ESG advertising in APAC crawls slowly back from nadir

Insights promotion still makes up two-thirds of ESG advertising, data by Fundamental Monitor finds

Key points:

• Asset managers dedicated 3% of their APAC advertising to ESG in Q2 2023, up from 1% in Q1
• Most ESG advertisers were active in Australia, followed by Singapore and Hong Kong
• The majority of all ESG promotion was focused on insights, followed by fund promotion

The promotion of ESG accounted for 3% of all asset management advertising in Q2 2023, up from 1% a quarter earlier, according to data by Fundamental Monitor.

The first quarter of 2023 saw the lowest level of ESG advertising since the start of 2020, when Fundamental Monitor started collecting data on the advertising behaviour of asset managers.

During Q2, 13 asset managers were actively promoting ESG in the APAC region, dedicating 9% of all their advertising to responsible investing. Four managers were solely focused on advertising ESG: Hang Seng Investment, Han ETF, China Asset Management and Australian Ethical.

All markets saw some ESG advertising activity, but most advertisers were active in Australia (10), followed by Singapore (7) and Hong Kong (6).

Similar to Q1, the promotion of thought leadership made up the bulk of ESG advertising: 65%, down slightly from 67% in Q1. Fund promotion remained almost stable at 31% compared to 32% in Q1, while ESG brand campaigns grew slightly from 1% to 4%.

Below are some examples of the type of ESG advertising campaigns that were in market in the APAC region in Q2 2022:

Federated Hermes

Hang Seng Investment

J.P. Morgan Asset Management