FSCS chief defends £3.6m marketing campaign

The chief executive of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) Mark Neale has defended his organisation's multi-million pound spend on marketing, saying it will help protect the industry from detrimental consumer behaviour.

Last August, the FSCS announced an industry-funded (currently by the deposit sector) consumer awareness campaign starring Sherlock Holmes actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Neale was forced to admit in 2011 that a previous awareness campaign which cost £4m had been unsuccessful. Now, Neale has defended a new £3.6m campaign in his monthly blog post Perspectives, saying there was evidence of detriment to the industry should the marketing efforts not proceed. "Let me start by saying that raising awareness cannot be an end in itself," he wrote. "We only spend money on marketing where doing...