Overview of Course

Effective marketing centers on understanding and satisfying customers’ needs and wants. In this course, concepts, theories, and frameworks will be used to understand buyer behavior and in turn formulate effective marketing strategies and tactics. While this course should help students better understand themselves as consumers, its primary objective is to provide students with a set of approaches, frameworks, and concepts that should be considered in marketing decision making. In addition, the course illuminates some of the positive and negative effects of business, and more specifically marketing, on consumers and society. It is designed to be a comprehensive course embodying lectures, class discussion, field assignments, and case studies. The focus of class activities, including in-class discussions, case studies, and group project, will be on the specific countries visited by the SAS SP25 voyage. The course will have as its objectives to:

1. Critical and Analytical Thinking. Students will learn to use theories to explain buyer behavior and marketing practices.
2. Problem Solving Skills. Students will be able to apply the buyer behavior concepts, theories, and frameworks they have learned.
3. Customer Focus. Students will gain experience in, and develop an appreciation for, adopting a customer focus.
4. Sensitivity toward the Effects of Marketing. Students will gain an improved understanding of both the positive and negative impacts of marketing efforts on consumers.
5. Learn the importance of understanding the differences in the behavior of consumers across cultures for developing successful international business strategies.