Certificate of Marketing Psychology

Unit 1 – People as Consumers

• Scope and nature of marketing
• Reasons for marketing
• Types of customers: loyal, discount, needs based, wandering, impulse
• Economic, economic, personal, apathetic shoppers
• Understanding reward options: rational, sensory, social, ego satisfaction
• Influence on customers
• Physical factors
• Consumer problems
• Attitudes
• Beliefs
• Affects
• Behavioural intention

Unit 2 – Market Segmentation

• Geographic
• Demographic
• Age
• Sex
• Socio-economic
• Geo-demographic
• Psychological segmentation
• Segmentation by usage
• Segmentation by benefit
• Global segmentation
• Entry into foreign markets
• Total Product concept
• Personal influences
• Diffusion of new products

Unit 3 – Internal Influences Perception and Personality

• The senses: vision, hearing and smell.
• Multi sensual marketing
• Thresholds of awareness
• Sensory adaptation
• Attention
• Selective perception
• Perceptual distortion
• Perceptual cues
• Gestalt psychology
• The Phi phenomenon
• Subliminal perception
• Product image and self image
• Personality theory and application to marketing
• The MMPI
• The TATT
• The Rorschach Ink Blot Test
• Non Freudian and Freudian theories
• Self-theory
• Self-image marketing
• Trait theory
• Brand personality
• Relationship segmentation

Unit 4 – Internal Influences – Motivation and Awareness

• Learning
• Behavioural approach
• Classical conditioning
• Operant conditioning
• Cognitive approach
• Memory and marketing
• Modelling
• Motivation
• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
• Different motivations
• Inertia
• Involvement
• Antecedents of involvement
• Properties of involvement
• Outcomes of involvement
• Specific needs
• Unconscious motivation
• Creating needs
• Semiotics

Unit 5 – Social Influences

• Understanding society
• Family influences
• Family changes
• Family life cycle
• Households
• Socialisation
• Institutional affects
• Consumer socialisation
• Family consumer decisions
• Roles
• Conflict resolution
• Changing roles
• Social and developmental influences
• Influences on children
• Marketing and advertising
• Small groups, Formal and informal groups
• Membership and reference groups
• Reference groups and consumer behaviour
• Variability of products
• Differences in consumer susceptibility
• Influence of social class
• Inheritance
• Measuring class, class categories and changing class
• Marketing and Consumer behaviour
• Cultural influences, communication, ideals and actualities
• Differences in culture: subcultures, ethnicity, changes in culture

Unit 6 – Consumerism

• Why study the consumer
• What is a consumer
• History of consumerism
• Changes in consumer experience
• The supplier
• Business ethics
• International ethics
• The market place
• Consumer action
• False and deceptive advertising
• Methods of false advertising misrepresentation, insufficient details, price based methods etc

Unit 7 – Communication and Persuasion

• Attitudes and the concept of attitude to how attitudes form
• How attitudes are changed
• Practical applications for marketing
• Message evaluation and selection
• Message execution
• Celebrity testimonials
• What words sell

Unit 8 – Deciding to Buy

• Making a decision
• Rational decisions
• Heuristic Procedures
• The decision making process -step by step
• Merchandising
• Trend toward home shopping