Thrivent Mutual Funds Names VMLY&R Lead Agency of Record

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Dec. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Thrivent Mutual Funds, an award-winning fund family of Thrivent Financial, announced global marketing agency VMLY&R has been selected as lead agency of record.

VMLY&R will develop and execute consumer and financial professional-focused campaigns and digital experiences. The team will specifically focus on awareness; offers; lead generation and nurturing; in addition to online engagement and touchpoints.

"We chose VMLY&R because of their growth mindset and deep commitment to building brands using creativity, data, and technology," said Troy Beaver, Vice President, Thrivent Mutual Funds. "They've built an agency with the expertise to enable full-funnel customer experiences."

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Thrivent Mutual Funds was recognized as "Best Overall Small Fund Family" out of 30 Small Fund Families reviewed by the Thomson Reuters Lipper award—3 years running.¹

"We believe that individual investors and financial professionals are looking for trusted brands and that's what we see in Thrivent Mutual Funds," said Jon Cook, global CEO, VMLY&R. "VMLY&R is looking forward to leveraging our approach to creating connected brands to help Thrivent Mutual Funds grow."                       

VMLY&R was awarded the business following a competitive pitch process which concluded in October. Thrivent Mutual Funds and VMLY&R will begin working together immediately.

About Thrivent Mutual Funds
Thrivent Mutual Funds is sponsored by Thrivent, a mission-driven, not for-profit financial services organization serving Christians for over 100 years. Today, Thrivent has grown into a Fortune 500 organization with $136 billion² in assets under management/advisement (as of December 31, 2017) and has been named by Ethisphere Institute as one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" for the past seven years.³ To learn more, visit ThriventFunds.com.

About VMLY&R
VMLY&R is a global marketing agency that harnesses creativity, technology, and culture to create connected brands. The agency is made up of nearly 7,000 employees worldwide with principal offices in Kansas City, London, New York, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney. VMLY&R works with client partners including Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, Dell, Ford, Office Depot, PepsiCo, Pfizer and Wendy's. 

Investing in a mutual fund involves risks, including the possible loss of principal. The prospectus and summary prospectus contain more complete information on the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the fund, and other information, which investors should read and consider carefully before investing. Prospectuses are available at ThriventFunds.com or by calling 1-800-847-4836.

Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

The principal underwriter for the Thrivent Mutual Funds is Thrivent Distributors, LLC., a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC.    Thrivent Distributors, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Thrivent, the marketing name for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. 

¹ The Lipper Awards for Best Overall Small Fund Family are based on a review of 30 fund families (2018), 32 fund families (2017) and 27 fund families (2016). Winners are selected based on risk-adjusted performance for the three-year period ending Nov. 11, 2017. The designation is awarded to U.S. region funds only.

Overall Group Award Methodology: Overall Group Awards are given to the best large and best small fund families separately. Small fund family groups need to have at least three distinct portfolios in each of the equity, bond and mixed-asset class groups to qualify for the Overall Group award. For the 2018 Thomson Reuters Lipper Fund Awards (based on three-year period ending Nov. 30, 2017), a small fund family is defined as having assets of $75.3 billion or less. For the 2017 Thomson Reuters Lipper Fund Awards (based on three-year period ending Nov. 30, 2016), a small fund family was defined as having assets of $63.5 billion or less. For the 2016 Award (based on three-year period ending Nov. 30, 2015) it was defined as assets of $57.7 billion or less. Money Market assets are excluded. The Overall Group award is given to the fund family with the lowest weighted average decile ranking of its respective asset class results based on the consistent return (effective return) value of the eligible funds per asset class. In cases of identical results, the lower average percentile rank will determine the winner. Sales charges are not taken into consideration. Some Thrivent Mutual Funds may have had fee waivers in effect. If they hadn't been in effect performance would have been lower. See ThriventFunds.com or the prospectus for current waiver information.
From Thomson Reuters Lipper Awards, ©2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.

² Includes the Thrivent General Account (which manages surplus and the assets backing our life insurance, fixed annuity and health products), variable subaccount portfolios (primarily connected to variable annuities and variable universal life insurance), mutual funds and other assets related to our affiliates and other subsidiaries.

³ Thrivent Financial was named one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" by Ethisphere Institute for our leadership in promoting ethical business standards and introducing innovative ideas to benefit the public. "World's Most Ethical Companies" and "Ethisphere" names and marks are registered trademarks of Ethisphere LLC. For details, visit Ethisphere.com.

SOURCE VMLY&R