cole said in a statement.
“Many firms fail to create a compelling brand narrative and as the research shows, clearly struggle to deliver any demonstrable growth in their brand awareness.”
The report focused on the marketing performance of the world’s largest asset management firms as ranked by assets under management. Selected firms were the top 100 independent brands in IPE’s Top 400 Asset Management survey. Peregrine analyzed the firms with its proprietary metrics and bank of more than 12,000 data points to show how each manager performed across these areas:
- Brand awareness
- Messaging effectiveness
- Share of voice
- Media sentiment
- Paid media
- Google Page 1
- Social media
- SEO
- Paid search
- Website effectiveness
According to the report, BlackRock ranked first overall, followed closely by T. Rowe Price, Fidelity Investments and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
Peregrine noted that despite being the biggest fund manager globally with $6.8 trillion under management, BlackRock continues to be a sophisticated innovator. For example, it applies psychological profiling to its use of paid online search.