I have to admit to being a fan of making people aware of pensions. I have supported the pension geeks in their endeavours since 2014 and hope that since they were bought up by Aegon and Aegon has been bought up by Standard Life, they have a rosy future.
However…
We may need a little bit more interest in this campaign. This teaser seems to have attracted people who don’t need their pension awareness improved!
I couldn’t post the live poll or should I say the dead one, as it is closed with 100% of people fully aware of their pensions. The geeks who run this campaign need some help from us, I’m up for it!
It’s time to wake up the ambassadors
and the supporters
I’m so pleased to see First Actuarial still helping out. I must have set this up in 2014!
They include “pay your attention pension”. Now I have to be confused. I thought that paying pension attention was part of pension awareness and now I find “Pay your Pension some attention” is launching its campaign 10 days before the geeks of pension awareness.
We have only a few days to go to Pensions Awareness Day on 14th September. But it is not alone in prompting “attention to our pensions”. There is a separate campaign which kicks off on September 4th
And Pay Pension some Attention is the one with the celebrities , sponsored by the Pensions UK and ABI
Oh and this lot – some of whom are sponsoring both but all of whom have good reason for more money going into workplace and private pensions.
I am astonished by two such similar campaigns! Until this year I was not aware that they are not the same!
Let’s finish with the ABI advertising what we know they value most – our money!
We’ve come a long way in 12 years but I’m not sure why Pension Awareness Day has eyeball competition from “Pay your Pension some Attention”.
The existence of a “Pensions Awareness Day” creates the illusion that the problem is being addressed simply because people are made aware of pensions.
In reality, 14 September 2026 will pass with most people blissfully unaware that it even exists.
It’s rather like having a “Road Safety Day” while doing little or nothing about dangerous driving on our roads.
The very idea of a “Pensions Awareness Day” is ironic.
Pensions are one of the clearest examples of why financial awareness needs to become a habit rather than an event.
Nobody expects people to become financially secure by thinking about their pensions for one day a year.
The real challenge is getting a 27-year-old to make sensible decisions today that will matter when they are 67 — and then helping them revisit those decisions as their circumstances change.
So your blog could be turned around rather effectively.
The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough pension-awareness campaigns. The problem is that we’ve confused having a pension-awareness day with maintaining pension awareness.
And the proliferation of “Pensions Awareness Day”, “Pay Your Pension Some Attention”, celebrity campaigns, ambassadors and sponsors simply demonstrates the point.
If the public needs two competing days to remind them that pensions exist, perhaps the pension industry should spend rather less time inventing days and rather more time making pensions sufficiently transparent, understandable and enviable that people don’t need reminding.
A much better campaign would make every annual pension statement or every dashboard visit a moment of awareness.
That doesn’t mean abandoning the Pension Geeks or their educational work. Quite the opposite. Their most valuable contribution may be turning pensions from an annual marketing event into an ongoing conversation about saving, investment and retirement income.
A really successful campaign based on education and regular information updates would ultimately make the “awareness day(s)” redundant.
The good news is that once a year the geeks are reminded that if they are a competent trustee they are aware of issues and are dealing with them.
If the individual beneficiary is aware of how to check they can have an intelligent conversation with their adviser about the individual financial plan including pensions and how the legislation cannot be trusted so will be working on a contingency plan.
For some of those running awareness days …. Well maybe they should take advice as for the last 75 years they have failed the majority of the population.
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