Defining the Problem:
Established in 1971 by Charles R. “Chuck” Schwab as a traditional, brick and mortar brokerage firm and investment newsletter publisher. Over the years Schwab has been know for providing discount self –service brokerage services to its clients. And after a little loss in connection with its clients during Mid 2004, Chuck began reengineering the company by implementing annualized cost reductions against an expense base. This lead to reduction of corporate brand marketing budget. After being convenience with Saeger thought process and hiring an advertising company for the development of the marketing strategy the company came up with the Talk to chuck strategy in the year 2005. Now the company has to decide whether to invest further in the ongoing marketing strategy of talk to chuck or not.
Recommendations:
1. In 2004, the company’s brand strength had started to decline. It had lost its perceived differentiation and its uniqueness to be known as a leading edge discount broker. It had become more like any other full service broker thereby losing its heritage value for which it is known for since the company’s inception.(As described by BAV study by Landor associates). Further, company’s existing brand advertising had been haphazard. Schwab’s client base was underweighted in the high touch segments and overweighed in the self-assured segment. All this and Ben Stuarts identification of pain points of investors and client satisfaction has led to the talk to chuck campaign and Chuck also gave his consent to this proposal after understanding the value system behind this strategy.
2. The company was very careful in its launch of the TTC strategy, as it intended leverage the informality of the company’s value system that is the Mr. Schwab who is known as “Chuck” who is a strong presence for the company and depicts the core value system that governs the company and its employees.