Using the WWW as a Medium for Marketing Research in Financial Services: The Case of Xenon Laboratories

The nature of how marketing research is conducted has changed dramatically over the past thirty years. This has been a function both of how the prevailing view of best practice in marketing has developed, and also of the state of technology available to researchers. While it is clear that the WWW will increasingly be used as a medium for conducting marketing research, the full implications of this new medium are not yet fully understood. Existing research has examined the implications of the WWW in terms of the potential dramatic reductions in both the time and cost involved in testing new financial service products. The potential for a financial services firm to analyse the market environment and competitors’ strategies is examined using a case study based on real time marketing research. The case is that of the Canadian 0-7695-0001-3/99 $10 Internet financial services provider, Xenon Laboratories, which currently conducts marketing research into the market for credit/charge cards. Through the development of a unique approach to marketing research, Xenon is in a position to understand how the charge structures of different credit/charge card suppliers vary. These findings, in turn, places them in a uniquely competitive position to sell other financial services to those global companies using the services of these different credit/charge card suppliers. The paper discusses the problems associated with traditional methodological approaches to market research and demonstrates the impact that IT and the WWW can have on the process