Competitor's marketing : How banks acquire and react to knowledge about their competitor's marketing.

I

N T E R N A T I O N E L L A

H

A N D E L S H Ö G S K O L A N

HÖGSKOLAN I JÖNKÖPING

Competitor’s marketing

How banks acquire and react to knowledge about

their competitor’s marketing

Bachelor’s thesis within Business

Administra-tion

Author: Persson, Annika

Puelma, Rodrigo

Tutor: Sasinovskaya, Olga

Date: June, 2008

Subject terms: Bank Industry, Competitive Intelligence and

Com-petitor Analysis

Abstract

Introduction

The way banks compete has changed dramatically during recent years, mostly because of international trends such as advances in in-formation technology, globalisation and deregulations. This has made competition harsher meaning that survival and success requires knowledge about the competitors and understanding about the way they act and react. Within marketing there is a need to identify suit-able strategies to acquire knowledge about competitor’s marketing and methods to how to react to it.

Purpose

The purpose of our research study is to analyse how companies in the bank industry are aware and react to their competitor’s market-ing activities.

Bachelor’s thesis within Business Ad-ministration

Author: Persson, Annika

Puelma, Rodrigo

Method

We have conducted a qualitative study and used a mix of the induc-tive and deducinduc-tive research approaches. We chose to do semi-struc-tured case studies, gathering descriptive data from large Swedish banks with offices located in Jönköping. The banks that were in-cluded were Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB, and Swedbank.

Conclusions

Our analysis concludes that staying aware of competitors marketing is important for companies to be able to react and counter on a pro-motion attack. We found that there are certain methods that can be used to stay alert: competitor marketing analysis, customer focus and probing. We also concluded that standardisation, differentiation and presence are required to react to competitors marketing.

Disposition of thesis

The Introduction chapter is the preface of the thesis written and includes among others a discussion of the topic, a research purpose and problem delimitation.

The Frame of reference chapter presents gen-eral marketing concepts and terms and intro-duces specific theories concerning competi-tor’s marketing.

The Method chapter explains the approaches which were selected to carry out the research and create the intended knowledge from our conclusions.

The Empirical findings chapter presents the empirical findings from the case studies with the selected respondents that were carried out. Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 4: Empirical findings Chapter 3: Method Chapter 5: Chapter 2: Frame of refererence

The Analysis chapter analyses the empirical findings, with the re-search questions and the theories from the Frame of reference in mind.

The Conclusions chapter presents a construction we made from the analysis of our empirical findings.

The Discussion chapter will reflect upon the research conducted, the conclusions made, the fulfilment of the research purpose and fu-ture research topics.

Chapter 7: Discussion Chapter 6:

Table of Contents

Disposition of thesis...ii List of Tables...2

Appendices...2

1 Introduction...2

1.1 Background...2 1.2 Purpose...3 1.3 Problem discussion...4 1.4 Problem delimitation...4 1.5 Interested parties...4 1.6 Positioning...5

2 Frame of reference...6

2.1 Marketing...6

2.2 Competition in the banking industry...8

2.3 Competing Marketing Awareness...9

2.4 Competing Marketing Reaction...10

2.5 Use of theory in our research study...12

3 Method...13

3.1 Knowledge categories...13 3.2 Research approach...14 3.3 Data collection...14 3.3.1 Case studies...15 3.3.2 Literature study...16 3.4 Selection of respondents...15

3.4.1 The interview questions...16

3.4.2 The interview processes...16

3.4.3 Avoiding bias...17

3.5 Analyzing data...18

3.6 Trustworthiness...18

4 Empirical findings...20

4.1 The Interviews...22

4.1.1 Marketing and competitors...22

4.1.2 Competing Marketing Awareness...23

4.1.3 Competing Marketing Reaction...25

4.2 Table with important notes...27

5 Analysis...29

5.1 Analysis of marketing and competitors...29

5.2 Analysis of Competing Marketing Awareness...30

5.3 Analysis of Competing Marketing Reaction...31

6 Conclusions...33

6.1 Competing Marketing Awareness...33

7 Discussion...36

7.1 Reflections...36

7.2 Suggestions for further studies...36

References...38

Table of figures

Figure 2-1 Frame of References overview (own model)...6

Figure 3-1 Method applied (own model)...13

Figure 6-1 Strategies for Competing Marketing Awareness (own model)...33

Figure 6-2 Strategies for Competing Marketing Reaction (own model)...34

List of Tables

Table 1: Claes Ericson, Handelsbanken Table 2: Hans Larsson, Nordea

Table 3: Johan Eek, SEB

Table 4: Michael Möller, Swedbank Table 5: Table with important notes

Appendices

1

Introduction

This chapter discusses the importance of marketing and why market-ing activities made by competitors should be regarded and exam-ined. Furthermore it states the research questions and the purpose of the conducted study. The chapter is concluded with problem de-limitation and a discussion of determined interested parties for this research study.

With the emergence of globalisation both researchers and different branches within business industries have directed focus on the cre-ation and use of marketing concepts and tools. But still the phenome-non of marketing is difficult to understand since it engages terras incognita within psychology and sociology.

Furthermore the contradicting and competing concepts within mar-keting makes the subject open for discussion, thus making it more in-teresting, especially for students within the field. One area within marketing that is appealing is the awareness of competitors market-ing activities. Another related topic that also is fascinatmarket-ing is how competitors marketing affects the company own marketing strate-gies and activities. To explore these topics more thoroughly we de-cided to study how companies work with competitors marketing ac-tivities as our Bachelor’s thesis within Business Administration. Since the field of marketing is broad and include many subsections, we decided to use the definition created by the American Marketing Association, which could be seen as a compromise of different sources and actors involved with marketing on different levels. Their definition of marketing is “the activity, set of institutions, and pro-cesses for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging of-ferings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (AMA, 2008). In this thesis we will focus on the concrete and direct marketing activities such as advertising, brochures and commercials to simplify the ability to analyse the empirical data. Two other frequently used and important terms in this thesis are compet-ing marketcompet-ing awareness and competcompet-ing marketcompet-ing reaction. The two terns are defined below by the authors of the thesis to give the reader an idea of what is meant by these terms:

Competing Marketing Awareness - The process of exploring the mar-ket for competitors marmar-keting activities and their hidden purpose.

This is the initial process of understanding the competition and the marketing activities made by competitors.

Competing Marketing Reaction - The process of acting to defend own or marginalize competitors marketing activities. Reaction is the fol-lowing step in acting in accordance with the actions made by com-petitors.

1.1

Background

The transformation of the traditional market, due to the advance-ment of globalization and information technology, to what nowadays is a customer oriented market, challenges old perceptions about competition. Modern companies cannot rely on habits and strategies that were applicable for decades ago. Within all the different activi-ties carried out in a modern company there has to be an awareness of what its stakeholders require, especially those of its customer and competitors. If a company does not adapt to new requirements or cir-cumstances it will start to fade, despite prior success (Hatch, 1997). Within the field of marketing the harsh competition forces companies to apply more flexible, innovative and specific tools to reach cus-tomers. It also requires time, resources, defined strategies and co-herence between the relationships with different company stakehold-ers. Those companies that do not give marketing efforts their proper attention, will become obsolete and vanish, despite having excellent products or services to offer. On the other hand, companies that do care and invest in proper marketing, especially in being informed about competitors marketing and taking that information into consid-eration, will achieve suitable company positioning among desired customer segments and power and consistency in their brand image (Kotabe & Helsen, 2007).

One area concerning marketing which sometimes is disregarded but still of significance, is that of being aware of how the companies com-petitors conduct marketing and how well they are doing in their ef-forts. According to Ries & Jack (2001), knowing why, what and how competitors position themselves is just as important as knowing your own position. Despite the simplicity of finding advertisement, an-nouncements and other marketing material from competitors "too many companies embark on marketing and advertising as if the com-petitor's position did not exist. They advertise their products in a vac-uum and are disappointed when their messages fail to get through" (Ries & Jack, 2001). Therefore guidelines and tools to acquire infor-mation about competitors marketing could be essential. Further that information needs to be analyzed and play a vital role when setting up own overall business or specific marketing strategies.

per-that market are somehow unique. Other industries, especially those which have reached a mature stage, assess that differentiation is no longer achievable. An important industry who has suffered from this philosophy is the banking industry. It was common among analysts and actors within the industry to assume that not much would change because much of what could be done was already done. But recent international trends, such as globalisation and the technologi-cal advances, has once again sparked the banking industry. Banks can no longer overlook environmental changes and apply an island mentality. Competitors activities need to be regarded and analyzed, especially those who are directed against the banks customers: mar-keting (Sessions, 2004). Competition among banks is not only vital for the progression of a specific bank. The overall economy of an in-dustrialised country depends on the ability to create incentives to en-trepreneurs and companies to invest in business projects. If not then the pace of innovation and growth would slow down (Cetorelli, 2001).

By conducting case studies of marketing executives in different banks regarding competing marketing awareness and competing marketing reaction we provide useful insight knowledge and work suggestions. This could further encourage the use of information about competitors marketing, thus lowering the probability of con-ducting improper marketing and market positioning.

1.2

Purpose

The purpose of our research study is to explore companies in the bank industry are aware and react to their competitors marketing ac-tivities.

1.3

Problem discussion

When it comes to issues related to the concept of marketing activi-ties problems concerning marketing made by competitors are dis-cussed. Most of the marketing literature mention the specific sub-ject, but still do not give a satisfactory discussion of the topic. Still it is assumable that, since most researchers have discussed the impor-tance of it, companies also acquire and somehow even reacted to competitor’s marketing. The first research question is therefore how companies in the banking industry become aware of competitor’s marketing.

 How do large Swedish banks acquire information about com-petitors marketing activities?

If finding banks that are aware of competitor’s marketing is achieved, it could be interesting to know how they make use of the information acquired from the awareness process and how it affects their marketing. The second research questions will then provide

in-formation to create a suitable setting of work suggestions on how they react to that awareness.

 How do large Swedish banks react to the information about competitors marketing activities?

1.4

Problem delimitation

When initiating our research study we had the ambition to interview companies from different industries. But most of the companies who were willing to participate were banks and since the analysis and conclusions were made out of the empirical findings we delimited the respondents to banks only.

A reason for why we decided to focus on large banks was because they have the resources to react against strategic moves made by a competing company. Even though small and medium sized banks struggle with competitor’s marketing as well, they often cannot af-ford to dedicate a whole division working on countering for example a surprise campaign from their competitors. Larger companies also have an extended division of labour, making them more able to focus and develop knowledge and strategies within the area.

We also decided to select Swedish banks as our research respon-dents because there is a huge amount of large banks and we needed to narrow it down and find a focus group within this category. Swedish companies seemed suitable because of the accessibility and therefore we will delimit our research to them. Further to conduct our case studies we wanted to conduct interviews in which we could be physically present. Therefore all of the selected respondents work at the banks offices in Jönköping.

1.5

Interested parties

Since we delimited our research to large Swedish banks our main in-terested parties exist in the same category. Because since we have delimited our research study towards them the conclusions are more valuable to them also. Other companies in Sweden, whether large or small, who also want to become more active within the area of search may find our results useful. Academic institutes and re-searchers may find use in our study since it expands the understand-ing of competitors marketunderstand-ing and raises a discussion of its impor-tance and how it could be further studied. Finally individual profes-sionals whom occupy positions which are concerned with marketing and competition could also find insight and ideas from our study.

1.6

Positioning

Previous research has touched the topic of competitor’s marketing by focusing on related areas. Amit et al (1988) studied conjectures when conducting competitor analysis, and Day et al (1988) compared customer-orientation and competitor-orientation as business strate-gies. Others, such as Theodorakioglou & Wright (2000), have con-firmed the importance of the topic. The most relevant and significant research study we found was Hanssens (2005) which conducted a quantitative study of 400 companies. They answered questions about how they react to different promotion attacks from competitors, tak-ing into consideration both short and long term aspects. From their research they have concluded several things, such as the importance of geographical location and the type of attack of the attacker when considering the reaction. The most interesting conclusions though are that most companies are passive to attacks, price is the most common counter tool rather than advertisement and that companies tend to focus their attention on strong attacks. The studies of Hanssens and Theodorakioglou & Wright research confirmed the opinion we had before writing our study that many companies lack strategies and a set of actions to react to competitors marketing. Their conclusions help us further in emphasising the fruitfulness of our research study and will also guide us when constructing the in-terview template for the case studies we performed and which we ex-plained later in this thesis.

2

Frame of reference

This chapter explains theories from the field of marketing from a general perspective. It then includes a section which describes the competition in the banking industry. Furthermore it discusses the concepts of competing marketing awareness and competing market-ing reaction with help of literature. It ends by explainmarket-ing how theo-ries were used when conducting our analysis of the empirical find-ings.

Before we introduce the concepts of competing marketing awareness and competing marketing reaction we included a section which gives an inclusive insight of the field of marketing. It explains marketing as a field by introducing relevant terms, give reasons to the importance of marketing from a business perspective and mentions general ac-tivities included in the field. Furthermore we described how the com-petition in the banking industry has changed in recent years and which implication it has meant when evolving their business doing and working with competitors. These two sections have highlighted the increasing importance of acquiring and reacting to competitors marketing. The two remaining sections focused and explain more thoroughly different concepts and methods included when regarding and working with competing marketing awareness and competing marketing reaction. The last section explained how the previous sec-tions provided us with understanding to compare and carrying out the analysis of the empirical findings.

Figure 2-1 Frame of References overview (own model).

2.1

Marketing

As a discipline the field of marketing is relatively new. Even though mechanisms of selling and pursuing customers have been in practice for many years, not until after the Second World War did it received proper attention. To quote Michael J. Baker (1995):

“The enigma of marketing is that it is one of man’s oldest activities

and yet it is regarded as the most recent of the business disciplines.”

In all marketplaces, especially where competition is harsh and cus-tomers are well informed, companies are forced to invest in their re-lationships with current and potential customers. Therefore market-ing is the function which more than any other deals with the aware-ness and care of the modern company (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005). As in all activities with predetermined goals and limited resources there has to occur some kind of task specialization and a distribution of responsibility areas. When those things occur a distance is created between division of the same organization and between the organiza-tion and external parts. The field of marketing is no exceporganiza-tion and to properly and effectively conduct marketing there has to a structure of management and objectives. Marketing as an area of work conse-quently applies a top-down approach, with a clear managerial orien-tation (Baker, 2005). For example in a manufacturing company the most product-knowledgeable individuals are probably the engineers, whom designed the products and constructed the machines to pro-duce them. While, in the same company, the most marketing-knowl-edgeable are the managers, especially those in head of the

market-ing department, since they have constructed and laid the vision for the marketing setting applied.

An important reason to reflect and discuss the importance of market-ing is because everyone, from individuals to groups, has performed marketing to some extent. It could be to sell a product or to sell themselves as professionals. The modern company cannot afford to refrain from engaging strategic marketing. Competitors will actively seek new methods to persuade customers that their products are better than the others, and a stand-by approach is not sufficient to survive, even though the company products are superior (McCarthy & Perreault, 1999). When adding the new economic conditions into the world of business, emerged by drivers such as increased use of infor-mation technology, rapid globalization, demand for ethical and social responsibility from the corporate world, the introduction of not-for-profit marketing and stronger, long-term business relationships among stakeholders, it further strengthen the argument of a coordi-nated and well-defined marketing strategy (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005). Some benefits of a well-managed and properly conducted marketing are: single source of marketing responsibility, effective-ness when selecting and targeting attractive market segments and better position to monitor competitive marketing activities and deter-mine response (Kotler, 1997).

To be in control of the marketing performed a marketing mix has to be constructed and constantly updated. A marketing mix is, in accor-dance with the customer segment chosen and the positioning de-sired, the policies selected and activities carried out to achieve the marketing vision. Two main requirements though, are management support and proper organizational structure. To fulfil those require-ments the company has to adapt itself to the needs and wants of the customer, thus achieving customer satisfaction. Therefore a whole different concept of business-doing needs to be applied: the market-ing concept, meanmarket-ing that the business purpose is not sellmarket-ing the product, but satisfying the customer (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005). A distinctive illustration of the selling and marketing concept is pre-sented in figure 3-4:

Figure 2-2 The selling and marketing concepts contrasted (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005).

After developing a marketing concept, a marketing program must be constructed, guided by the former, turning the concept into specific actions. The set of actions, better referred to as tools, can be classi-fied into four major groups commonly known as the Four P’s: prod-uct, price, place and promotion (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005).

2.2

Competition in the banking industry

Competition within the industry of banking has increased and changed over the last 20 years, especially in Europe. The introduc-tion of the Euro has had a stimulating impact in the competiintroduc-tion be-tween banks and the industry, which was much divided nation wise, was opened to external competitors (Gutierrez de Rozas, 2007). The era of globalization and information technology has changed the na-ture of the banking industry outside of Europe as well, since banks no longer can rely on national borders and regulations to protect es-tablished markets. They are forced to offer diversified products to stay competitive (BLS, 2007).

Still financial products can easily be imitated by established competi-tors and new entrants, thus undermining their importance. Further-more if loan terms and rents are much the same all over the industry then their significance decreases even more. To be able to establish long term relationships with customers, banks need to be available at all time at any place. Therefore geographical location remains the most crucial factor in the competition of the banking industry. As a result of growing competition banks become more specialized in their core markets at the expense of breadth, in particular regional offices. The captive market of large banks has shrunk, and made re-maining lending relationships more valuable. The natural conclusion is then for each bank to further specialize in its core relationships in order to protect its market share (Hauswald & Marquez, 2000). Boot

and Thankor (Hauswald & Marquez, 2000) agree since increased competition, either among banks, types of debt or from outside sources, will drive banks to invest more in relationship lending as this is the primary source of banks profit. But still one should no ex-clude the significance of product differentiation because specializa-tion will give rise to niche banks, with areas of expertise, and which will be better suited to satisfy certain kinds of customer segments. Consequently, large banks will have to both specialize and diversify their products to survive in the new competitive conditions (Hauswald & Marquez, 2000).

But these two strategies require an increased awareness of what customers are demanding and how others are reacting to customer needs. By acquiring a strategic insight of how competitors are work-ing banks could become better prepared for changes in the industry. Furthermore banks need to use that information to distinguish them-selves from competitors in order to gain an advantage and be seen as modern organization. Therefore the information gathered from the marketing department must not only focus towards the banks cus-tomers, but towards its competitors as well (Hayward & Broady-Pre-ston, 1998).

2.3

Competing Marketing Awareness

To be efficient a company must not only focus on customers but also on competing companies which are present in the global and local market, so that it may be prepared for the challenges and business openings in the near future. By studying competitor actions and re-actions, the business company could find guidance and be alerted of new trends and changes, and react in time. This will help the com-pany establish a competitive advantage and by that satisfying tar-geted customers better than the competitors (Aronson et al, 2007). The main process in the competing marketing awareness process is to identify the competitors, which requires some kind of competitor analysis. The aim of the analysis is to know accurately its competi-tor’s characteristics and their way of actions. From it the company will be able to select which competitors need to be attacked or avoided (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005). More important the competitor analysis will be of assistance in the company’s strategic planning, helping it avoiding mistakes arising from lack of knowledge about mistakes, strengths and opportunities from its environment (Aronson et al, 2007). The competitor analysis includes six sub steps:

 Identifying the company’s competitors: There are two

dif-ferent perspectives to identify competitors: industrial, the com-pany observes the firms which propose a product or service that are close substitutes for each other, and market, which

tries to identify competitors who want to satisfy the same cus-tomer need or have the same cuscus-tomer target.

 Determining competitors’ objectives: Each company has a

mix of objectives, but the importance is to know the signifi-cance of each of them. The company needs to know which of these factors (profitability, market share growth, cash flow, technological leadership, service leadership etc.) are crucial for their competitors.

 Identifying competitors’ strategies: The more similar two

different companies marketing strategy are (strategic group-ing), the more they compete. It is important for a company to analyse all the characteristic elements of the group and each member in detail (product quality, feature and mix, customer services, pricing policies etc.).

 Assessing competitors’ strengths and weaknesses: After

collecting data about goals, strategies and performance, the secondary data needs to be collected. That will help the pany to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the com-petitors. Secondary data is usually personal experience and hearsay, or surveys, with customers, suppliers and dealers. Moreover, a company can use benchmarking, which is compar-ing products and processes to those of their competitors or the leading company in other industries. By doing so a company can find some way to improve its competitiveness by enhancing quality and performance.

 Estimating competitors’ reaction patterns: In this step, the

company tries to profoundly understand how its competitors act and react. It wants to have a clear view of its competitors’ mentality and internal culture. The more knowledge about its competitor behaviour a company has, the better counter strat-egy it can develop to protect itself from them.

 Selecting competitors to attack and avoid: So far, the

com-pany has all the information about its competitors. Now it has to decide which ones to compete against and which ones to avoid. A company can class its competitors in two different ways: the strong or weak competitors, and the close or distant competitors.

An important issue concerning competitor analysis is how the com-petitors regard the company, since that is going to have a major im-pact on the marketing efforts made against the company by the com-petitors. Since competitors also have reaction functions, conjectures about each others reaction functions appear and thus affecting the shape of the company’s own reaction functions. Factors such as repu-tation and intuition may therefore be of importance. To assess com-petitor’s reactions the company needs information regarding the

in-dustry characteristics and conjectures about the company itself. A company is able to use a systematically analyze approach to study conjectures concerning rival’s behaviour. It could be done by gather-ing information concerngather-ing essential key indicators within the indus-try and of specific competitors, including demand curves, price and quantity. By analyzing the data patterns of competitor behaviour could be identified and used to construct the company’s own reaction functions, especially when determining price and production output (Amit et al, 1988). Eventually, in order to update the information about the competitors, a company should create a competitive intelli-gence system. It is a process which enables the company to be aware about the evolution of its competitors’ actions and reactions. The In-ternet is a proper tool to become and stay aware, since it often con-tains not just information but also opinions and complementary data (Aronson et al, 2007).

2.4

Competing Marketing Reaction

Two useful tools to analyze the information gathered from the com-peting marketing awareness are intelligent agents and data mining. An intelligent agent is a software tool which automates task pro-cesses which require intelligence. By being programmed to make certain decisions according to predetermined rules, the intelligent agent can make decisions from large knowledge databases, overcom-ing the problem of information overflow. An intelligent agent has, in comparison with other business intelligence systems, the ability to adapt to changes in the environment, making more accurate deci-sions (reactive). It can also take the initiative by itself and make goal-directed decisions (proactive). Another important characteristic of an intelligent agent is that it can communicate with others, such as soft-ware programs, humans and other intelligent agents. Data mining is a term to describe the discovery of knowledge in large databases. It could be seen as the overall process of finding patterns in the infor-mation gathered by the competing marketing awareness, and in which an intelligent agent could be used as a tool (Aronson et al, 2007).

When the competitor analysis has been done, a strategy of counter-ing, or avoidcounter-ing, needs to be developed. There are two main strategic alternatives that a company can adopt. The first is to invest in finding a competitive position in the targeted market, by applying one of three approaches (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005):

 Overall cost leadership: the company focus on the price,

tries to reduce it by dropping production and distribution costs.

 Differentiation: The company tries to be different from its

 Focus: The company tries to reduce its targets, by focusing in

only on a few market segments.

The second alternative is to conduct competitive moves, which in-cludes four different approaches (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005):

 Market leader: The company achieves the largest market

share; usually the leader determines price changes, new prod-uct introdprod-uctions, and the distribution coverage and promotion spending of competitors.

 Market challenger: This company is a runner-up, which

struggles hard to increase its market share. If successful, the challenger gains prestige and status.

 Market follower: A runner-up company, which wants to hold

its share without rocking the boat.

 Market nicher: A company which focuses the small segments

that competitors overlook or ignore.

Both strategies have the purpose of creating a sustainable competi-tive advantage. Since the substance of that term is disputed it needs to be seen as a process where a source of superior skill is identified then converted into a position advantage (e.g. lower costs). That will lead to a performance outcome, such as profitability. There are two main methods to asses an advantage, by either being competitor-cen-tred or by being customer focused. The first method is a constant comparison between the company and its competitors, including all aspects of business and culture. This could be concrete numbers, such as activities undertaken and their costs or by comparing divi-sions. It could also be done by performing a marketing audit that in-cludes among other things a SWOT-analysis. By comparing how the competitors are being viewed and how they would like to be seen by customers, a company may well identify the competitors believed, or aspired, superior skills. The information could guide the company when constructing their own business strategies and marketing mix. The second method focuses on the customers, its level of satisfaction and assumptions of future demands. By diagnosing and identifying superior skills, mixing and balancing a competitor and a customer method and appraising the measurement system companies may cre-ate competitive strcre-ategies which will allow them to crecre-ate sustain-able competitive advantages (Day & Wensley, 1988).

In their research study on how companies should react to defend their position from competitive new products, Hauser & Shugan (1983) recommend managers to decrease their marketing expendi-tures. They further argue that companies should focus on their own product quality rather than engaging in huge and expensive market-ing projects to protect their market shares. Robinson (1988) draws similar conclusions in his research of reactions to new entrants.

Commonly, he argues, companies either have no reaction or have a singular reaction. From the 115 cases studied he could not find any general characteristics or companies reacting in multiple ways. Even though his study focuses more on why reactions are limited it is in-teresting to see the connection between his and Hauser & Shugan’s research study. Both studies focus on new entrants rather than com-petitor’s marketing, still they conclude that reactions to comcom-petitor’s behaviour are not necessary. Instead, they claim, the company should focus more inwards and try to improve internal work, such as prod-uct quality.

2.5

Use of theory in our research study

As the first step in our analysis we discuss to what extent a competi-tor analysis is used by our respondents, if it is practiced to an ade-quate extent and if there are parts which could be improved or be in use in a better way. We also assess the importance of conjectures, how they are considered when building up an anti-strategy and mar-keting activities and how they are better dealt with. In the second step we compare to what extent competitive intelligence systems are constructed and how they are used. This step discusses more thor-oughly the use, importance and design of competing marketing awareness. The third step determines which kind of counter strategy and which focus methods (customer or competitor) are applied, why and which are their benefits and disadvantages. We also discuss how the counter strategies applied and applicable changes the nature of the competition between banks concerning specialization and diver-sification of products. Finally we determine the necessity of reactions to competitor’s marketing to either approve or reject the studies made by Hauser & Shugan (1983) and Robinson (1988). This step fo-cuses more on competing marketing reaction and its analysis part explains how it is applied by our respondents companies.

3

Method

This chapter explains the method of the research study we have con-ducted in order to answer our research questions. It presents differ-ent alternatives to the approaches and methods available and then selects and argues the one used for this research study.

3.1

Knowledge categories

Research studies are conducted to obtain knowledge, and the knowl-edge obtained depends on the purpose of the research. Knowlknowl-edge produced from research could be divided into categories. Robson (2007) has constructed a taxonomy with four different categories: de-scription, exploratory, explanatory and emancipating. Descriptive re-search gives a detailed picture of a situation or environment by de-scribing the facts gained from analyzing data. Exploratory knowl-edge is obtained when new fields of research are explored and thus creating new knowledge and facts. Explanatory knowledge is when knowledge from descriptive and exploratory studies is used to find answers to why a certain situation develops into a specific direction and which are the factors causing the development. The last cate-gory of knowledge according to this division is emancipation and it refers to knowledge brought forward about minority groups and their lifestyle. A purpose with this type of research is to diminish the discrimination about these groups and give them a stronger position in society. In our study we focused in creating descriptive knowledge by highlighting how competing marketing awareness and competing marketing reaction are practiced. With the results from a descriptive study contributions could be made to the bigger picture since gener-alization will not be made at least there could be some gaps filled and a path put out for future researchers to follow. We do this by col-lecting empirical data from respondents which work with the field of research. The accumulated information will provide us with the nec-essary insightfulness to reproduce and discuss their set of activities within the topic. This was an interesting way to proceed because it contributed with further knowledge about strategies and method ap-plied.

3.2

Research approach

Depending on the knowledge which is aspired to be gained from a re-search study, there are distinctive approaches to be applied. In order to select the most suitable alternative the strength and weaknesses, and the purpose have to be taken into consideration. The two most commonly used alternatives to approach theory are deductive and in-ductive. When performing research theories will be used to explain and generalize the problem which is being investigated. How the the-ories are developed depends on the kind of research conducted. The deductive approach is used when existing theory produce a hypothe-sis, which is used to compare with empirical findings. After the com-parison the hypothesis will be modified according to the results. The new hypothesis will be again compared and this pattern continues until a hypothesis that holds is created. The deductive approach is of-ten used to test if there is a relationship between two variables and what kind of relation it is (Ruane, 2006: Saunders et al, 2003). The

data is collected and analyzed. This will result in the creation of new theory, according to the result of the analysis (Saunders et al, 2003). To this research study we used a combination of both research ap-proaches. Before collecting the empirical findings we read articles and literature related to our topic. These were summarized into the chapter called Frame of reference, but it did not produce any hypoth-esis. After the empirical findings were analyzed they were compared to theories and developed existing knowledge. This knowledge was then used to create the research questions.

3.3

Data collection

During the process of collecting data it is important to remember the purpose and type of study being conducted. There are different methods for collecting data, used by different purposes and enlight-ening different kind of knowledge. There are two main directions of methods available to gather data and they are qualitative and quanti-tative methods. Qualiquanti-tative methods have a primary purpose of un-derstanding. The goal is not to generalize but to create a more pro-found understanding. Quantitative method demand more control and planning from the researchers’ side since quantitative research deals with a more numerous data collection. The questions are formulated in a way that gives more concrete answers, while in qualitative re-search the questions are not as specific. Therefore the size of qualita-tive data collection is more limited but contains a deeper under-standing of the subject. In our research study we applied a qualita-tive research method by using a smaller sample to generate more in-dept understanding of the research area (Holme & Solvang, 1986). The research methods applied by the three articles (Armstrong & Kotler, 2005; Baker, 2005; and McCarthy & Perreault, 1999) which we ex-plained in the first section of this chapter all were within the qualita-tive approach, indicating that it is the most suitable for the topic. The ability to thoroughly understand and explain the area of research is of most importance to us and we therefore needed to be able to build confidence with our selected respondents and perform case studies of their situations.

Beside qualitative and quantitative, a research method could also be described in terms of modification. It could either be flexible, more flexible in nature and changes according to the conditions of which data is collected, or fixed, planned and predictable (Robson, 2007). To our research we had a clear purpose and we did not change the method applied either, because it was suitable. But when we started to contact the selected respondents we had to make modifications to the purpose and delimitations of the study. The reason was because the respondents were all working within one industry and therefore had to focus the research towards them. This research study there-fore falls under the headline of a flexible research method.

Furthermore the data collected could be classified according to pri-mary or secondary data, depending on the source of which it has been gathered from. Primary data is collected from respondents which the researches have selected from the criteria of suitability. This kind of data collection leads to a closer relationship between the researchers and with both the field of research and the source of in-formation. The reason is because it often involves interviews and presence of some kind. Secondary data is information which has been collected from previous research studies and has been made available for the current study. The shape of secondary data could be reports and literature presenting theories concerning the relevant topic (Holme & Solvang, 2001). For this study primary data has been collected through case studies and secondary data through a litera-ture study.

3.3.1 Case studies

Since our research study aimed at collecting descriptive data we used case studies to carry it out. The purpose of a case study is to de-scribe a field in its own situation and several could be conducted to collect more findings in order to compare it to theories. A case study is most useful when deeper understanding is wanted but the time available is limited (Yin, 1994). By conducting several case studies of different large Swedish banks we were able to give a broad coverage of how they work with competitors marketing activities. Even though a main purpose of case studies is profound knowledge we use this kind of study for a descriptive purpose. The reason is because of the time limitation and the ability to generalise from several case stud-ies, which will provide us with knowledge and discussions of how and why competitor’s marketing should be analyzed.

We made our case studies by conducting interviews with a well se-lected group of companies, thus finding common denominators and differences. Interviews are suitable methods to gather useful infor-mation when conducting a research study. According to Saunders et al (2003) an excellent interview should be carried out like an ordi-nary conversation between two individuals. The interviews should also have a clear and predetermined purpose and the persons in-volved should consist of one informant part and one learning part. Still they should have the flexibility to evolve on its own since the re-spondents can reveal unexpected areas of knowledge. To our inter-views we wanted to describe a field which our respondents are more familiar and have more in-depth knowledge about. Therefore we did not want to control what was being said or interfere too much when the respondents were answering our questions. In accordance with our requirements a semi-structured approach was used, which refers to having some standard questions to begin with but still not re-stricted to specific questions. Other interview types are structured, where the questions are fixed and un-modified, and un-structured,

where the questions are neither set nor predetermined (Saunders et al, 2003). The most important advantage with semi-structured inter-views is that we had the freedom to proceed in different directions, by asking supplementary and complementary questions, depending on the respondents. We were able to present the empirical findings in a way which we may not have thought of from the beginning. An-other important trait of qualitative, semi-structured interviews is that the respondent is allowed to use the language which he or she finds most suitable and flexibility to either go deeper or breadthways when carrying out the interviews (Bang, 1999). This trait is another reason for why this approach suited our study since it is important that the interviewee feels comfortable and relaxed.

We constructed the interview templates by first developing questions which introduced and explained the respondents and his or her posi-tion. We then aimed at asking questions concerning the overall mar-keting performance and continue with questions regarding their competitors. These questions gave us a general understanding of the company’s marketing and if and how they are aware of their com-petitors. We then combine the two fields, as in accordance with our purpose, and asked questions related to competing marketing aware-ness and competing marketing reaction. The four sections include questions which allowed the respondent to explain the subject thor-oughly and add further information which he or she found relevant.

3.3.2 Literature study

Before we collected our data we had to review literature and articles concerning our topic. This process, which sometimes is referred to as a literature study, includes finding, examining and analyzing informa-tion that already exists (Theorell & Svensson, 2007). The collecinforma-tion of theories helped us expand our previous knowledge about the sub-ject matter and offered us concepts to compare with the empirical findings. We concluded the relevant concepts into what is the Frame of reference and all the sources there have been found through this process. We conducted the search for relevant literature and articles in an early stage of the research process and it continued while col-lecting the empirical data. We searched in multiple databases and search engines containing literature references, scientific journals, articles and informative web pages, and some examples are:

 BASE

 Directory of open access journals  Google scholar

 Libra Academic Search  Jstor.org

 Julia (Search engine provided by the university)

 Uppsats.se (Swedish database containing Bachelor’s and Mas-ter’s thesis)

In our search we used keywords that are related to competitors mar-keting and the banking industry, but also concerning research meth-ods to further expand the ability to set up our own, proper research method. The search words were in English and their Swedish equiva-lence. We either used them singularly or combined them with an-other key word in the search. Anan-other thing we did was to flexion the words into either singular or plural. The key words most frequently used to find theories and concepts about competitor’s marketing were:

 Activity  Acquire  Analysis  Audit  Awareness  Bank  Campaign  Competitor  Counter strategy  Intelligence  Marketing  Reaction  Advertising, commercial and promo-tion

3.4

Selection of respondents

The respondents selected for this research study were chosen from the main criteria of being large Swedish banks. We used the Euro-pean Union’s (EU) definition of a large company as limitation. The EU has several definitions and we used the one who is not industry specific, which is a company having more than 499 employees and an annual turnover higher than 12.8 million Euros (Loecher, 2000). In Sweden there were a total of 127 banks in 2003 and the largest were (Nilsson, 2004):  Danske Bank  Handelsbanken  Länsförsäkringar  Nordea  SBAB  SEB  Skandia Banken  Swedbank

Danske Bank is, as it name reveals, a Danish bank and therefore fell outside the delimitations of the study. Länsförsäkringar, SBAB and Skandia Banken were not included into the list of selected respon-dents either because they are not traditional banks in the sense that they do not work and operate in the same way as banks with for ex-ample offices. Therefore they may have other opportunities and re-strictions in their business doing and marketing. In accordance with the delimitations of the study and to select respondents which read-ers may consider as proper, traditional banks we chose to perform case studies on the Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB and Swedbank. The respondents and the companies they work in are presented in chapter 4. This kind of respondent sampling could be considered as

something which Patton (1990) refers to as purpose-full sampling, meaning that we worked with a small amount, but informative re-spondents. In this kind of sampling the significance lies in selecting information rich cases to study in-dept. Another category of sampling that could describe our work is opportunistic sampling. Opportunis-tic sampling means that researchers choose the simplest way to se-lect their research respondents. This could be considered as a con-tradiction to purpose-full sampling because the later one requires a proper analysis of the respondents needed. But by choosing large and international banks we argue that they provide the necessary in-formation for us to make proper conclusions and our way of sampling is probably a combination of both. Furthermore it is common to sam-ple by convenience. Even though it is not the most desirable way to go about, a usual way of reasoning among qualitative researchers is that because the samples are too small to generalize from it does not matter if it is random and researchers can choose the sample which is most suitable for them (Patton, 1990).

All of the selected respondents work at the regional head offices in Jönköping. That could be considered a problem since the remarks concluded from the empirical data will be generalised for the whole bank and for other companies as well. But since they are the largest, most popular banks in Sweden and the questions asked in the inter-views focus on the work made throughout the company the remarks reflect their overall culture and strategies concerning competitor’s marketing. Furthermore we exclude remarks which are only applica-ble in Jönköping and are not done by other regions as well.

3.4.1 The interview questions

The interview template constructed to carry out the interviews and extract necessary and sufficient information from the respondents were produced by dividing the interviews into section and then dis-cussing relevant questions to ask in each section. The sections and their respective reasons were the following:

 Introduction: Reveals background information about the re-spondent and the bank which he or she works in.

 Marketing and competitors: Would give an idea of the work being made concerning the own marketing, competitors and the competitor’s marketing.

 Competing Marketing Awareness and Competing Marketing Reaction: These two sections give information regarding the two work areas being performed by the banks, how they are being taken into consideration, and relevant thoughts and dis-cussions from the respondent.

3.4.2 The interview processes

To contact the respondents in charge of the marketing we went to the banks’ main branches in Jönköping. In the reception we ex-plained who a proper respondent could be and were given telephone numbers to individuals in charge of marketing. It was sometimes difficult to find a person who could participate in the case studies be-cause the people we spoke to claim that not much could be said about the subject or that the marketing executive was not the most suitable respondent. For the four banks included we managed to find suitable employees to interview and we contacted the selected re-spondents and explained the purpose of the research study that was being conducted. We also emailed the interview template so that the respondents could prepare themselves before the interview. The re-spondents answered by confirming their interest and replying with date and time to perform the interview. The interviews were carried out in their offices with the respondents and the two of us present. They lasted for approximately 20 minutes each and were held once with each respondent. We brought copies of the interview templates and asked each question directly to the respondents. They replied with simple answers to the introduction questions but to the other sections they themselves gave further information. The setting was casual even though they took place in their professional environ-ment. While one of us wrote down notes and interesting or important sentences the other asked and discussed the questions in the inter-view template. We asked several complementary questions since on several occasions the respondents were willing to reveal more than expected. Before the interviews we had the opinion that since it is a sensitive subject we are studying the respondents would not want to tell too much. But we quite early realized that they did not hesitate to talk about specific methods or issues and therefore took advan-tage of the situation by asking more insightful questions. While ask-ing the questions the respondents asked us back about what we meant with the questions revealing a difference in the terns used to certain activities. Most of their definitions were developed by them-selves and to several minor, separate activities they did not include them in a broader context. With the complementary questions we still managed to absorb those activities and create a mutual under-standing of what was being discussed. When the interviews were about to finish we were asked when the thesis was going to be fin-ished, which other banks were participating and what the result of it may be. This revealed to us an apparent interest in our research study and how much more could be studied since even though they worked with these matters they still longed for more information.

3.4.3 Avoiding bias

A common problem that might occur when you do your research is biasness. There is no certain way to take to completely avoid it but

there are some actions you can take to minimize the risk of biasness in the paper. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, have created a checklist with nine points to follow to avoid bias in qualitative interviews since this research is based on qualitative interviews this seemed suitable to use when checking the paper for bias. The first point state that you need to gain knowledge about the organization you are going to interview (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). This was done by going through the information on the companies homepages and also we needed to check if the company fulfilled the criteria’s for being an interviewee. Second point is that you should supply the interviewee with relevant information before the interview (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). When we first contacted the interviewees we in-formed them about the thesis that we were writing and what the sub-ject of the interview was and how the information gained by them would be used. When they had confirmed that they would participate in the interview we send the interview questions to the interviewee so they could prepare themselves for the interview. The next point deals with the appearance at the interview (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). You should wear cloths that would make you blend in at the setting for the interview. Since both of us dressed properly without t-shirts with inappropriate text or strong political message it would qualify as appropriate also since the interviewees did not re-act on our clothing or seemed uncomfortable in any way. When start-ing the interview the first few minutes decides in what direction the interview would proceed it is crucial here to gain there trust and in-terest in the subject this is often done by starting with some overall questions about the interviewee him/herself or about the organiza-tion (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). In our case we started of in this manner as well but we also opened up for the interviewee to ask some questions about us, what we study and what plans we have after the studies. This seemed to have a good effect on the intervie-wees since they all answered the questions we posted even those we feared would be a little sensitive. Clear formulations when asking questions are important so that the interviewee can give a straight answer. This reduces the bias by reducing the chance of misunder-standing and also miss interpretation since the answer is clearer as well (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). To avoid the risk of bias from this perspective as is written in a previous paragraph we send out the questions before the interview was conducted so that the in-terviewee would know what kind of information we were looking for and when posting the questions a calm and clear voice was used and further explanations were provided when needed. Next point deals with the behavior of the interviewer. Body language and tone of voice are important since small details can make big differences (Saun-ders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). At the interviews we did not pay to much attention on not having our arms crossed or sending similar negative signals since the situations itself and our genuine interest kept us from sending this signals instead the open posture that is

is important for a good interview. The interviewer should look for sig-nals and changes in the tone of voice to interpret the interviewee and give the interviewee time to answer questions in their own way. To show the interviewee somehow that you listen to the answers they give is important to keep them comfortable and stay willing to pro-vide information (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). A way that was used during these interviews to show that attention was paid was by asking follow up questions at the right time about the right things in order to get the respondents to develop the answers in a certain direction. Then we summarized and let the respondent know what information has been gathered and that it was interpreted it in line with what the he or she said.

The last point is to create a full record of the data as soon as possible and not wait until a later opportunity since you might mix the infor-mation with other respondents as well as forget certain details about behavior and so on (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). This point was followed very carefully after the interview we wrote down every-thing down at once.

3.5

Analyzing data

There are different ways of analyzing data depending on what kind of answers ought to be extracted from the empirical findings. The chal-lenge for researchers is that they face problems when analyzing huge quantities of, or hard to understand, information in their empir-ical findings. We used a template analysis approach to structure our interview questions, which allowed us to conduct a proper analysis of our empirical findings. A template analysis is conducted by categoriz-ing the empirical findcategoriz-ings into specific sub-sections. This allows a di-vision of data, making the process of analysis simpler (King, 2004). The predetermined sections were extracted from the different sec-tions of our interview templates, which are marketing and competi-tors, competing marketing awareness and competing marketing re-action. The first section gave a general understanding about the knowledge the respondent has concerning the marketing strategies and activities applied by both the own company and by the competi-tors. The second section more profoundly examined the activities and tools used by the respondents company to acquire information about competitors marketing efforts. The last section described how that acquired information affects the respondents company when it comes to setting up own marketing activities.

3.6

Trustworthiness

Despite the method selected to conduct a certain research study there are always weaknesses and restrains. The problem with quali-tative studies is that they affect both the researcher and the research object, thus changing the environment of the study. It is also hard for the researcher to interpret the behaviour of the research object since it might be a before unknown character that they are trying to read. For qualitative studies there are neither tests to check the validity nor clear rules for how to go about to proceed. Instead researchers need to interpret and present the empirical findings as objectively as possible (Patton, 1990). Critics of the qualitative studies claim that it has too many opinions, subjective interpretations and lack of struc-ture to be able to make accurate conclusions (Bryman, 2001). It would probably be hard for other researchers to re-conduct this study, even if the exact same method is applied. Even though similar-ities in the outcome could be possible, a hermeneutic approach would still limit the probability and extent of it. Instead of reliability and generalisability, qualitative studies should focus in achieving trustworthiness instead. The criterion of trustworthiness implies that it is attainable only by examining it throughout the whole research study, and not only the empirical findings (Patel & Davidson, 2003). By explaining broadly and arguing for the method applied and con-clusions made we claim that the trustworthiness is high, especially regarding the purpose and research questions. We also sent the in-terview templates in advance and the selected respondents were able to prepare themselves for the interviews. Additionally by asking the appropriate questions to proper respondents, we claim that the empirical findings will be relevant. The conclusions made will be in accordance to the analysis of the empirical findings, thus increasing the trustworthiness of our study since there will be an absolute con-nection between the practice of competing marketing awareness and reaction and the statements made by us. Furthermore we apply two strategies recommended by Creswell (2003), to increase the trust-worthiness even more. The first is to clarify the bias, meaning a self-reflection about the work and information gathered. The second is to present “negative” information from our findings and not only the “positive” (Creswell, 2003). When discussing the generalisability with the research study performed we understand that there are lim-itations with interviewing personnel working with regional market-ing. Since the questions asked will focus on the marketing conducted from the entire company on a national basis we argue that the an-swers and methods identified will be useful for more companies than the selected respondents. Even companies not working within the banking industry could find guidance and support to set up strate-gies within the field. Each companies’ specific situation will deter-mine the need of the different strategies we include in our conclu-sions.

4

Empirical findings

In this chapter the answers given by the research respondents to the interview questions are related. It first presents the respondents and the company he or she works in and then it presents the interviews by sorting them by subsections.

As mentioned in the previous section we decided to interview the four most popular banks in Sweden, which are:

 Handelsbanken  Nordea

 SEB

 Swedbank

The fact that the four persons participating in the interview does not have the same position in there companies should not be a problem because even thought their positions have different name these are the ones taking care of the companies marketing for this region. Af-ter we collected the empirical findings we discussed how the mate-rial was going to be presented. Since we decided to use a template analysis to analyze our findings we thought the most proper way was to write it down in the same way. The four case studies are therefore not laid out company wise but section wise, with first an introduction section and then a reproduction of each of the remaining sections. At the end of the chapter we have included a table with important notes from each section. These notes are the recorded data that the au-thors of the thesis have collected although it should be mentioned

that no recorder was used and the data below is a summary of the notes taken by the authors.

4.1 The respondents and the companies

Company Handelsbanken

Respondent Claes Ericson

Position Executive Bank Manager

Date 2008-03-14

Tabel 1 Claes Ericson, Handelsbanken

Claes Ericson is an executive bank manager at the office in Jönköping. Together with four other executives he manages all busi-ness activities made on a regional level. Handelsbanken is a univer-sal bank, meaning that it offers services covering whole banking field. The bank has offices in 21 countries, employing more than 10 000 people. Recently Handelsbanken has expanded extensively into nearby countries, increasing its turnover to almost 2 000 billion SEK (Handelsbanken, 2008).

Company Nordea

Respondent Hans Larsson

Position Office Manager

Date 2008-03-11

Tabel 2 Hans Larsson, Nordea

Hans Larsson is the manager for the Nordea bank office placed in central Jönköping. He has been working for six years and also man-ages another Nordea bank office placed outside downtown Jönköping. Nordea is either number one or number two of largest banks in Sweden, depending on which kind of service provided is compared. It has almost 10 million customers and 32 000 employees working in over 1 300 bank offices around northern Europe. Nordea had a turnover of 3 763 million Euros in the year of 2007, and of which more than 10 percent came from outside of Sweden (Nordea, 2008).

Company SEB

Respondent Johan Eek

Position Nordic Retail and Private

Bank-ing Executive

Date 2008-03-18

Tabel 3 Johan Eek, SEB

Johan Eek works as executive for the Nordic Retail and Private Bank-ing office in the JönköpBank-ing region, meanBank-ing that he is manager for all issues concerning the business doing made by SEB in the region. SEB is a Swedish bank with offices in northern Europe, India and Singapore. The bank has around 600 offices, and most of the 20 000 employees are situated outside of Sweden. The turnover 2006 was al-most 2 000 billion SEK (SEB, 2008).

Company Swedbank

Respondent Michael Möller

Position Marketing Director

Date 2008-03-18

Tabel 4 Michael Möller, Swedbank

Michael Möller is the marketing director for Swedbank in Jönköping. He is responsible for executing marketing campaigns decided from the central office. Swedbank has almost a thousand offices around northern and eastern Europe. With its 22 000 employees it had a 1 608 billion turnover in 2007 (Swedbank, 2008).

4.1

The Interviews

4.1.1 Marketing and competitors Handelsbanken

Handelsbanken is a decentralized bank, and every bank office should be able to manage itself. Therefore all marketing activities are per-formed solitary, besides some marketing campaign made on a na-tional or internana-tional level. At Handelsbanken the marketing philos-ophy is to ably a service oriented business doing. It is believed that general marketing efforts will not attract new customers. Instead specific campaigns, targeting precise customer segments, are used. These are often carried out by sending out letters to customers,