Best Thinking in Consumer Behavior

Featured Content

• 
  The Global Luxury Market: Should It Be a Degree?
  Topic by Marta Segal Block

  In May, North Carolina State University's graduate school announced a unique arrangement with SKEMA, a French business school. The two institutions will be the first to offer a one-year graduate studies option in Global Luxury Management. While demand for luxury goods remains strong in the...

• 
  Does TV's Future Rely on Interactive Content?
  Topic by Derrick Bang

  In director François Truffaut’s poetic 1966 adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 , our reluctant hero—Oskar Werner as Guy Montag—lives in a sterile, gadget-laden home with his bored, somnambulant wife, Linda (Julie Christie). Wandering their home in a constant state of...

• 
  Gift Registries: End of Civilization or Good Marketing?
  Topic by Marta Segal Block

  The letter to etiquette columnist Miss Manners was clear in its contempt. A reader was shocked to find out that friends had registered for presents for their daughter's first birthday. Miss Manners did not disappoint. She  supplied her own outrage and comments on the decline of social...

• 
  Kickstarter Fuels a Return Trip to "Mars"
  Topic by Derrick Bang

  The world changed a few weeks ago, and you likely didn’t notice. It’s impossible to overstate the sheer cataclysmic wonderfulness of this evolutionary leap forward. What began as a desperate, frustrated, Hail Mary play instead became, in less than a day, a business model that will...

• 
  Gamification: It's Fun to Be a Rat
  Topic by Carrie Kirby

  Any parent of a small child has probably resorted to this technique when trying to get those toys picked up: "Let's make it into a game!" Games can be very effective at motivating behavior. Indeed, some games, such as World of Warcraft, have achieved shocking levels of motivation,...

• 
  Manual Transmissions, Though No Longer Standard, Still Selling
  Topic by Harvey K Black

  “Baby you can drive my car,” goes the Beatles’ song. But what if that vehicle has a manual transmission? Baby, can you drive it then? Before we answer that question, let's for the record note that a transmission does what it says. It transmits the power of the engine to the wheels of the...

• 
  Marketing-The BIG "M"
  Article by Geraldine V Vergona

  Many hear "Marketing" and think "Advertising". Consequently, entrepreneurs or people responsible for promotion hav...

• 
  The Ethics of Celebrity Endorsements
  Topic by Enelda Butler

  New social networking site Google+ is rumored to be creating a plan to recruit celebrities to begin using their service as a way to gain promotion. This practice has also become popular on social networking services like Twitter, which gained attention and users partially due to its celebrity...

• 
  Young Girls & Body Image, Should Minnie Be Skinny?
  Topic by Marta Segal Block

  In 2012, upscale department store Barney's New York announced a holiday partnership with Walt Disney Co. Disney created holiday display windows for the famed store, including one in which a movie shows Minnie Mouse envisioning herself as a Paris runway model. During this short dream sequence,...

• Assessing the future? It’s a GAS
  Article by Colin A Sharp
• The Pricing Dilemma: Aligning Buyers and Sellers
  Topic by Dale Furtwengler
• Advertising Humor and the New Milk Campaign
  Topic by Enelda Butler