Quite Possibly the Biggest Ad Fail Ever

By J.R. Robinson, Financial Planner (October 5, 2024)

It is no secret that I am an outspoken critic of the CFP Board. In the early 2000s, I was critical of the harm the Board inflicted upon consumers by marketing to the public that its members were more ethical than non-CFPs, despite high profile examples of CFPs who had obtained the desgination to create false credibility in order to defraud consumers and even charitable organizations. In the 2000-teens, I sought to raise awareness of how the Board willfully turned a blind eye on scores of its members who had misconduct disclosures on their SEC and FINRA records while simultaneously spending millions of dollars on PR campaigns suggesting that consumers "should always trust a CFP." These efforts culiminated in front page Wall Street Journal exposé, "Looking for a Financial Planner? The Go-To Website Often Omits Red Flags." While the article spurred the CFP Board to crank up its PR spin-machine in order to create the appearance of reform, the Board's willful blindness toward its bad apples continues to this day. 

In recent years, I have sought to expose the CFP Board's duplicitious, self-serving stance on the application of the fiduciary standard.  On one hand, the CFP has positioned itself as a lone crusader against the insurance and investment industries in declaring its support for the Department of Labor's push for a fiduciary standard to be imposed on all retirement planning advice. On the other hand, the CFP Board has created its own, self-serving fiduciary standard that does not require its CFP members to provide written disclosure of conflicts of interest and does not require them to disclose the amount of money they may receive from the sales of products with opaque commissions. As I stated in a recent blog post, I supported the CFP Board's zealous fiduciary sermonizing  right up the point at which it mislead Congress about its own faux fiduciary standard.  

With that background information as context, it may come as a surprise to readers that I find the CFP Board's latest advertising compaign absolutely hilarious and eminently shareable.

The CFP Board's Ad Campaign to Recruit New Members

As critical as I have been of the CFP Board, I have always been complimentary of the Board's CEO, Kevin Keller. When he was hired, he was tasked with growing the CFP Board's membership and making the CFP designation a recognized standard for the profession.  In my opinion, Mr. Keller has been worth every penny of his more than one million dollar annual salary.  Under his leadership, the CFP membership base has more than tripled to over 100,000 CFPs.  The regularly increasing dues from its growing membership base serve as the fly wheel for an annual advertising and PR budget of more than $10 million dollars that is spent on consumer branding and political lobbying.  

To keep this fly wheel spinning, last week the CFP Board launched its latest advertising campaign aimed at attracting students to pursue a career as a certified financial planner. I confess that I almost fell off my chair laughing when I saw the print ads.  Here is a link to six of the ads - 

QUITE POSSIBLY THE PERFECT JOB

The theme of the ads is that becoming a CFP may be attractive to motivationally-challenged college students because you can make alot of money without working very hard. Unsurprisingly, many CFPs have reacted negatively to this messaging on social media and have suggested that this is not necessarily the image they wish to convey to the public.

J.R.'s Two Cents

I am as baffled as everyone else has to how these ads were approved by the CFP Board.  On one hand, the Board seems completely tone deaf as to how offensive the ads may be to its membership base (and to college students who may not appreciate being stereo typed as disaffeced and lazy). On the other hand, the CFP Board has a long history of putting its own monetary and political interests above the interests of its members and consumers.  In this light, the ads are entirely consistent with the Board's pattern of using  deception to advance its objectives.  Rather than misrepresenting the organization's standards to the public, it is only a minor ideological pivot to mislead prospective members about what a cushy job it is to be a financial planner.  

On this score, I believe most CFPs would agree that building a financial planning practice is far, far from easy. Industry research regularly finds the five-year attrition rate to be 70%-90%.  When I was starting out in the industry 35 years ago, one of my mentors advised that I could become successful by only working half days - and it did not matter which 12 hours of the day I chose.  He was right.

In my experience, the CFP Board has historically been more subtle and deceptive in masking its true character. These new ads offer a rare glimpse of the CFP Board's true colors.  I hope the Board remains aloof and keeps them coming, as I have not laughed this hard in a very long time.