Models of consumer behaviour

Abstract

The problem posed to the Study Group was to construct models for consumer behaviour that might be useful in tools for brand management in markets for fast-moving consumer goods. Such models must take into account various psychological and sociological factors that describe respectively how consumers are influenced by what is on sale and who else is already buying. The outputs of the models should be predictions for the division of market share between competing products. Two phenomena of particular interest for assessing modelling options are the 'decoy effect' and 'lock-in'.