AARP Financial’s MoneySmarts® Wins 2008 STAR Award For Best Online Marketing Campaign

The Mutual Fund Education Alliance (MEFA) has awarded AARP Financial’s MoneySmarts® program its 2008 STAR Award for Best Online Marketing Campaign by a small company.

The STAR Awards are generally considered the mutual fund industry’s pre-eminent award for excellence in investor and advisor education and communications.

“It’s tremendously gratifying to receive a STAR Award,” said Shauna Harring, vice president of Marketing at AARP Financial (AFI), “particularly because it’s judged by our peers and competitors.”

In recognizing the MoneySmarts campaign, judges cited its ”clever concept” and “great execution.”

AARP Financial’s MoneySmarts campaign was designed to demystify the financial jargon that often overwhelms investors and causes investment mistakes. To better understand how financial jargon impacts people's ability to save and invest, AARP Financial Inc. worked in concert with Tiller, LLC to conduct the first-ever nationwide survey of Americans knowledge of financial jargon. The survey results were covered by major media outlets nationwide including The Today Show, CNNMoney.com, MotleyFool.com, MSNMoney,com, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Dallas Morning News and NY Daily News.

Because the survey found that jargon as one of the key reasons for investor hesitation and missteps, AARP Financial created an investor education site, www.moneysmarts.com,  featuring a report on the survey,  a quiz, a fill-in-the-blank Jargon Word Game, some basic investing tips, and the Jargonator, an entertaining, interactive glossary that defines common financial terms in plain English.

“We think AFI’s MoneySmarts represents integrated marketing campaign at its best and is a great example of what can be accomplished with a highly collegial and collaborative client/agency relationship,” said Tiller’s Heather Emerson.

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