E. Customer Education is Key Industry Participants agreed that educational efforts will help to establish realistic investor expectations. Moreover, the Industry Participants generally agreed that the tone of more recent advertisements had become more moderate, particularly since the SEC and NASD Regulation began expressing their concerns about the climate that earlier advertisements had created. Nevertheless, there was general skepticism about the effectiveness of attempting to educate investors solely through television advertisements. Industry Participants were interested in an educational campaign coordinated by NASD Regulation, perhaps with a Web page created by NASD Regulation to which firms could hyperlink. F. Responsibilities of the Media Industry Participants expressed concern about the tendency by some members of the media to exaggerate the benefits of online investing.
Some media reports focus on the success of young investors who trade frequently online.
According to Industry Participants, these media reports do a disservice by confusing readers about the risks and rewards of online investing. They felt that the press should take a more responsible role in reporting about online brokerage. In order to assist the discussion, NASD Regulation retained an independent consultant to conduct two investor focus groups, each with 8 people. The focus groups viewed 10 television advertisements for online brokerage services and the consultant asked the focus groups a series of questions. Nevertheless, the results were discussed at our meetings with Industry Participants and the SEC, and following is a brief summary of those results.