Paul Seabrook (pictured) examines the latest fast.MAP survey results.
Websites – whether independent, comparison or brand-owned – together continue to be people’s main financial service research routes, each used by around three out of ten consumers, according to new research.
Also revealed are people’s main reasons for selecting the financial brands they use – they include the [...]

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This year’s UK Product Of The Year Awards winners have been announced and the votes have revealed that consumers, feeling the financial squeeze, are giving up luxuries such as beauty products and takeaway coffees, in favour of multi-tasking products.
More than 9,000 consumers voted to determine the results of the 2012 Product of the Year survey, [...]

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Poland’s national postal service, Polish Post, has lost a key court battle against a private sector competitor it claimed was delivering mail in violation of the country’s monopoly protections.
The verdict of the district court in Krakow is open to a possible appeal, reports Post&Parcel.
Although Poland has to fully open up its postal market to competition [...]

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The latest Bellwether survey, published today by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), reveals that marketing budgets were revised up in Q4 for a second successive quarter, as companies sought to protect market share against competitors.  
With 20 per cent of companies reporting an upward revision compared to 19 per cent that reported a reduction, [...]

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The intense global media and regulatory scrutiny of the financial services industry is giving bank marketers pause for thought: many are re-evaluating and assessing the best way to communicate, maintain customer confidence and quickly respond to anxiety or fear, reports the international Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council in a new report released today.
Entitled, ‘Delivering Positive [...]

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Young directors setting up their own businesses have better survival rates when they partner with older directors.
Across the UK, the number of young entrepreneurs starting up on their own has increased by nearly a quarter (22 per cent) in the past three years, according to research by global information services company, Experian. However, almost half of these [...]

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Germans are much happier now than in the past. And the difference between eastern and western Germany has never been so slight. Hamburg is the happiest region in Germany; Thuringia the unhappiest. That is the result of the German Happiness Atlas 2011 (Glücksatlas Deutschland) – the first German happiness study commissioned by Deutsche Post.
Under the [...]

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Research has uncovered many reasons for marketers to be cheerful, says David Cole (pictured) – managing director of research company fast.MAP. 
A record nine out of ten UK adults now open their marketing mail, the highest number since fast.MAP launched the annual Marketing-GAP Tracking Study in 2005.
Add this to an increase in the number opening both [...]

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Annual research of marketers and consumers on the health of the direct mail industry, has found that DM can look forward to a strong performance in the next 12 months, despite the current economic gloom.  
The study for TNT Post UK shows that the positive outlook reflects a resurgence of spending on DM by financial [...]

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Germans are much happier now than in the past. And the difference between eastern and western Germany has never been so slight. Hamburg is the happiest region in Germany; Thuringia the unhappiest. That is the result of the German Happiness Atlas 2011 (Glücksatlas Deutschland) – the first German happiness study commissioned by Deutsche Post.
Under the [...]

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