Consumer Behavior

Catalog description

We are all consumers. We buy groceries, computers, and cars. We purchase services ranging from bank accounts to college educations. However, we also differ from each other. We buy different clothes, drive different cars, and eat at different restaurants. Even the same consumer can make different decisions depending on the situation. So how are we to construct coherent marketing strategies? In this class we examine why consumers behave the way that they do. We will explore our intuitions about our own behavior, learn about theories developed in marketing, psychology, and sociology, and use these theories to predict how consumers will respond to marketing actions. The goals of this class are to acquire knowledge of a) a framework for analyzing consumer behavior problems, b) relevant psychological and sociological theories, and c) methods for studying consumer behavior and learn to apply this knowledge to measure what consumers believe and want, predict how consumers will react to different marketing strategies, and solve real-world consumer behavior problems.