Children’s TV presenter launches #PensionAttention campaign
Pardon the Interruption
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Timmy Mallett, who presented children’s TV in the 1980s and 1990s – his viewers would now be in their 30s and 40s – is this year’s face of the industry-led Pension Attention engagement campaign “to help people feel less ‘bleurgh’ about their pensions”.
The presenter is injecting some fun and potentially funds into UK pensions with this year’s Pension Attention campaign. For the second iteration of the campaign launching on Wednesday, Mallett is calling on Brits “to take an Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny look at their pension with ‘The Pensions Playback’”
With the help of Mallett’s Mallet – a pink foam mallet – and mallet-shaped puppet Pinky Punky, the presenter will reimagine his 1980s and 1990s gameshow to make savers ‘pay their pension some attention’.
“I suspect people in their 30s often think about their pension and feel they don’t need to engage, assuming it’s something to address as you approach stopping work. But trust me, careers aren’t linear, and you might wake up one morning and suddenly you're 55 and you go, ‘Crikey, what happened there?’,” said Mallett.
“Doing ‘The Pensions Playback’ and taking the simple steps to identify where you are on your pension journey will ultimately mean you’re setting yourself up as best as you can for the future.”
The campaign is led by the Association of British Insurers and the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and receives funding from “a large proportion of the pensions industry”, the associations have said. The campaign works in partnership with two other engagement campaigns, Pensions Awareness Week - which took place last week - and National Pension Tracing Day on 29 October.
Hetty Hughes, manager long-term savings policy at the ABI, said nostalgia could help people take an interest.
“By getting Timmy Mallett on board, we’re hoping to engage more people in their current, and past, pensions so they know how their money is building for the future and what they need to do to achieve their retirement goals,” Hughes said.
Joe Dabrowski, deputy director of policy at the PLSA, emphasised the role of the pensions industry in educating and engaging savers.
“By coming together under a single, brand-agnostic umbrella to promote simple and memorable messages, we can build on the success of last year’s campaign and continue to increase saver engagement in pensions,” he said.
The 2022 campaign had grime artist Big Zuu as its ambassador and was considered a success by the organisers, who found that 7.9m people recalled the campaign and 91% of them took some form of action about their pension afterwards.
This year, Timmy Mallett’s gameshow directs the public to Pensionattention.co.uk to find out how they can do ‘The Pensions Playback’ in three steps:
Look back to yesterday – do you know where your pension is? The ABI and PLSA highlight that £26.6bn is currently in pension accounts considered lost.
Lean in to what you’ve got today - do you know how much you already have today?
Move forward to your future - do you know what income you might need in retirement?
