By Michael Sani
On 17 July 2026, just ahead of the FIFA World Cup Final, the UN Youth Office will host One World, One Game, One Goal: Football for Youth Mental Health and Well-Being at United Nations Headquarters in New York.
The flagship afternoon session is set to take place in the General Assembly Hall and will be livestreamed on UN Web TV. It brings together young people, global leaders, athletes, advocates and organizations around one of the most important issues facing the next generation: how sport, physical activity and play can support mental health, wellbeing, belonging and hope.
It is a major global stage. It is also a powerful demonstration of how modern engagement is changing.
At the center of the insight-gathering process is Play Verto, a platform designed to reach audiences that do not always respond to conventional research methods. Through short, gamified mobile experiences, Play Verto enables people to share views, feelings and experiences in a more accessible, engaging and immediate way than traditional surveys typically allow.
For the UN Youth Office event, that means young people can contribute their perspectives on how sport affects how they feel, how connected they are, where they belong and how optimistic they feel about the future. Football and the World Cup provide the global cultural hook, but the conversation stretches much further: into physical activity, community, confidence, identity, mental wellbeing and the role of play in helping young people feel seen and heard.
Those voices are then brought into the day itself. The collective insight gathered through Play Verto informs the speakers, panels and conversations, with results presented through visual infographics directly to the room. Instead of young people being discussed only as a topic, their voices help shape the discussion.
That matters.
It is also exactly why Modern American Advisor believes the same approach has powerful relevance for America’s RIA and wealth management market.
Financial services does not need another passive advertising channel. Asset managers, wealthtech firms, custodians, platforms, consolidators, recruiters, consultants and professional-services providers already have plenty of ways to buy visibility. They can sponsor emails, run banners, place adverts, host webinars, book podcasts and produce thought leadership.
Those things still matter. But on their own, they are not enough.
The more valuable opportunity is to understand what advisors think, what they need, what they are reviewing, what they are worried about, what they are recommending to clients, and what would make them take action.
That is where Play Verto becomes commercially significant for MAA and its partners.
Modern American Advisor has access to a highly valuable audience of more than 200,000 RIAs and advisory professionals, with the ability to segment by role, firm type, geography, seniority, business model, assets under management, professional focus and area of interest. That gives MAA the ability to do something much more sophisticated than simply place marketing messages in front of advisors.
“Play Verto shows what happens when audiences are invited to participate rather than simply receive.”
It gives MAA the ability to help brands ask better questions of the exact advisory audiences they want to reach.
A PlayVerto-powered MAA campaign can be used to survey RIAs, wealth managers, firm owners, investment committees, operations leaders, technology decision-makers, practice-management leaders, next-generation advisors or client-facing professionals. It can gather sentiment from very broad advisor audiences, or from highly targeted segments of the market. It can support national campaigns, regional campaigns, product launches, brand research, market-mapping exercises, webinar funnels, podcast campaigns, editorial reports and sales enablement.
The same engagement logic being used to surface young people’s views around sport and wellbeing can be adapted to surface advisor views around investment, technology, practice management, consolidation, succession, client engagement and the future of advice.
For MAA readers, this creates a new way to take part in the conversation. Advisors can share their sentiment on the issues shaping the profession and then see the results reflected back through MAA’s Market Pulse survey findings, editorial features, data-led reports, infographics, newsletters, podcasts and webinars.
For advertisers, it creates a much more intelligent way to understand and engage with the market. Rather than simply buying impressions, partners can use MAA and Play Verto to gather structured insight from the audiences they most want to understand.
That is a win-win.
Readers are not just being marketed to. They are being invited to share their views and benchmark their thinking against peers across the RIA and wealth management community.
Commercial partners are not just sponsoring content. They are gaining live intelligence into advisor sentiment, buying intent, product appetite, education needs, adoption barriers and emerging market trends.
For asset managers, the potential is obvious.
A firm launching or promoting an active ETF strategy could ask RIAs how they are using active ETFs, which asset classes they are considering, what due diligence barriers remain, how they explain active ETFs to clients, and what kind of educational support would make them more comfortable allocating.
A fixed-income manager could test advisor views on duration, credit risk, income expectations, model portfolios or the role of bonds after a volatile rate cycle.
A private markets provider could ask advisors what is preventing wider adoption: liquidity, fees, complexity, platform access, compliance, client suitability or lack of education.
The result is not just a survey. It is a campaign engine.
The findings can become a Market Pulse report. The report can become an editorial feature. The feature can lead into a webinar. The webinar can identify engaged advisors. The data can guide the sales team. The infographics can be used across social channels. The insight can shape future messaging. The sponsor can show that it is not simply pushing products into the market, but listening to advisors and responding to what they actually need.
That is a much stronger proposition than a standard banner campaign.
For wealthtech providers, the opportunity is just as clear.
Advisor technology is one of the most crowded and competitive areas in the market. Every provider claims to save time, improve efficiency, support client service, integrate with existing systems and help firms scale. The question is what advisors actually value, what they are willing to change, and what pain points are urgent enough to drive action.
A PlayVerto-powered MAA campaign could ask advisors how they are using AI, whether they trust meeting-note tools, what they need from CRM integrations, how they feel about client portals, where compliance friction exists, how much time is lost in manual processes, and what would make them switch provider.
For the provider, that creates a sharper commercial picture. For advisors, it creates useful peer insight. For MAA, it creates high-value editorial intelligence.
The same model applies to custodians, platforms and service providers. It can test advisor satisfaction, transition concerns, integration issues, service expectations, pricing sensitivity and support needs. It can identify what is working, what is frustrating, and where the market is moving.
For consolidators and acquirers, the potential may be even more valuable.
The RIA market is still shaped by succession planning, valuation expectations, cultural fit, brand identity, client retention, adviser autonomy and the emotional reality of founders deciding what comes next. A conventional lead-generation campaign may identify firms of a certain size. A smarter insight campaign can help reveal what firm owners are actually thinking.
Are they open to selling? Are they worried about succession? Do they want capital, scale, operational support, technology, investment capabilities or an exit route? Are they concerned about losing their brand? Would they consider a minority investment? What timeframe are they working to? What would make them agree to a first conversation?
“Listening to advisors and responding to what they actually need.”
That kind of intelligence is enormously valuable because it goes beyond demographic targeting. It helps commercial partners understand motivation.
For advisory firms themselves, Play Verto also opens an important client-engagement opportunity. RIAs increasingly need to understand not only markets and products, but the emotional, behavioral and generational dynamics of their own client base.
Advisory firms could use similar short, engaging survey formats to ask clients about retirement confidence, communication preferences, estate planning anxieties, attitudes to risk, financial education needs, charitable giving, next-generation wealth transfer, women’s financial confidence, life goals or concerns about children and inheritance.
That is not just research. It is relationship-building.
A client who answers a well-designed, engaging survey is telling the firm what matters. The firm can then respond with better content, better service, better events, better planning conversations and better segmentation. In an industry where personalization is increasingly important, listening well becomes a competitive advantage.
This is why Play Verto’s involvement in the UN Youth Office’s World Cup-linked event matters to MAA. It gives the platform a global proof point. This is not a lightweight gimmick or a novelty survey tool. It is an engagement model being used on an international stage to bring real voices into an important conversation.
MAA’s opportunity is to take that same methodology and apply it to one of the most commercially valuable audiences in financial services.
The RIA market is sophisticated, time-poor and heavily targeted. Advisors receive endless sales emails, webinar invitations, white papers, product updates and thought-leadership pieces. Much of it is ignored because it does not feel specific, useful or timely.
But advisors will engage when the subject is relevant, the format is easy, the results are useful and they can see how their views contribute to a wider industry picture.
That is the strength of the MAA Market Pulse model.
It gives advisors a reason to participate because their views become part of a visible, editorially credible snapshot of the market. It gives advertisers a reason to invest because the campaign delivers more than awareness. It gives MAA a reason to lead because the platform becomes not just a publisher, but a source of advisor intelligence.
The old media model was built around reach. The new model is built around reach plus insight.
Modern American Advisor can publish the content, promote the survey, gather the sentiment, visualize the results, interpret the findings, amplify the story, host the webinar, create the podcast, support the sponsor and feed intelligence back into the market.
That is a much broader proposition than media space. It is a connected intelligence loop between readers, commercial partners and the advisory profession.
And it comes with a simple commercial message.
If a brand wants to understand how RIAs think about a product category, MAA can help ask them. If a firm wants to test a message before committing to a campaign, MAA can help gather the data. If a platform wants to know where advisor frustration sits, MAA can surface it. If a wealthtech provider wants to identify adoption barriers, MAA can measure them. If an asset manager wants to know what education advisors need before allocating, MAA can find out. If an advisory firm wants to understand its own clients better, MAA and Play Verto can help create the engagement structure.
From the UN Youth Office and the World Cup to America’s RIA market, the underlying idea is the same: better listening creates better outcomes.
For the UN event, that means young people’s voices can help shape a global discussion around sport, belonging and mental wellbeing.
For MAA, it means advisors can help shape the conversation around the future of advice.
For advertisers and partners, it means campaigns can finally move beyond simple exposure and become a source of market intelligence, content, engagement and commercial opportunity.
That is the real story.
Play Verto shows what happens when audiences are invited to participate rather than simply receive. Modern American Advisor now has the opportunity to bring that approach directly into the U.S. advisory market — giving readers a voice, giving partners sharper insight, and giving the industry a clearer view of what advisors and clients are really thinking.
To discuss using Play Verto with Modern American Advisor, contact alex.sullivan@modernamericanadvisor.com.
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This feature is part of Torches of Freedom, Modern American Advisor’s latest issue exploring the people, ideas and innovations shaping the future of financial advice. Explore more interviews, commentary and analysis from across the issue.
