Con­sumer Cul­ture and Mar­ket Seg­ment­a­tion

Course content

Consumers increasingly expect to be addressed and met on their own terms. This can only be achieved if businesses can handle complex insights into culturally diverse subgroups (segments) of consumers and their behavior across the global market place. The identity formation and thereby value formation of modern consumers are becoming increasingly complex due to their belongings to various local, national and global communities accessible via contemporary media technologies and the world-wide web. This implies that the key challenge to develop a successful marketing and communication strategy is to obtain a systematic understanding of the complex consumer segments and a decision-making mechanism of their preferences and choice of consumption behaviors.

The same applies to the policy making. For example, to overcome a challenge like the Covid-19 crisis, but also e.g., the long-term crisis on climate change, a socially responsible behavior is required. However, individuals’ attitudes to a crisis may substantially differ, and manifest itself in different behaviors. Therefore, a modern policy maker needs to differentiate messages suitable for respective target segments and seek to optimize their potential effects on the citizens’ responsible behaviors.

The course reviews theoretical concepts from three aspects: 1) consumer behavior; 2) consumer culture and psychology addressing personal values, beliefs and norms, and their relations with their attitudes and behavioral choices in our contemporary society; and 3) market segmentation, targeting and positioning addressing heterogeneity within-market and homogeneity across-markets.

The course will support students to design an empirical study by selecting (or combining) appropriate methods relevant to an identified research issue.