How original research turned a first-time ETF launch into national trade coverage

Challenge

A well-regarded mutual fund manager needed to become credible as an ETF provider — and fix a brand that said otherwise. The firm had built a strong reputation among values- and faith-oriented investors through its mutual funds, and wanted to extend that franchise into actively managed ETFs for the first time. Two problems sat in the way.

• The first was the brand itself. Both the firm's name and its web domain contained the words "Mutual Funds" — a direct contradiction of the products it was about to bring to market, and a visibility disadvantage in every search result and media mention.
• The second was attention. Launching an ETF is not, by itself, news. Dozens launch every month, and a boutique manager entering the category for the first time has no natural claim on a reporter's time. The firm needed a reason for the trade press to care, and it needed the rebrand, the website, and the media plan ready on the same day the funds listed.

Research & assessment

We proposed making the firm's own data the reason reporters would call.
Rather than pitch the products, we recommended the firm undertake original research into a question no one in its category had quantified: where advisors' assumptions about values-aligned investing diverge from what investors actually say they want. A genuine, measurable disconnect is a story. A new fund is a press release.

That research became the spine of a four-track program:

• Message development and brand implementation
• Digital strategy
• Go-to-market strategy
• Media strategy and execution

We recommended framing the whole launch around a practical proposition — that advisors and investors both need values-aligned products they can actually use in a portfolio, not just agree with in principle.

Solutions

Four tracks, one story, executed to a single launch date:

• Message development and brand implementation. We led sessions with sales, marketing, investments, senior leadership and the board to establish clear, repeatable messages about how the new ETFs met specific advisor needs. Each core message was tied back to a finding from the proprietary research, which made the messaging defensible internally and far more interesting to media.
• Digital strategy. We advised on the architecture of a new website built around what advisors expect from an ETF provider rather than a fund company, and developed the accompanying social strategy.
• Go-to-market strategy. We proposed and coordinated paid media across advisor-facing webinar platforms, ETF research and data sites, a major investment research portal, and faith-based outlets — chosen to reach both the generalist ETF audience and the firm's core constituency.
• Media strategy and execution. We issued two releases on launch day: one for the funds, one for the research. We convened media for a launch-week webcast on the research findings, then built on the early coverage with podcast placements.

Results

This work resulted in coverage disproportionate to the firm's size, plus a rebuilt brand platform and a pipeline of names. The two ETFs launched with under $10 million each and reached approximately $50 million within six months, and have continued to grow. The research angle earned coverage from national trade and advisor publications, faith-and-finance media, and ETF-specialist outlets — including from reporters who had no prior relationship with the firm and had never covered it in the ETF context. The paid-media program generated more than 1,200 new contacts for the sales and marketing teams to work.

The renamed firm and rebuilt website removed the mutual-fund constraint from its identity, positioning it for whatever it launches next.