Durham University
Programme and Module Handbook

Postgraduate Programme and Module Handbook 2018-2019 (archived)

Module BUSI42515: Consumer Insights

Department: Business School (Business)

BUSI42515: Consumer Insights

Type Open Level 4 Credits 15 Availability Available in 2018/19 Module Cap
Tied to N1K607
Tied to N1K807
Tied to N1K507
Tied to N1KL07

Prerequisites

  • None.

Corequisites

  • None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

  • None.

Aims

  • To provide a comprehensive introduction to the specialist concepts and paradigms in consumer insights research and their role in contemporary marketing practice.
  • To develop advanced empirical skills in consumer behavioural analysis.
  • To equip the student with the advanced conceptual and practical skills needed to successfully formulate and implement customer-centric marketing management decisions.

Content

  • Historical Perspectives on the Consumer - psychodynamic, behaviourism, social-cognitivism
  • The Brain Sell - marketing insights from contemporary neuroscience
  • Decoding the Purchase Decision - conscious and non-conscious information-processing
  • Shopping in 'Pilot Mode' - perception, attention, memory, learning and knowledge
  • Shopping on 'Autopilot' - heuristics, biases and marketing nudges
  • The Central Role of Emotions in Consumer Choice
  • New Perspectives on Consumer Goals and Motivations
  • Optimising the Path to Purchase
  • Using Consumer Insights - product/packaging design, brand optimisation, maximising advertising effectiveness, retail environments and atmospherics, shopper marketing, etc
  • Neuromarketing Research, Consumer Insights Data, and Ethical Marketing Practices

Learning Outcomes

Subject-specific Knowledge:
  • To have an advanced understanding and critical appreciation of customer responses to the products and services of everyday life, and to the marketing of those products and services.
  • To have a critical appreciation of the complex nature of the customer decision-making process and the methods of studying these processes, together with the challenges marketers face in seeking to influence that process.
Subject-specific Skills:
  • To have acquired the specialised skills needed to develop a comprehensive marketing communications strategy that is founded upon a grounded knowledge of how and why customers behave as they do.
Key Skills:
    Enhanced skills of: written communication; planning, organising and time management; problem solving and analysis; using initiative; computer literacy.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

  • The learning outcomes will be achieved through a combination of lectures, guided reading, and group discussion of case studies.
  • The assessment of the module, by written assignment, is designed to:
  • test the aquisition and articulation of knowledge;
  • test conceptual understanding and skills of application and interpretation within the business context.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Activity Number Frequency Duration Total/Hours
Lectures 10 weekly 2 hours 20
Seminars 4 fortnightly 1 hour 4
Preparation & Reading 126
Total 150

Summative Assessment

Component: Assignment Component Weighting: 100%
Element Length / duration Element Weighting Resit Opportunity
written assignment 2,500 words (max) 100%

Formative Assessment:

Practical exercises and experiments embedded within seminars, with continous feedback.


Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University