The Marketing of Robo-Advisory - A study of the marketing implications in automated investment services

Sammanfattning: Automated investment services is an emerging service niche within the consumer finance industry and is expected to have a significant impact on the industry structure. This innovative service is challenging multiple of the established characteristics of service marketing theory and existing conventions within the consumer finance industry. This study maps and measure the critical marketing aspects for this new service innovation through a mixed-method approach. Through an explorative research study including one of the few existing service providers in the field and its users, the major marketing implications within automated investment services are identified. These findings are tested through a confirmatory quantitative experiment involving 218 respondents. The final results reveal the importance of the service value proposition and the user's knowledge for consumers' innovation adoption intention. These results question the existing theoretical position of corporate credibility and puts it into context of digital service innovations. The study's findings generate interesting managerial implications regarding value proposition, market segmentation and customer targeting for practitioners within the growing field of automated investment services.