摘要：

When Charles Merrill of Merrill Lynch & Co. decided to return to the financial services sector in 1940, he relied heavily on the data and the recommendations generated by Ted Braun's management consulting and public relations firm. Based on the information in other published public opinion polls and from a confidential survey of the customers of a single branch office, Braun presented a sweeping reorganization plan that was to be coordinated with an aggressive marketing and advertising program. Initially skeptical, Merrill soon accepted the logic of Braun's grand design to reinvigorate the firm; the new focus was on the solicitation of millions of upper middle class households that typically owned life insurance policies but few, if any, common stocks. The fruits of market research made a huge impact on Merrill Lynch; and the brokerage firm, in turn, made a tremendous impact on the development and maturation of the American financial services sector in the post World War II era.

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