Faculty
Thyra Uth Thomsen, Diana Storm

Course Coordinator
Thyra Uth Thomsen

Course progression

Consumer Behaviour is a foundation course on the Marketing Communication Management line and runs concurrently with Strategic Brand Management.

Course period:
Weeks 37-45

Class hours:
Four class hours once a week

7,5 ECTS

The key aim of the course is to gain an understanding of the consumers and their responses to brand communication as an input into the decision-making processes of the marketing communication / brand manager. Consumers are and have been the central focus of brands since their emergence at the end of the 18th Century. The brand promise (and identity) has been the manufacture's (now service / value providers’) attempt to achieve desired consumer responses, but it is the consumer's response to brands to determine, whether a brand is successful or not. The subject of consumer behaviour aims to give you an in-depth insight into the influences, reasonings and outcomes of consumer behaviour, from a broad cultural understanding of consumption behaviour to a cognitive understanding of consumer decision-making. It deals with the crucial issues of, why consumers buy what they buy and how marketers may respond to this.

Consumers can be understood in many ways depending on how we look at them. The course introduces the student to different approaches to understanding consumer behaviour: behavioural, experiential, cultural and cognitive approaches. It examines the assumptions underlying each of these approaches, their strengths and limitations in relation to the decision processes of marketing managers. Through the course the student is introduced to ways of analysing consumer behaviour and repercussions for developing branding programmes and strategies. Key trends in consumer behaviour are discussed and students are encouraged to apply this knowledge to actual products and services.

Indicative Literature

Arnold, Price, Zinkhan (2005). Consumers, McGrawHill.