Con­sumer Cul­ture and Mar­ket­ing

Course content

Course Content and Aims

This course will introduce undergraduate students to the principles of marketing management, to socio-theoretical perspectives on the consumption process, and to how marketing management can successfully create solutions to the various challenges of the consumption process (NN3 and 4).

The course starts with a block of meetings that will show how managerial marketing strategy identifies and attempts to shape consumer attitudes and behaviours in order to create goods and services in a manner that is both financially, socially and environmentally sustainable (NN 7). A key aspect of the course will be the discussion of various sociological and cultural approaches to the understanding of consumer markets, consumer behaviour and the active role of consumers in co-creating contemporary markets, which is what marketing management needs to take into consideration (NN4).

In the following block, the managerial views will thus be juxtaposed with socio-theoretical approaches to consumption, namely consumer culture theory (CCT), critical theory and consumers as active co-creators of value, Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approach to taste and symbolic consumption, and approaches associated with the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) tradition that interprets markets as performed by theory and by agencements of human and non-human actors (NN1).

The final block introduces basic principles of qualitative consumer research as a key managerial method that helps develop responses to changes in society and culture. In this block, students will leave the classroom and conduct a field trip to observe a daily consumption practice in situ. This exercise is designed to enhance students’ problem-solving capacity by helping them put into practice the theoretical insights they gained during the previous meetings. Further, the exercise enables students to develop skills that lead to the creation of more sustainable business solutions in a competitive market environment. After the field observation, students will meet for an additional studio-based workshop to discuss their insights, interpretations, and proposals, as well as their understanding of the quality of the data they gathered (NN2).