Marketer Snappy Kraken, Morningstar Launch Adviser Tool for Personalized Content

Financial marketing firm Snappy Kraken announced the release of Snappy Kraken Morningstar Wealth Edition, a personalized content platform created in collaboration with Morningstar Inc.

The new platform will give existing Morningstar Office clients access to Morningstar Wealth articles on a custom version of Snappy Kraken’s original content and marketing automation platform.

“One of the many things about Snappy Kraken and the Morningstar Wealth Edition is that all the content is designed to be personalized,” said Robert Sofia, Snappy Kraken’s co-founder and CEO, in an email response.

“For example, if an adviser is sending out an email with a piece of data and some commentary that we’ve written to accompany it, we may prompt them to go in and add their own personalization and/or we may automatically personalize it based on data from the adviser’s profile. The goal is to send the most interesting and relevant content to the proper group of individuals, and that is where our list management and CRM integrations come in.”

If advisers are managing their lists properly, they can deploy the content to those it would be most relevant to, according to Sofia. An adviser may send retirement research from Morningstar to clients who are nearing retirement, but they would not send the same research to clients who are of a younger demographic.

“Let’s say a client comes in and has a specific question about taxes, financial planning and insurance specific products,” Sofia said. “Morningstar likely has research addressing those topics.”

The adviser would be able to utilize the given research, personalize the message and send it to an individual client or to a group of clients.

As the November 2022 SEC marketing rule has tightened restrictions on marketing and giving advice to clients, Sofia said Snappy Kraken follows all rule changes that apply to advisers.

“We adapt our content and our technology to ensure that we help advisors stay in compliance,” he said. “The Morningstar content falls under this same expectation—ensuring compliant measures each step of the way. In addition, we send a lot of our content through FINRA, so we never put our advisors in danger of compliance violations.”

“There are a number of third-party marketing companies which specialize in the financial services space and can be a terrific resource for [advisory] firms as a source of creative and engaging content,” says Alex Egan, director of broker/dealer and investment adviser services at consulting firm Kaufman Rossin, which is not associated with the launch. “However, it’s important to remember for SEC-registered investment advisers, assuming the content meets the definition of an advertisement, the adviser will often become responsible for the content through the SEC’s ‘adoption’ and/or ‘entanglement’ guidance.”

Egan says that use of a third-party company should not be viewed as a way to circumvent the obligations of the marketing rule.

“This means in most circumstances, the adviser will likely retain responsibility for establishing a supervisory framework around the use of such communications to ensure the adviser is satisfying various obligations under the rule,” Egan says.

The new platform is available to users of Morningstar Office. Snappy Kraken clients that do not have Morningstar Office subscriptions can upgrade for a fee of $20 per month per user to access Morningstar Wealth articles.

“We are always looking for opportunities to streamline workflows and elevate the adviser-client relationship,” said Vincent Florack, director of strategic partnerships at Morningstar Wealth, in a statement. “This collaboration with Snappy Kraken will further this aim, enabling advisers to disseminate timely and engaging content that delivers value to investors.”