How Do People Think Marketing Works? Teaching Students How to Build Theory, Develop Imagination, and Discover Deeper Consumer Insights

Abstract

Building theory is a different skill than knowing theory. While the traditional consumer behavior course does a good job in exposing students to our well-accepted theories, much less emphasis in the course is placed on students working to develop new theoretical insights of their own. In this paper, we first discuss why teaching this skill is crucially important. Next, we detail an exercise we have developed and refined for our consumer behavior courses that encourages students to build their own theories from the ground up. We then detail the benefits and outcomes of the exercise and discuss several key ways that it enlightens and enriches the student learning experience throughout an entire semester in consumer behavior. Furthermore, we discuss its potential adaptability for other courses such as marketing research and marketing strategy. Ultimately, our innovation actively engages students, allows them to better understand how theory is built and works on a deep level, pushes them to think deeply and imaginatively, and teaches them the importance of theory in crafting strategic plans and implementations.