Fund promotion accounts for half of APAC advertising

Brand campaigns and insights promotion account for 21% each in Q1 2025, data by Fundamental Monitor shows

Key findings:

• Fund promotion accounted for 57% of all advertising during Q1, up from 52% in Q4.
• When looking at the promotion of specific asset classes and strategies, fixed income accounted for 22% of all advertising, followed by ETFs at 21% and equities at 14%.
• At 25 asset managers, the number of equities advertisers in APAC during Q1 was at its highest level since the start of 2020, up from 21 in Q4.

More than half of all asset management advertising in the APAC region was dedicated to fund promotion during Q1 2025, data by Fundamental Monitor revealed.

Fund promotion accounted for 57% of all advertising during Q1, up from 52% in Q4. Meanwhile, asset managers dedicated 21% of their advertising to brand campaigns and 21% to insights promotion compared to, respectively, 30% and 17% in Q4.

When looking at the promotion of specific asset classes and strategies, fixed income accounted for 22% of all advertising, followed by ETFs at 21% and equities at 14%. Multi-asset advertising saw a decrease in its share from 8% in Q4 to 5% in Q1, while ESG advertising has completely fallen out of favour to less than 1% of total advertising volumes.

At 25 asset managers, the number of equities advertisers in APAC during Q1 was at its highest level since the start of 2020, up from 21 in Q4. Meanwhile, the number of asset managers promoting fixed income dropped to 25, and multi asset and ESG saw a decrease in advertisers as well. At only six advertisers, the number of ESG advertisers is now at the lowest level seen since the start of 2020.

Data from Alphix Solutions, Fundamental Group’s marketing technology business, shows that APAC investors consumed more equities content during Q1 than the 365-day rolling average. However, fixed income content consumption was up during the first half of the quarter but down slightly during the second half, while for ETF content this was the other way around.

Below are some examples of the type of campaigns that were in market in the APAC region during Q1 2025:

Fund promotion – Betashares

Insights – PIMCO

Equities – Mirae Asset Management

Fixed income – Nuveen

ETFs – China Asset Management