This course will introduce students to consumer behaviour. We will look at the different ways in which consumers make their purchasing decisions, what factors affect them, when and why, and how these factors vary when they buy different types of product. Understanding the nature of the consumer of your product and service will help you to focus your limited marketing dollars for maximum impact. In particular, we will look at the way in which technology (internet and mobile access) is changing consumer behaviour and, therefore, how best to reach this modern, typically younger, consumer.

Focus Your Marketing

By

Understanding Consumer Behaviour

A practical guide to stretching your marketing dollars.

Ron Ainsbury, Visiting Fellow

Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility

Cranfield University

  Time: 18:00 – 21:30
Dates: September 26-30, 2011

Lecturer

Ron Ainsbury (B. Sc. Honours Cape Town, M. Sc. Oxford, M. Phil. Oxford) has lived and worked in Asia and Australasia for 30 years and brings a wealth of hands-on experience and practical knowledge to the classroom.

He has been Managing Director of two successful marketing companies, Swedish Motors (Volvo) in Thailand and New Zealand Breweries (Steinlager) in Auckland, New Zealand.

As a business strategy consultant he has undertaken studies in a wide range of industries and countries (including the USA and Japan), working with some of the world’s leading brands, including Beck’s, Steinlager, Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Volvo, Toyota, Kimberly-Clark, Michelin, GE Motors, Maserati, Chrysler, Smirnoff, and Coca-Cola.

As a consultant based in Thailand, he assisted in the building of several new ventures, sat on various committees representing the foreign business community, and was a director of the Board Of Trade of Thailand for five years. Ron has helped many international firms build successful business teams in Asia helping them meet the cross-cultural challenges they face.

More recently, Ron completed seven years as Director of Corporate Relations for Diageo Australasia, where he had responsibility for Government, Industry, and Public Affairs, Corporate and Employee Communications, Brand PR, Diageo's Corporate Citizenship programme, and for developing Responsible Drinking programmes within Diageo and the local community.

He has taught business subjects to MBA students at leading Universities in Thailand: Thammasat, Chulalongkorn, Burapa, and Webster (US) University's Thai Campus, and supervised doctoral students at the University of South Australia's Thai Campus. He has also taught various management courses in Vietnam for Royal Education since 2001.

He was appointed a Visiting Fellow at the UK's Cranfield University in 2008 and continues to run his private consulting company Jacaranda (www.jacaranda-consulting.com) focusing on Sustainable Business Strategy.

Teaching Method

Lecturer

Ron has a very informal style of teaching. He says he doesn’t teach, rather he helps students learn! Thus, he expects the full participation of each student.

Of course he will use PowerPoint slides to present the main elements of consumer behaviour but most of the learning will be through case studies and field exercises.

Class Discussion and Homework

In class, students will be divided into small teams of four to six students.  Each team will be given a case study to analyse or some field exercise to undertake.

Course Objective

This course will introduce students to consumer behaviour. We will look at the different ways in which consumers make their purchasing decisions, what factors affect them, when and why, and how these factors vary when they buy different types of product. Understanding the nature of the consumer of your product and service will help you to focus your limited marketing dollars for maximum impact. In particular, we will look at the way in which technology (internet and mobile access) is changing consumer behaviour and, therefore, how best to reach this modern, typically younger, consumer.

Practical Project

Students will be encouraged to bring their own business examples to the class:

§ Details of their product and information about their target consumer

§ Current marketing or promotional mix (e.g., % on TV advertising, % on print or other advertising, % on PR, % on promotions)

We will look at each student example during the course and discuss whether a change of marketing mix would lead to a more effective use of $.

Content Overview

What do we mean by Consumer Behaviour? We will look at the five Ps of Marketing: Product, Price, Placement, Promotion, and People from the viewpoint of different types of consumers.

Course Outline

Day 1 – What do we mean by consumer behaviour?

How much do you know about your consumer and the way they make their purchase decision? We will look closely at the occasional buyer versus the everyday buyer.

Home exercise – purchase decisions made by you and your family.

Day 2: Stages of buying a new product, a consumer view of the product lifecycle

We look at early adopter buyers and the follower buyers and learn how different marketing works with each group.

Day 3 – Does advertising really help?

We look at the thoughtful buyer versus the impulse buyer and the influences of point of sale promotion, the importance of location, and range. A field visit is planned.

Day 4 – Quality: Does it matter?

Just what does quality mean to your consumer - can they tell the difference? How does this influence your marketing spend?

Day 5 – She’s buying, but she’s not the consumer