Abstract:

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.