Modern American AdvisorAdvisor Intelligence

Modern American Advisor

MAA Advisor IntelligencePowered by Play Verto

Premium gamified market research for the U.S. advisory market.

Modern American Advisor uses Play Verto’s gamified research technology to help financial-services firms understand what advisors, advisory firms and end clients actually think.

Reach targeted RIA and wealth-management audiences. Capture richer sentiment, product preferences, awareness, barriers and buying intent. Then turn the findings into proprietary insight, editorial content, reports, webinars, podcasts, social assets and qualified commercial engagement.

For CEOs, presidents, founders, CMOs and senior commercial leaders who need to understand how to communicate with the advisory market they are targeting. It is designed for Governments, Brands and Wealth Institutions — those within firms making the highest-value strategic decisions.
Discuss a Research CampaignDownload the Advisor Intelligence Guide
  • Research
  • ·Advisor Sentiment
  • ·Market Intelligence
  • ·Brand Awareness
  • ·Sales Enablement
A financial advisor completing a gamified MAA Advisor Intelligence research experience on a smartphone, alongside response dashboard tiles

The commercial problem

Marketing to Advisors Without Listening to Them Is Guesswork

Financial-services firms spend significant budgets on advertising, content, webinars, events, email campaigns and sales activity. But too many campaigns still begin with assumptions about what advisors know, value, need, fear or intend to buy.

MAA Advisor Intelligence helps clients start with evidence.

Using Play Verto’s gamified research technology and MAA’s targeted advisor audience, firms can ask the market the questions that matter before, during or after a campaign.

01

How aware are advisors of our brand?

02

Does our product proposition fit current advisor priorities?

03

What prevents adoption?

04

Which messages create interest or resistance?

05

What education would help advisors take action?

06

Which firms are actively reviewing this area?

07

What content would advisors value?

08

Where are the best commercial follow-up opportunities?

Better market intelligence makes every subsequent marketing, sales, content and distribution decision sharper.

What clients get

From Audience Engagement to Commercial Advantage

MAA Advisor Intelligence is designed to create value beyond the research itself.

A single campaign can generate market insight, brand awareness, proprietary content, advisor engagement, editorial authority and sales-enablement material.

  • Measure advisor awareness and perception
  • Test product-market fit
  • Understand barriers to adoption
  • Identify buying intent
  • Capture advisor sentiment
  • Build original research reports
  • Create thought-leadership campaigns
  • Inform webinar and podcast topics
  • Develop editorial content from data
  • Support distribution teams
  • Generate qualified leads where consent permits
  • Improve future marketing strategy

The research becomes the campaign.

Two ways to use it

Research the Market, or Research Your Own Clients

Card one

Research the Advisor Market

For firms selling to RIAs, wealth managers and advisory businesses.

MAA can target and segment more than 200,000 RIAs and advisory professionals by relevant commercial criteria.

Segmentation may include

  • Advisor type
  • Firm profile
  • Firm size
  • Geography
  • Seniority
  • Role
  • Business model
  • Area of interest
  • Product relevance
  • Commercial fit

This allows clients to cut and dice the market so research is not generic. It is directed towards the specific audience the client needs to understand.

Ideal for

  • Asset managers
  • ETF providers
  • Wealthtech firms
  • Platforms
  • Custodians
  • Consolidators
  • Recruiters
  • Agencies
  • Professional-services firms
Survey the RIA Market
Card two

Understand Your End Clients

For advisory firms and wealth-management businesses that want to understand their own clients better.

Play Verto’s gamified research experience can help advisory firms gather richer client insight.

Themes may include

  • Retirement confidence
  • Communication preferences
  • Risk perceptions
  • Client experience
  • Intergenerational wealth
  • Inheritance expectations
  • Women and wealth
  • Financial education needs
  • Technology preferences
  • Service expectations
Understand Your Clients

Whether the audience is advisors or end clients, the objective is the same: ask better questions, gather better intelligence and turn the answers into action.

Why gamified research works

A More Engaging Way to Gather Market Intelligence

Conventional surveys are often flat, long and easy to ignore. Play Verto changes the experience through short, interactive and gamified research journeys designed to improve participation and capture richer responses.

For busy advisor audiences, this matters.

The easier and more engaging the research experience, the better the chance of gathering meaningful sentiment, intent and insight.

Higher engagement

Gamified experiences are designed to hold attention and increase participation.

Richer insight

Capture sentiment, preferences, barriers, awareness and intent in a more engaging format.

Mobile-first

Short, accessible experiences built for modern professional audiences.

Consent-led

Designed to support authentication, permissions and appropriate follow-up.

Campaign-ready outputs

Findings can be converted into dashboards, reports, infographics, webinars and content.

The journey

  1. Advisor invitation
  2. Gamified experience
  3. Data dashboard
  4. Report
  5. Editorial campaign
  6. Sales follow-up

Blue-chip credentials

Powered by Technology Trusted by Brands, Governments and Institutions

Play Verto brings serious global pedigree to MAA Advisor Intelligence.

Its gamified engagement methodology has been used across major brand, government, education, civic and institutional projects to reach audiences, gather meaningful participation and turn insight into action.

Education

UAE Ministry of Education and the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation: around 100,000 students engaged, with insight informing national curriculum changes.

Consumer brands

Unilever / Wall's: around 18,000 participants, with insight contributing to new market launches and a global Happiness Project reaching more than 3 million people.

Sport and sustainability

Nike: youth engagement helping inform sustainability strategy under the “No Planet – No Sport” theme.

Institutions

Experience with organisations including LEGO, UNESCO, Mastercard, UNICEF and Harvard.

Civic programmes

Go! London: gamified insight delivered as part of a £10m initiative focused on community-led solutions around access to sport and climate awareness, involving partners such as the Mayor of London, the London Marathon Foundation, Sport England and London Sport.

Global stage

United Nations: presented at the UN for the International Day of Education, with ongoing UN Youth Office work supporting broad listening among young people and communities to inform policy co-creation between young people and Member States.

The relevance for financial services is clear.

If this methodology can help governments, global institutions and major brands listen to difficult-to-reach audiences, MAA can apply the same approach to the U.S. advisory market.

Named organisations are referenced as examples of Play Verto’s project experience only. No endorsement of Modern American Advisor by any named brand, government or institution is implied, and no partner logos are used.

Global policy work

Global-Stage Engagement, Applied to the Advisory Market

Play Verto’s work includes global policy and youth-engagement projects, including presenting at the United Nations for the International Day of Education and ongoing work with the UN Youth Office.

This demonstrates the strength of the methodology: using engaging digital experiences to gather real voices, surface sentiment and turn participation into actionable insight.

Play Verto is also involved in global youth-listening work connected to major international moments, including activity around football, sport, young people and public-policy engagement.

Michael Sani presenting at the UN Chamber in New York
Michael Sani presenting at the UN Chamber in NY during the recent FIFA World Cup.

Leadership

Led by Michael Sani

Michael Sani is the founder of Play Verto and one of the leading voices in gamified research, audience engagement and data-led decision-making.

He has worked with governments, global institutions and major brands to reach audiences that conventional research often struggles to engage. His work focuses on turning participation into actionable insight, helping organisations listen differently, understand more deeply and make better strategic decisions.

Michael has been recognised internationally for his work in youth engagement, civic participation and social impact, including recognition by President Barack Obama. His projects span education, sport, sustainability, public policy, brand engagement and community insight.

Through MAA Advisor Intelligence, Michael’s methodology is applied directly to the U.S. advisory market, helping financial-services firms gather more meaningful intelligence from RIAs, advisory businesses and end clients.

“The opportunity is not simply to collect more responses. It is to help organisations listen differently, understand more and act with greater confidence.”
Read Michael’s latest MAA column

How a campaign works

From Research Question to Commercial Activation

  1. 01

    Define the commercial objective

    Agree what the client needs to understand.

    • Brand awareness
    • Product fit
    • Advisor appetite
    • Adoption barriers
    • Education needs
    • Buying intent
    • Client sentiment
    • Campaign messaging
    • Market positioning
  2. 02

    Segment the audience

    Use MAA's advisor audience and commercial criteria to target the right market. Segmentation may include advisor type, firm size, geography, role, seniority, business model, product relevance or other agreed criteria.

  3. 03

    Build the gamified experience

    Create a short, engaging Play Verto-powered research journey, designed to capture useful sentiment and encourage participation.

  4. 04

    Gather and interpret the data

    Analyse responses to identify trends, barriers, preferences, opportunities and commercial signals.

  5. 05

    Activate the campaign

    Turn the findings into a coordinated programme.

    • Research report
    • Market Pulse feature
    • Editorial article
    • Infographic
    • Webinar
    • Podcast discussion
    • Newsletter campaign
    • Social content
    • Sales collateral
    • Follow-up campaign
    • Qualified leads where consent permits

One research campaign can create the insight, content and commercial hook for a complete marketing programme.

Illustrative example

Example: ETF Brand Awareness and Product Fit

An asset manager could use MAA Advisor Intelligence to understand current ETF brand awareness and fit among advisors.

The research could explore

  • Current ETF usage
  • Brand awareness
  • Product understanding
  • Adoption barriers
  • Preferred educational content
  • Model portfolio relevance
  • Active versus passive perceptions
  • What would make advisors take a closer look
  • Which advisors are open to relevant follow-up

The campaign could deliver

  • Advisor sentiment data
  • Brand-awareness insight
  • Market Pulse feature
  • Editorial content
  • Sales collateral
  • Webinar topic
  • Podcast discussion
  • Qualified follow-up where consent permits
Illustrative Advisor Intelligence response dashboard showing sentiment, segmentation and engagement charts
Illustrative response dashboard. Every campaign is scoped around the client’s audience and objective.

The client gains a clearer view of the market, better content themes, tangible sales intelligence and a stronger basis for advisor engagement.

Example campaign themes

What Could You Ask the Market?

Sponsored research

MAA Market Pulse

MAA Market Pulse gives commercial partners the opportunity to sponsor original research into a defined issue affecting the advisory profession.

A partner can help shape the questions, associate its brand with the resulting intelligence and participate in the editorial, webinar and content programme built around the findings.

This creates a win-win.

Advisors get to share sentiment and benchmark their views against peers. Partners gain original research, content, brand visibility, market insight and qualified commercial engagement.

Possible formats

  • Exclusive research partner
  • Small founding-partner group
  • Bespoke private study
  • Monthly or quarterly pulse
  • Annual market-intelligence programme

Sponsor value

  • Association with original advisor research
  • Brand awareness across MAA channels
  • Access to findings and insight
  • Editorial coverage
  • Webinar or roundtable participation
  • Podcast discussion
  • Infographics and social assets
  • Sales-enablement collateral
  • Qualified follow-up where consent permits
Discuss a Market Pulse Partnership

Research that becomes a campaign

Survey. Report. Webinar. Editorial. Leads.

The strongest research campaigns do not end with a data file. They become complete commercial programmes.

MAA Advisor Intelligence is designed to turn research into a coordinated marketing campaign, using Modern American Advisor’s editorial, newsletter, webinar, podcast, social and partner channels.

  1. 01Research question
  2. 02Audience segmentation
  3. 03Gamified experience
  4. 04Advisor engagement
  5. 05Data and insight
  6. 06Editorial feature
  7. 07Report
  8. 08Webinar or podcast
  9. 09Social content
  10. 10Sales collateral
  11. 11Qualified follow-up

The output is not just a survey response. It is proprietary market intelligence that can power content, brand positioning, sales conversations and strategy.

What partners receive

More Than a Research Report

  • Campaign strategy
  • Research question design
  • Gamified Play Verto experience
  • Branded research environment
  • Audience segmentation
  • Advisor invitations
  • Response dashboard
  • Data analysis
  • Insight summary
  • Branded report
  • Infographics
  • MAA editorial feature
  • Newsletter promotion
  • Webinar or roundtable
  • Podcast discussion
  • Social-media assets
  • Sales-enablement materials
  • Campaign performance report
  • Qualified follow-up where consent permits

Every project is scoped around the client’s audience, commercial objective, campaign theme and desired outputs.

The result is a research-led marketing campaign that can support brand awareness, content strategy, advisor education, distribution and sales.

Campaigns are scoped around audience, research depth, targeting, exclusivity, content outputs and commercial objectives. Bespoke proposals are available on request.

Discuss a Bespoke Campaign

Latest insight

Latest Advisor Intelligence

Research, commentary and market signal from Modern American Advisor’s Data Insight & Advisory Trends coverage.

From the UN stage to the U.S. advisory market: what global listening teaches us

Michael Sani column

From the UN stage to the U.S. advisory market: what global listening teaches us

Michael Sani's monthly column on what large-scale civic engagement projects reveal about reaching hard-to-reach professional audiences.

July 2026

Read more
Intergenerational wealth: are advisory firms ready for the handover?

Advisor sentiment

Intergenerational wealth: are advisory firms ready for the handover?

Advisor sentiment on inheritance conversations, next-generation engagement and the service expectations of inheriting clients.

July 2026

Read more
Active ETFs: what actually drives allocation decisions

Market Pulse

Active ETFs: what actually drives allocation decisions

Where advisor interest turns into adoption, and the education gaps that still hold product conversations back.

June 2026

Read more
AI in wealth technology: adoption, resistance and the implementation gap

Data insight

AI in wealth technology: adoption, resistance and the implementation gap

Which tools advisory firms are putting to work, and what would accelerate implementation across the profession.

June 2026

Read more
Cover of the MAA Advisor Intelligence guide

Downloadable guide

Download the MAA Advisor Intelligence Guide

Explore the campaign model, example applications, partner deliverables and indicative investment framework for MAA Advisor Intelligence, powered by Play Verto.

By requesting the guide you agree that Modern American Advisor may contact you about MAA Advisor Intelligence. Your details are used for this purpose only and are never sold. You can opt out at any time.

Start the conversation

Tell Us What You Want to Understand

Share your commercial objective and Alex Sullivan will come back with a scoped approach for your audience, research depth and desired outputs.

Prefer email? Write to alex.sullivan@modernamericanadvisor.com.

I want to
Preferred contact method

Your details are used to respond to this enquiry and to share relevant MAA Advisor Intelligence updates. They are never sold, and you can opt out at any time.

Modern American Advisor

What Would You Like to Ask the Market?

Whether you want to understand advisor sentiment, test a product proposition, measure brand awareness, explore client expectations or build a complete data-led marketing campaign, MAA Advisor Intelligence can create a research programme around your commercial objective.

Powered by Play Verto’s gamified research technology and amplified through Modern American Advisor’s editorial and media channels, the result is insight you can use.

Book a Partnership ConversationEmail Alex Sullivan

alex.sullivan@modernamericanadvisor.com|partner@modernamericanadvisor.com