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 Campaign Download 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.

How aware are advisors of our brand?

Does our product proposition fit current advisor priorities?

What prevents adoption?

Which messages create interest or resistance?

What education would help advisors take action?

Which firms are actively reviewing this area?

What content would advisors value?

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 340,000+ investment professionals across 30,000+ RIA and dual-registered advisory firms 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

Advisor invitation
Gamified experience
Data dashboard
Report
Editorial campaign
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.”

How a campaign works

From Research Question to Commercial Activation

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
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.
03
Build the gamified experience
Create a short, engaging Play Verto-powered research journey, designed to capture useful sentiment and encourage participation.
04
Gather and interpret the data
Analyse responses to identify trends, barriers, preferences, opportunities and commercial signals.
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?

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

MAA Market Pulse opportunities

Independence Market Pulse

National advisor research into independence, breakaway transitions, RIA formation, ownership, growth and succession.

View the Campaign

The Advisor Relevance Gap

Research into how US advisors want providers to reach, inform and engage them, with segmented intelligence and a full MAA campaign.

View the Campaign

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.

01Research question
02Audience segmentation
03Gamified experience
04Advisor engagement
05Data and insight
06Editorial feature
07Report
08Webinar or podcast
09Social content
10Sales collateral
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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 Conversation Email Alex Sullivan

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

MAA Advisor IntelligencePowered by Play Verto

Research the Advisor Market

Understand Your End Clients

Higher engagement

Richer insight

Mobile-first

Consent-led

Campaign-ready outputs

Led by Michael Sani

Define the commercial objective

Segment the audience

Build the gamified experience

Gather and interpret the data

Activate the campaign

Intergenerational Wealth

Active ETFs and Product Adoption

AI and Wealth Technology

Private Markets

Succession and M&A

Client Experience

Women and Wealth

Recruitment and Talent