Bright Penny

About Bright Penny

Bright Penny is a new qualitative agency, focused in the financial services sector.
Whether you are developing a new proposition, segmenting your audience or launching a campaign,
customer insight is critical and we have a proven track-record in uncovering what customers do, what they think, feel and say.

Bright Penny is a new research offer from an established and expert insight provider.
It focuses on financial services and provides senior qualitative consultancy led by James Bance.
With over 10 years working with major financial services brands, Bright Penny has the experience and qualitative skills to provide insight consultancy across the marketing, product development and customer journey cycles.

At Bright penny We:

Understand

Understand client situations, their challenges and their opportunities.

Bring

Bring clients closer to target audiences through qualitative insight consultancy.

Deliver

Deliver insight at a senior level into client organisations.

Provide

Provide financial services customer research expertise.

What we do:

We answer business questions through customer insight.

What are my customer’s real needs in this product category?

Who are my customers?
What are they like?
What expectations and attitudes drive this category?

How do I know my concept is relevant and appealing to the target group?

How do I position my product against the competition in its category?

What messages should I use?

What claims and reasons to believe will resonate with my target customers?

Approaches we use:

We deliver customer insight that is compelling, business-focused, enjoyable and entertaining. We use older and newer research methods – some of which we pioneered in financial services. Methods like groups, depths, ethnography and bulletin boards are useful means to an end. Underlying these methods we exercise core principles in insight gathering and delivery:

Research design that balances effectiveness and efficiency.

Samples that reflect your current and prospective audiences.

Fieldwork conducted by experienced and specialist researchers.

Analysis that’s grounded in the evidence but not trapped by it.

Disaggregation of responses to draw out differences where these occur.

Vivid reporting that tells stories you’ll

want to hear.

How we work:

From our long experience of delivering insight to major brands we have certain commitments because we know they will give the best result:

We do

We do pay close attention to your aspirations and your research needs and design solutions that

address these.

We don’t

We don’t give you a templated approach just because that makes business easier for us.

We will

We will challenge your thinking, constructively but scrupulously, so that the research is as clear, and targeted and actionable as possible.

Testimonials

"I rate James very highly for his level of penetrating insight, allied to his ability to understand how research fits with client needs. I've worked with him on several combined qualitative / quantitative projects and his 'value added' usually goes well beyond the qualitative phase. A valued member of any team."

Gordon Blunt, Gordon Blunt Analytics

"James wasn’t a contractor he was like a temporary colleague: he understood our business and our people so when it came to presenting back to us it was clear and focused and perfectly tailored. A pleasure to work with."

Claire Peate, Market Research Manager, Gocompare

“James hit the ground running with us, expertly using his years of experience to quickly and shrewdly understand the business and our requirements. His handling of stakeholders and respondents alike was calm and reassuring, securing the confidence of both groups. Strong communication and a predisposition to collaborative deconstruction of insights helped us to get a far clearer picture of a complex group of customers. A consummate professional and thoroughly nice chap to boot, I look forward to working with James again in the near future."

Larry Brangwyn, Lead User Experience Consultant, City Index

"In the past nine years, I have lost count of the number of focus groups, depth interviews and workshops I have commissioned James to run on a range of studies. James understands the financial services industry inside-out, and his opinion and challenge is always valued. James tunes into business requirements and designs practical research that can be accomplished within operational constraints. His debriefs are always extremely useful, insightful and, as James delivers findings and recommendations with enthusiasm, they are usually a lot of fun. James manages stakeholders well and he adapts his style effectively to meet the needs of his audience."

Linda Howard, Halifax and Metro Bank

"Even at an early stage, where aspects of the proposition were still being worked through, James quickly understood our needs and challenged our thinking, which was important to the success of the project."

Joe Bennett, Senior Manager, Customer Insight, Charities Aid Foundation

Who we are

James Bance is founder of Bright Penny and brings his experience, qualitative skills and sector knowledge together to help clients answer key questions across the marketing and product development spectrum. He got the research bug many years ago, going from client to cross-sector researcher and for the last 12 years has specialised in financial services including retail banking, insurance, investments, wealth audiences, b2b and regulatory. At GfK, he led the development of new qualitative approaches in researching financial services and co-founded the Qualitative Centre of Excellence. He has debriefed results at Board level in commercial and public sector organisations. When required, James can call upon the assistance of experienced qualitative researchers who also have a thirst to understand your customers and the world they live in.

our track record

James has personally delivered to a wealth of financial services clients, including:

Contact Form

For any enquiry please contact James Bance:

+44(0)79 50580 955