Quantitative Fund Manager

This large, successful, but little-known quantitative investment manager was preparing for the launch of a new investment strategy and sought to build brand awareness among institutional investors, consultants, and retail investment professionals. The firm’s chief executive engaged Gargiulo + Partners to develop a positioning platform, marketing messages, and materials for the new strategy.

Adding to the challenge was the firm’s need to explain its complex new active-extension strategy to prospects of varying degrees of financial sophistication. We began by assessing the firm’s reputational strengths and weaknesses, and its position relative to other quantitative managers offering the same strategy.

Upon completing the research, Gargiulo + Partners delivered some tough but critical information to the CEO: Many of the strengths touted by the client-facing professionals in the firm, while of indisputably high quality, were not differentiating but, in fact, baseline capabilities for any quantitative manager. Based on the distinctive strengths we identified, we were able to develop credible and compelling core messaging and brand positioning.

We then proposed a comprehensive program to advance that positioning. The program encompassed white papers, marketing presentations, retail collateral materials, new website content, and an FAQ document for the new active-extension strategy. As a final step, the CEO asked Gargiulo + Partners to develop the PowerPoint presentation, with speaker notes, to market the new strategy. The messaging was used as the basis for a brochure and other collateral materials in the program.