Question: The purpose of the project is to help you apply course concepts to a specific marketing situation of your choice. The purpose here is to provide an opportunity to solve a managerial problem through a better understanding of consumer behavior by using research as a tool. I expect a short, focused and original research study where the emphasis is on gaining insights into consumer behavior. If you plan to extend research done for another project, please cite the earlier work and show what exactly the new contribution is.
Here are the steps required for the project.
• Identify a management problem/ consumer behavior issue you are interested in.
• Do a brief background research of this problem or issue and why/how you think a better understanding of consumer behavior will help you solve the management issue. This can be descriptive based on your current understanding of the situation or from company literature with research based on published sources as support.
• Identify one or two research questions that will help you solve the management problem.
• Decide on the best way of doing additional primary research. You choose any research technique such as: in-depth interviews, focus group, content analysis, observation, metaphorelicitation, surveys, experiments or a combination of them.
• Analyze the results and come with a managerial recommendation
Previous students have crafted very interesting and impressive work, but it all depends on how in-depth you are able to get with the topic you select. Some examples of topics you might consider are given below.
• Defining and eliciting customer satisfaction for a product you are marketing
• Developing a consumer behavior model
• Developing a positioning map
• Spending a day in the life of your customer
• Segmenting your market in a new way based on an understanding of CB
• Examining if there is consumer interest in a product/ service (several students have used this opportunity to check out interest for a new business they were considering).
You may choose any of the above or come with your own topic - whatever interests you and helps you move forward with your own real-life work.