No Small Change

CHAPTER 8Introducing the New Financial Services Marketing

The first section of this book has made three main points:

1. The retail financial services industry has been very successful over many years without the need for a great deal of marketing.
2. As a result, on the whole the industry isn't very good at it.
3. Things are changing, and the industry is going to have to improve if it's going to continue to succeed into the future.

The second and longer section will go on to paint a picture of what this improved marketing might look like. In this chapter, we briefly introduce the key components as we see them. But first, a summary of the current position as perceived by the respondents in our Financial Services Forum quantitative research.

The first part of the study asked some questions about the respondents as individuals, and particularly about their experience and expertise. Reflecting the make-up of the Financial Services Forum membership, they were a senior and experienced bunch: just over half had worked in financial services for over 20 years. We were impressed, too (and if truth be told, a little surprised) by the extent of their academic qualifications in marketing. Again a little over half told us that they had been educated to degree level (23%) or to postgraduate level (31%) in marketing. An even higher proportion, over 60%, told us that they had other university qualifications in business, 31% to degree level and 31% as postgraduates. We should emphasise that these findings ...