Did you know that Wellington has a reputation amongst institutional clients for its alts capabilities? Did you know that it has a solid team devoted to global and international equities.

If you answered No to either of these questions, don't feel bad, these skill-sets are not widely known among investors.

Marty Swanson chief marketing officer of the Hartford Funds, aims to change that.

Wellington is the sole sub-advisor for Hartford, and Swanson and his colleagues are looking for different ways to leverage these lesser-known Wellington capabilities as much as possible.

For example, Hartford launched in March an advertising campaign raising awareness of eight global and international products managed by Wellington. The campaign, titled The New Face of Global, includes a lot of digital content. It was the brainchild of Swanson and Hartford head of brand and advertising Chris Poe, who joined the company from BlackRock in October 2013.

"We weren't sure whether folks were connecting us with global investing. With the campaign, we really tried to highlight a lot of our global capabilities," Swanson told MFWire.

Swanson said that although "advertising takes a bit of time," he and his colleagues "have seen some solid flow into these strategies."

At the same time, the Hartford is now tapping into Wellington's alternative talent, which previously had been utilized primarily in the sub-advisor's institutional accounts, with an expanding lineup of products.

For example, Hartford Funds launched in December a real total return fund and, in April, a multi-asset income product.

Swanson and his colleagues plan to launch yet a third alternative product at the end of the summer. He declined further comment on this product as it had not yet been registered. His firm is also looking to grow aggressively in the income space as well.

"We are thinking about a variety of new types of strategies, products that look different from traditional mutual funds with different portfolio characteristics that can hopefully drive more performance. These products are growing increasingly popular amongst financial advisors as portfolio diversifiers. This is a high growth area of the marketplace," he said. 

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