Abstract:

This paper is about the growing marketing orientation of a certain sector of the market for personal financial services in New Zealand, the life insurance sector; and especially about the marketing orientation of a particular life insurance company. It comments on the nature of the events which have lead this hitherto 'production' oriented company, operating within a traditionally conservative industry, to cast off its introspective attitude to the marketplace and to adopt an aggressive consumer-sympathetic strategy, virtually overnight. This paper comments on the demands that such a transition places on internal and external marketing information systems in satisfying an almost insatiable desire to be 'close to the customer'. Customer is defined here in broad rather than specific terms.