A high-end investment services firm.

Portfolio investment management services targeted to high-income investors.

This firm, part of a major regional banking organization, evolved out of a Trust Department model. The firm found itself facing increasingly severe competition from more aggressive and contemporary-minded investment management companies. This competition included both smaller and larger investment management companies. It became increasingly clear that the large body of "old money" investors was not going to allow the firm to realize the kind of growth being demanded by the parent bank organization. The firm, for many decades had prided itself on, and successfully established its position around, its so-called unique Investment "Process."

Recommend a viable strategic pathway to enable the firm to respond to the parent organization's pressure and demands for significant growth.

We interrogated and probed the firm's customers and prospects to develop an actionable psychographic profile of the ideal (i.e. most productive) customer for the firm's services. Based on what we learned, we were able to develop a competitive/comparative assessment of differences between the firm's audiences and those of the competition. The findings starkly and tangibly demonstrated the perceptual gaps and misalignments between the firm and its audiences. More importantly, this enabled us to clearly focus management attention on the crucial obstacles in the way of the desired growth. When we presented these findings to Senior Management, it had a profound impact.

Management was able to confidently act on our recommendation for an "island-hopping" strategy which utilized a creative media approach to engage precisely-defined and highly-qualified potential customers. The firm was able to establish and build on a number of different ways to elicit two-way communication between itself and its audiences. Ultimately, the firm is beginning to meet its growth objectives, and to actually measure the development and reinforcement of one-on-one relationships with its customers. It is now clear that the use of this non-traditional media strategy has resulted in the firm attracting younger, more growth-minded customers so essential to meeting the firm's business goals.