APAC ESG advertisers shift back towards insights promotion

The popularity of thought leadership campaigns has mainly been to the detriment of brand campaigns, data by Fundamental Monitor reveals

Key points:

• The promotion of thought leadership continued to rise during Q4 to 45% of all ESG advertising
• ESG advertising made up 12% of all asset managers’ advertising in APAC, up from 9% in Q3
• There were 26 ESG advertisers active in the APAC market during Q4

Asset managers promoting their ESG credentials in the APAC region continue to favour the promotion of insight pieces, data by Fundamental Monitor shows.

The promotion of ESG thought leadership stood at 42% in Q1 2022, but then dipped to only 25% in Q2. It rose to 39% in Q3 and continued to increase to 45% in Q4, the highest percentage seen in 2022. This has mainly been to the detriment of ESG brand campaigns, which stood at 18% of all ESG advertising in Q4. ESG fund promotion made up the remaining 36%.

During Q4, ESG advertising made up 12% of all asset managers’ advertising in APAC, up from 9% in Q3. When we only take into account the activity of advertisers who were promoting ESG, their ESG advertising accounted for 29% of their total advertising activity, up from 22% a quarter earlier.

Despite a larger percentage of advertising being dedicated to the promotion of ESG, there were less asset managers actively promoting responsible investing in Q4: 25 advertisers compared to 26 in Q3. Five asset managers solely focused their APAC advertising activity on ESG during the quarter: American Century Investments, Australian Ethical, Aviva Investors, AXA Investment Managers and Newton Investment Management.

All markets monitored by Fundamental Monitor saw some ESG advertising activity, but Australia and Hong Kong were the most crowded markets, with respectively 15 and 11 active advertisers. This was followed by Singapore (8) and Japan (7).

Below are some examples of the type of ESG campaigns that were in market in the APAC region during Q4 2022:

Abrdn

Robeco

Schroders