• Explain and apply the key terms, definitions, concepts and models used in the study of consumer behaviour.
• Differentiate between behavioural, symbolic, cultural and cognitive approaches to understanding consumer behaviour and the implications that this choice has on our interpretation of consumers' behaviour
• Demonstrate how as a marketer you can use your knowledge of consumer behaviour concepts to develop better branding programs and strategies to influence those behaviours.
• Describe and analyse key trends in consumer behaviour, and apply them in relation to the branding of actual products or services.
• Reflect incisively and critically over the underlying causes of the consumers’ behaviour
• Apply the tools, concepts and models presented in this course to problems related to brand management, marketing communications and other forms of marketing exchange
• Synthesise and deduce new models that can be used to predict phenomena relevant to the study of consumer behaviour

Aim of the course
The key aim of the course is to gain an understanding of the consumer 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 that determines 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.

Contents
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.

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

Compendium.