Source: AMAFORE Press Release

The Chairman of the Mexican Association of Pension Fund Managers (AMAFORE), Óscar Franco, announced the agency’s new campaign for promoting pension savings culture in Mexico. This initiative is part of the activities organized by the trust fund for the promotion and dissemination of pension savings financial culture.

The campaign was inspired by the survey “Savings and the future; what do Mexicans think? (see the results here and here). It was financed and conducted by the aforementioned trust fund in March, 2011, and revealed that 70% of individuals working in the formal economy in Mexico have not planned their retirement.

Referring to the campaign, Óscar Franco commented: “Using the slogan “Your Afore account: peso by peso saving for your retirement,” the campaign’s aim is that through the use of alluring, direct and simple messages, the members of the Pension Fund Administrators (Afores) will learn to appreciate this important part of their equity.”

Explaining the campaign contents, Franco commented that the umbrella concept “Peso by peso you are reducing the burden of your retirement,” has a specific purpose: “The concept works with the idea of accumulation, followed by the logic of continuity in the will to save and taking advantage of the play on words in which “peso” (“weight” or currency unit in Spanish) can be interpreted as “money” or “burden.” He then commented that the onus of communication fell on two characters specially created for this campaign, namely “Bartola” and “Bartolo,” based on the famous song by “Chava” Flores. “There is even an advertisement with the tune of the famous song for radio transmission,” he said.

The campaign will be formally launched within the framework of the activities of the National Week of Financial Education (see here) starting on October 3, and is mainly aimed at the workers, who under the regime in place as of 1997, only have the resources accumulated in their Afore accounts for financing their retirement.

The campaign “Your Afore account: peso by peso saving for your retirement,” will be broadcast until December 5, 2011, on radio stations in the cities of Guadalajara, Puebla, León, Aguascalientes, Culiacán, Cd. Juárez, Saltillo, Tijuana, Tampico, Durango, Torreón, SLP, Pachuca, Querétaro and the metropolitan area of Mexico City. It will feature in the written media, signboards and public transportation (city buses, the subway and the subway/bus system) in Guadalajara, Monterrey and the metropolitan zone of the Federal District.

There have been parallel efforts with large companies in Mexico to provide a target group of about 1 million workers with advertising material in their work places in an initial stage. Distribution to 60% of this target group is currently planned for October and November.

In addition to their participation in the Amafores, the Afores are also participating in this endeavor by including the “La Bartola” messages in the May to August statements of workers who contribute under the system in force as of 1997.

For access to the campaign’s graphic material, kindly register in the following link of the AMAFORE web site.

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