Shock tactics needed to get the pensions message across. To get the pensions message through to people, the industry needs to use shock tactics to jolt them into action.

Otherwise, individuals will bury their heads in the sand, not realising the urgency, and delay taking action until it’s too late. Commenting, Matt Frost, Director at Shilling Communication, said: “The industry needs to get straight to the point with pension scheme members and start communicating to them about what their retirement pot will actually buy in reality. In some cases this might be quite frightening news, when the truth is that someone’s pension savings will barely be enough to live on, but how can we expect people to take positive action when they don’t even realise how poorly off they could be in retirement?

Mr Frost added: “It is also important to communicate in a way that individuals can relate to. For example, the press often write about pension schemes in deficit, but this means little to the average man on the street. If, however, we start talking about the situation in terms of ‘you could lose your house if your mortgage isn’t paid off’, and ‘don’t look to the Government for help because the State Pension, in its current form, is hardly enough to survive on either’, then people are without a doubt, more likely to sit up and take notice. “But these shock tactics are only the first part of the story. The next stage is to communicate how to effectively save for retirement, explaining that taking just a small step now can make a huge difference at retirement – noting the value of compound interest.”