NZMBA chief Darren Pratley said that while he was shown the advert before launch, it was made clear that this was not a collaborative process and no changes would be made.

"What happened was I'm sitting in a room at the FMA office and I was given a piece of paper which had an image of the new advertising on it. I looked at it and went - I think we should make a few changes," Pratley said.

"I was told no. We can't make any changes. That's what's going out, I just thought you should know."

Pratley was eager to set the record straight after reader comments to the original Good Returns story suggested some advisers believed the advert had the NZMBA's blessing.

"There is no way in the world that we were consulted, there is no way in the world I am overly comfortable with the image they used," he said.

"I accept that they had to come up with a campaign but there was actually no consultation, there was no ‘guys, we need to get the message across, what do you think?'"

IFA chief executive Peter Lee took a neutral stance on the advert, saying "it's something that's purely up to the FMA to decide how it wants to communicate".

The IFA president Nigel Tate was less forgiving.

"I personally, as a practitioner, find it offensive and it's not a good way to build a collaborative relationship with the industry, especially when you're the new kid on the block."

"We've had 20 years of change in our profession, we've had 20 years of evolution and 99% of the rogues and the cowboys that may well have roamed the prairie have gone," he said.

Despite their disapproval of the advert, both Pratley and Tate stressed their commitment to working with the regulator.

"There are people in the industry that actually support the direction we're going in and we actually want to make this a supportive, constructive change to get the consumer better advice," Pratley said.

Tate also said it wasn't his wish to bash the FMA over the issue.

"It is my desire however to maintain the relationship we've developed with the FMA over the last five years or so, with the Securities Commission as it was, we want to maintain that and we don't want this sort of thing to break down the level of trust that we've had."

"It's not a good start. I'm hoping that things will improve from here, we can get past it," he said.

BLOG: Your advice (on FMA ads) please