American Century ads hint at Stowers Institute ties

A new advertising campaign starts this weekend for Kansas City-based American Century Investments. It promotes the company’s purpose beyond customers’ portfolios.

Titled “Prosper with Purpose,” television ads running this weekend note that American Century supports research “dedicated to liberating the world from life threatening diseases like cancer.”

The idea is that American Century customers support that research too by hiring the mutual fund company to invest for them.

“We can be a powerful collective force for a greater good,” one ad said.

At American Century, support for research means more than donations. Dividends from the company’s stock have funded work at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City to the tune of $1.2 billion since 2000.

That is because the Stowers Institute owns a large part of American Century and receives 40 percent of its dividends.

American Century founder James E. Stowers Jr. and his wife, Virginia, created and endowed the institute with the fortune they earned building American Century. The company calls it a unique ownership model and the ad campaign seeks to show customers the role they play in making the research happen.

“We view our ownership model and the legacy of our founder as the ultimate example of investing with impact. As we strive to deliver superior investment results for clients and they continue to entrust us with their assets, this success can impact basic medical research funding that is aimed at finding cures for life-threatening diseases like cancer,” Jonathan Thomas, American Century’s CEO, said in an announcement.

The ads will appear on NBC’s broadcast of the British Open golf tournament this weekend and during the NBC Sports Network’s coverage of the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament on July 22 and NBC’s coverage of it on July 23 and 24.

Although the ads don’t mention the Stowers Institute directly, they show the web address where viewers can learn more about it and its founding.

Kansas City-based Meers Advertising Inc. was the creative agency behind American Century’s ads and a longer video on the website that described James and Virginia Stowers’ work and legacy.

This story was originally published July 15, 2016 at 5:41 PM with the headline "American Century ads hint at Stowers Institute ties."