For almost five years the Infratest financial research has been conducting continuous inquiries based on large numbers of cases. The financial market data service is based on 20.000 eases, a sample which is conducted in 10 subordinate samples, consisting of 2.000 cases each. The research was set up together with the subscribers (banks, insurance companies, building societies) and is being continuously developed. It supplies basic information on the entire financial market. The large number of cases is necessary because of the great variety of offerers, since otherwise subdivisions of data for single enterprises are no longer possible. Besides a standard section consisting of 19 questions, the subscribers have at their disposal 30 questions a year, concerning special topics. An offerer in the field of financial services requires the data in order to, among other things, be able to continuously observe his position within the market. This evaluation programme is to be followed by further evaluation steps, which, carried out individually by single enterprises, could give an answer to concrete marketing-questions.
For almost five years the Infratest financial research has been conducting continuous inquiries based on large numbers of cases. The financial market data service is based on 20.000 eases, a sample which is conducted in 10 subordinate samples, consisting of 2.000 cases each. The research was set up together with the subscribers (banks, insurance companies, building societies) and is being continuously developed. It supplies basic information on the entire financial market. The large number of cases is necessary because of the great variety of offerers, since otherwise subdivisions of data for single enterprises are no longer possible. Besides a standard section consisting of 19 questions, the subscribers have at their disposal 30 questions a year, concerning special topics. An offerer in the field of financial services requires the data in order to, among other things, be able to continuously observe his position within the market. This evaluation programme is to be followed by further evaluation steps, which, carried out individually by single enterprises, could give an answer to concrete marketing-questions.
The theme of the paper is the use of research as a creative tool in the development of new products and methods of marketing them: In this case, of course, the 'products' are financial services. In order to illustrate the theme the author shall be describing the ways in which one of his company's clients, Hill Samuel, made use of research of different types during the period from 1970 to date. This period covered the formulation by the bank's unit trust (mutual fund) management subsidiary of a new marketing strategy, an entry into a new sector of the market, and creation of a range of new service products with which to develop this new sector. What I shall aim to show is how during the past four years the bank has made practical and imaginative use of research on a more or less continuous basis - conducting a series of relatively small scale studies, each carried out with a specific purpose in mind, each forming part of a carefully planned (but necessarily flexible) market and product development programme.
Corporate banking research is helping banks, and especially US banks to design and market services for corporate customers in their own domestic markets, and internationally. Despite the current economic and financial situation, research can help banks to satisfy their corporate customers by indicating areas of high priority. Those banks that can maintain the confidence of the corporate clients in such a climate by the intelligent use of research and marketing methods will benefit when companies are again able to exercise freedom in choosing and using banks for the raising of finance, and other services.
Our studies deal first and foremost with analysing the sociological and psychological aspects of bank competition within the section of mass business. Our aim was to make visible the social structure of the banks' customers, the mental image which customers and customers of competitive banks have of the banks of this group or of competitors; in addition, we were interested in the customers' judgement of the range of services the banks have to offer, to get better acquainted with the effectiveness of specific advertising and other sales promoting measures, with local issues, with the will to save, with other habits, with typological descriptions of the clientele. The purpose of these studies is to work out a basis for sales promoting measures for these banks. Our studies were conducted at three levels, viz.: national, regional, local.
Our studies deal first and foremost with analysing the sociological and psychological aspects of bank competition within the section of mass business. Our aim was to make visible the social structure of the banks' customers, the mental image which customers and customers of competitive banks have of the banks of this group or of competitors; in addition, we were interested in the customers' judgement of the range of services the banks have to offer, to get better acquainted with the effectiveness of specific advertising and other sales promoting measures, with local issues, with the will to save, with other habits, with typological descriptions of the clientele. The purpose of these studies is to work out a basis for sales promoting measures for these banks. Our studies were conducted at three levels, viz.: national, regional, local.
Competition among banks in the United Kingdom developed very rapidly in the first half of the nineteen-seventies. The introduction of "Competition and Credit Control" in 1971 was a major factor in hastening the destruction of the earlier cartelistic pattern, which legislation and other factors in previous years had started. The opening campaign began in mid-1973 and by the first half of 1974 all the major banks in both England and Wales, and in Scotland, had modified their charging policies for personal current accounts. This paper reviews this extraordinarily rapid change in banking and then describes in detail how Williams & Glyn's Bank - the fifth largest of the London Clearing Banks - approached the problem of its own pricing policy for "chequeing accounts".
In the final session a Panel composed of the four Seminar speakers below, discussed questions put by participants.
The paper defines marketing research for financial institutions and services and indicates how research should be employed in support of marketing planning. A brief history of the development of marketing as a concept and market research as a service function for the clearing banks in Great Britain is then outlined, together with a discussion of some of the peculiar problems involved in financial research work. The paper goes on to indicate the difference between "strategic" and "tactical" research. The former is designed to measure and evaluate longer term shifts in behaviour and attitudes that will effect management decision-making in the medium and longer term or which will alter basic methods or ways of doing things. The latter, tactical marketing research, is defined as research to help design short term projects or campaigns, answer immediate questions about the market or assess the effectiveness of specific projects. A number of examples of specific strategic and tactical research studies are given as illustrations and other types of research that financial institutions' market researchers might be called on to undertake are also examined.