For April Fool’s day this year, Ellevest, the investment platform for women, introduces a woman named April.
The video shows April as a foolish investor. By choosing not to invest, she is seen shredding, burning and flushing $100 bills. Why? Because one of the biggest investing mistakes women make is significantly underestimating the cost of waiting to invest.
Ellevest explained by sharing a few numbers that are reflected in the campaign:
Say you’re a woman making $85,000 a year and saving 20% of your salary by putting it in the bank instead of investing it. Wait five years to invest and that just cost you more than $170,000 when it’s time to retire. Wait ten years, and you’re down more than $337,000. That cost of waiting is almost $100 a day. Every day.
Phoebe Assenza, Content Director, Ellevest told DIVERGE the story behind the ad:
Where did the idea of this campaign come from?
The $100-a-day figure is something Ellevest and our CEO, Sallie Krawcheck, talks about a lot. It’s an estimate of the amount a woman can lose if she’s saving 20% of her $85K annual salary, instead of investing it, over the course of 10 years. It’s a big “a-ha!” moment for a lot of women and can be a real call to action: if a Benjamin was falling out of your purse every day, you’d do something about it, right? We wanted to create a visual of what that actually looks like and show what waiting to invest can cost you — it’s more than you think.
Why was humor key in this?
We didn’t want a woman’s takeaway from this video to be “shame on me” because the reality is it’s “shame on the investing industry for not doing a great job speaking to women.” Humor is in our brand DNA. The gender investing gap is serious stuff — but we don’t get angry. We take action and we’re having fun in the process.
What is the message you want to get across?
No more waiting, no more making excuses. The best time to start investing is yesterday.
How can women be smart investors?
Here are five things to know: make it a habit, diversify, keep your fees low, get advice from a fiduciary, and make your investments more conservative as you get older. We’re releasing a big content piece in May that will actually tell you how to do those very five things, so keep an eye out.
Tips for new/young investors?
Just get started, and invest a certain amount out of every paycheck…even if it’s just 1%. Getting in the habit early is key, and the younger you are, the more time you have for compounding and to have the opportunity to grow your money.
Additional thoughts?
We believe every woman should have a financial plan, whether she invests with us or not. That’s why we make ours complimentary for anyone who visits our site (rather than charge $1,000 for one, as a traditional advisor might.) You can get a complimentary financial plan by signing up at ellevest.com.
The $100-a-day figure is something Ellevest and our CEO, Sallie Krawcheck, talks about a lot. It’s an estimate of the amount a woman can lose if she’s saving 20% of her $85K annual salary, instead of investing it, over the course of 10 years. It’s a big “a-ha!” moment for a lot of women and can be a real call to action: if a Benjamin was falling out of your purse every day, you’d do something about it, right? We wanted to create a visual of what that actually looks like and show what waiting to invest can cost you — it’s more than you think.
Why was humor key in this?
We didn’t want a woman’s takeaway from this video to be “shame on me” because the reality is it’s “shame on the investing industry for not doing a great job speaking to women.” Humor is in our brand DNA. The gender investing gap is serious stuff — but we don’t get angry. We take action and we’re having fun in the process.
What is the message you want to get across?
No more waiting, no more making excuses. The best time to start investing is yesterday.
How can women be smart investors?
Here are five things to know: make it a habit, diversify, keep your fees low, get advice from a fiduciary, and make your investments more conservative as you get older. We’re releasing a big content piece in May that will actually tell you how to do those very five things, so keep an eye out.
Tips for new/young investors?
Just get started, and invest a certain amount out of every paycheck…even if it’s just 1%. Getting in the habit early is key, and the younger you are, the more time you have for compounding and to have the opportunity to grow your money.
Additional thoughts?
We believe every woman should have a financial plan, whether she invests with us or not. That’s why we make ours complimentary for anyone who visits our site (rather than charge $1,000 for one, as a traditional advisor might.) You can get a complimentary financial plan by signing up at ellevest.com.
