April 23, 2026, at the London Stock Exchange in London, United Kingdom, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, London Stock Exchange CEO Julia Hoggett and Chancellor of the Exchequer Lucy Rigby will launch a new campaign to attract British investment.
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Britain’s financial services sector hopes Britons will be well-acquainted with the cartoon squirrel called Savvy by the end of the year.
The anthropomorphic rodent will star in an advertising campaign in support of the government-backed Investing in the Future initiative, which will reportedly cost £20 million ($27 million) over the next three years. The campaign, which launched last Thursday, is backed by some of the biggest names in the industry, including Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s largest savings and investment platform, and St James’s Place, the UK’s largest asset manager.
Other parties include insurance companies Aviva and Legal and general; barclays, natwest, HSBC UK. and Lloyd’sthe “big four” commercial banks. asset manager schroders And Jupiter. Alliance WitanOne of the oldest investment trusts in the UK. of london stock exchange Several large US companies have a strong presence in the UK, including Fidelity, JPMorgan Personal Investing and Vanguard.
Savvy and his green hoodie will first appear on billboards and digital and social channels before hitting TV screens this fall.
The purpose is simple and clear.
Although household savings rates have improved in recent years, too many Britons are content to keep their savings in cash, believing that investing in stocks is akin to gambling. The campaign cites research from financial regulator the Financial Conduct Authority that shows around seven million adults have cash savings of more than £10,000 that could be put to use in the market.
Sasha Wiggins, chief executive of Barclays Private Bank Wealth Management and chair of the campaign, said: “There is a strong savings culture in the UK, but there is a huge investment gap and too many people feel investing is not for them.”
Thatcherite campaign
This never happened before. Interest in investment exploded in the 1980s, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government privatized state-owned assets including British Telecom, British Airways and British Gas. The latter was backed in 1986 by one of the most famous campaigns in British advertising history, in which millions of Britons were encouraged to ‘tell Sid’ to buy British Gas shares. In the City of London, individual investors are still nicknamed “shis”.
Nigel Lawson, Prime Minister (and Chancellor of the Exchequer) from 1983 to 1989, gave further encouragement in 1986 when she launched the Personal Equity Plan (later replaced by the Personal Savings Account), a vehicle that allowed Britons to invest in shares without taxing capital gains or dividends.
Momentum grew further in 1989 when Abbey National (now part of Santander UK) became a demutualized company, sparking a wave of stock market listings among other mutuals including Halifax, Norwich Union and Alliance & Leicester, and millions of people discovered the joys of share ownership for the first time. The enthusiasm disappeared when the dot-com bubble burst, and it fell even further during the global financial crisis.
The birth of the “Savvy the Squirrel” campaign was difficult. Several major companies chose not to participate, including AJ Bell and Interactive Investor, the second and third largest investment platform. In February, the Financial Times reported on complaints about the unimaginative use of the squirrel, an icon that has been used regularly in advertising campaigns for savings products for many years.
Others, including Stephen Fine, chief executive of investment bank Peel Hunt, say that if the UK government was serious about encouraging investment, scrapping stamp duty on share purchases would be a bigger incentive.
There was also the dark irony that Sarah Breedon, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, warned of a possible stock market crash just one day after the announcement.
However, it would be foolhardy not to wish this campaign success. If some of the money currently tied up in cash could be channeled into UK stocks in particular, it would help drive economic growth, not to mention make Britons better off and financially secure.
— Ian King
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