Consumer Psychology: Solving the Black-Box Mystery - Q3

Participation Prerequisites

No formal course prerequisites

Course Content

This course prepares students to be able to grasp and serve consumers’ needs as well as to influence their behaviors in a responsible manner by comprehending and applying key concepts of marketing management and modern psychology. Our topics include:

Timeless principles of consumer psychology

• What psychology is about at its core
• How consumers process (marketing) information
• Consumers’ hidden motives
• Consumers’ social ways of perceiving and thinking about the world
• Fundamental types of (consumer) thinking
• Powerful consumer heuristics

The psychology of branding

• How successful brand associations can be established
• Different avenues of learning about a brand

How environments impact consumers

• Framing inner questions
• Priming inner concepts
• Behavioral recommendations
• Direct behavioral shaping

Ways consumers can be influenced

• Critical role of consumer attitudes
• Direct experience
• Mere exposure
• Evaluative conditioning
• Selective exposure
• Persuasion

Identifying consumer segments and personas

• Market segmentation
• Consumer values
• Consumer personality
• Consumer lifestyle

Responding to how consumers make decisions

• Types and processes of consumers’ decisions
• Customer (decision) journey
• Marketing objectives and metrics

Intended Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Successful participation will convey competencies to

• distinguish central consumer needs,
• outline consumers’ decision-making processes,
• translate behavioral principles and consumer insights into marketing managerial decision making,
• identify key psychological properties of relevant customer target segments,
• formulate promising marketing communication objectives and design effective marketing initiatives.

Instruction Type

Presence

Form of Examination

Final written exam (60 %), participation in company workshop (10 %), one group presentation including submitted presentation slides of case study assignment (20 %), participation in interactive in-class exercises, typically when having an external guest speaker (10 %).