Can poetry persuade a new generation to invest?

Financial services group PhillipCapital is using its investment platform, POEMS, to turn poetry into a metaphor for investing in its latest campaign aimed at younger investors.

Created with social media agency Epic Dialogue, the campaign is built around the line "Invest in something that lasts", drawing parallels between writing poetry and building an investment portfolio. Both, the campaign argues, require intention, patience and a long-term perspective.

At the heart of the campaign is a 90-second hero film featuring Singapore typewriter poet Adam Tie, better known as @thenovelencounter. Rather than casting a finance influencer, the brand chose Tie for his own investing journey, having once found investing intimidating before eventually taking the leap with guidance from an investment specialist.

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The film opens with Tie playfully reinterpreting common investment terms through a poet's lens, with ETF becoming "Extremely terrifying fund" and DCA translating to "Don't cry anymore", reflecting the uncertainty many first-time investors experience. It then shifts to his personal story, highlighting how human guidance helped build his confidence to start investing.

Developed by Epic Dialogue and produced by Behalf Co., the campaign extends beyond the hero film with social media cutdowns, Performance Max assets and out-of-home executions developed by POEMS by PhillipCapital's in-house team. It is aimed at young professionals aged between 25 and 35 who have yet to begin investing, as well as investors aged 30 to 45 looking for a trusted long-term investment platform.

The campaign comes as PhillipCapital marks 30 years of POEMS, following the group's 50th anniversary in Singapore last year. According to the company, the campaign was created to introduce POEMS to younger investors entering an increasingly crowded investment platform market, where brands often compete on low fees, commission-free trading and product features.

While POEMS offers access to 26 global markets and is backed by more than 1,000 investment specialists, PhillipCapital said these credentials alone are no longer enough to resonate with younger consumers choosing their first investment platform.

Instead of centring the campaign on product features or financial expertise, the company built the creative platform around the existing identity of Tie, whose work involves creating personalised poems for strangers using only three-word prompts.

The campaign also builds on the dual meaning behind the POEMS name. While originally an acronym for' Phillip Online Electronic Mart System', the brand said the name naturally lends itself to metaphor, allowing it to position the platform as more than a place to trade, but as a companion throughout an investor's long-term financial journey.

According to PhillipCapital and Epic Dialogue, the hero film marks the beginning of a longer storytelling platform, with future investor testimonial stories set to continue the campaign's narrative while reinforcing its central message of investing for the long term.

“POEMS is not unknown. Its legacy has simply been underleveraged with a new generation of investors,” said Takako Masumura, director of marketing and business development at PhillipCapital. “The opportunity wasn’t to build credibility from scratch. It was to make the credibility we already have impossible to ignore." 

In tandem, Eric Sim, managing director of Epic Dialogue said, "Tie isn’t there to endorse the platform. He’s there because his story reflects how many people feel. We wanted audiences to think, ‘That’s exactly where I was,’ before showing them that investing doesn’t have to be overwhelming.”

Financial brands are increasingly turning to unconventional ambassadors to make investment products feel more approachable. Earlier this year, Income Insurance launched a campaign spotlighting the flexibility of its investment-linked plans (ILPs), starring six-time world record-holding flexibility artist Liberty Barros.

Developed by Leo Singapore, the campaign featured three films, digital banners, out-of-home placements and social media content. Across the films, Barros contorted her body into precise, controlled poses to visually represent key product benefits, symbolising how Income's ILP portfolio adapts to customers' evolving financial needs. The campaign is set to culminate in a public activation in Singapore later this year, where audiences will see Barros' flexibility showcased live.

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