In a market of more than 13,000 UK investment products, getting noticed is no longer a nice-to-have. For investment trusts, it is an existential challenge.
There are 275 investment trusts competing across 50 AIC sector classifications, all vying for space on platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown alongside ETFs, passive funds and a growing wave of retail investment alternatives. Browse twenty trust websites and you’ll find the same things: similar colour palettes, similar legal language, similar claims about long-term performance and experienced management teams repeated until they stop meaning anything.
When nothing stands out, familiarity wins. Right now, familiarity belongs to the passive giants.
This is a problem that goes deeper than design or marketing budget. It is a memory problem.
At Blueprint Session #4, Hub brought together research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and the work of Byron Sharp to make a point that doesn’t get discussed enough in investment trust boardrooms: brands don’t grow because investors love them or because they make compelling rational arguments. They grow because they come to mind at the right moment. Sharp calls this mental availability: the probability that a buyer will notice, recognise or think of a brand when they’re in a buying situation.
Mental availability is not the same as awareness. You can be aware of a brand and still not think of it when it matters. An investor approaching retirement, receiving an inheritance, or thinking about income for the first time — these are the moments that determine capital flows. The question for every investment trust is simple: when an investor is in one of those moments, does your trust come to mind?
For most, the honest answer is no. And the reason is that most trusts have spent their marketing budgets on campaign activity rather than on building the consistent, recognisable signals that create memory structures over time.
The context matters
Winterflood’s sector overview at Blueprint Session #4 set the scene. Between 2016 and 2020, investment trusts returned 91% against the FTSE All Share’s 28%, a relative outperformance of 62 percentage points. Between 2021 and 2025, that reversed sharply: trusts returned 25% against 74% from the index, a relative underperformance of 49 percentage points, driven largely by the impact of higher interest rates on discount valuations.
The sector has been fighting back. Share buybacks hit a record £10.1bn in 2025, up 33% year on year. Significant corporate activity, from M&A to wind-downs to strategy changes, has reshaped the landscape. Activist investors, most visibly Saba Capital Management, have acted as a wake-up call for boards on governance and shareholder engagement. Discounts remain wide, but the direction of travel since 2023 has been towards a partial re-rating.
Winterflood’s outlook is measured: the structural advantages of the investment trust structure remain valid. Permanent capital, the ability to hold illiquid assets, dividend reserves, independent boards and the option to use gearing all remain genuine strengths. But a widespread re-rating requires sustained improvement in sentiment amongst UK investors. That is not a performance problem alone, and it won’t be solved by buybacks alone. It is, in part, a marketing problem.
Differentiation versus distinctiveness
There’s a distinction worth drawing out, because it gets lost in most marketing conversations.
Differentiation is a strategic claim: “We are different because of our approach, our process, our team.” It relies on rational persuasion. Every trust can make a version of this claim. Because every trust makes it, none of them stand out.
Distinctiveness is a perceptual signal: “You know it’s us because of this colour, this tone, this image, this recurring idea.” It relies on pattern recognition. Only one trust can own each signal. And unlike differentiation, distinctiveness compounds over time. The more consistently you repeat the signal, the stronger the memory structure becomes.
Lloyds Bank has used a black horse since 1884. The image predates the Lloyds brand itself. It requires no logo, no product information, no explanation. That is the power of a Distinctive Brand Asset built over time.
Research on brands with strong distinctive assets shows they are 82% more likely to be remembered in buying situations and 70% more likely to be chosen when quality and price are similar. In a sector where products can look and sound interchangeable, that gap in memorability is a meaningful competitive advantage.
The exceptions
Two investment trust examples came up at Blueprint Session #4, and both are worth examining.
F&C Investment Trust introduced its Pop Pink colour identity in 2020-21, as part of a deliberate decision to build distinctive brand assets ahead of its 150th anniversary. The choice wasn’t arbitrary. The competitive landscape had been mapped, and the question asked was: which colour can we own in financial services? The answer was a bold one. It has held.
Seraphim Space Investment Trust is a different kind of example. A financial journalist reviewing the trust wrote that he didn’t like their “slightly garish typeface.” Then added: “But I’ve seen them everywhere.” That is a distinctive brand asset working exactly as designed. The goal is not universal approval. The goal is recognition. When Seraphim launched its fundraise, the audience was already primed. The result was £45 million raised from retail investors, the biggest UK retail raise in five years.
Both brands built the memory structures before they needed them. That’s the point.
What attention and trust require
Building distinctive brand assets solves the attention problem. But attention alone doesn’t convert investors. That’s where trust comes in.
Quill’s contribution to Blueprint Session #4 focused on the conditions under which trust is built and maintained. Today’s investors want more than performance data. They want transparency around risk, honesty about market uncertainty, and the human insight that only a named portfolio manager can provide. Narrative-led communications consistently outperform purely performance-driven messaging. Credibility comes from clarity, consistency and accessibility, not slogans.
This matters particularly given how the sources of influence in financial services are shifting. Traditional financial media still matters, but retail investor sentiment is increasingly shaped by digital commentators, online communities and peer recommendation. Investment trusts that communicate with transparency and regularity across those channels are better placed to hold investor confidence when conditions become difficult.
Strategic PR is part of this. Not as a response to underperformance or pressure, but as the consistent work that makes investor relationships more resilient. As Winterflood’s data made clear, discount volatility is not just a market phenomenon. It is shaped by perception, and perception is shaped by communication.
Three questions worth asking
The session ended with a practical framing. Before a trust can claim to have a distinctive brand, three questions need honest answers.
What are our Distinctive Brand Assets? Not the logo and the fund description, but the non-verbal cues — colour, tone, visual style, recurring language — that make the trust instantly recognisable without a name attached.
Are we building memory structures consistently, over time? Not campaign by campaign, but the same signals repeated across every investor touchpoint until they become retrieval cues.
Do we know our Category Entry Points? The moments when investors come into the market — an inheritance, approaching retirement, a first investment, inflation anxiety — and whether the trust is present and recognisable in those moments.
If the answers aren’t clear, the brand isn’t yet distinctive. The investment trust sector is early enough in this shift that the trusts who move now will still find space. But the window won’t stay open. In a market where familiarity already belongs to the passive giants, standing out isn’t a branding exercise. It’s the work that determines whether an investment trust remains relevant at all.
The Blueprint Sessions bring together investment trust marketing and communications professionals to work through these questions properly.
If you’d like to be considered for an invitation to the next session, please contact us.
Watch The Missing Lever documentary here.
