Of Brands and Humans: Marketing and Psychology Perspectives on Advertising

In modern society we are flooded by marketing and advertising messages intended to convince us to change our opinions or change our behavior, and particularly purchase the advertised products. In this course we discuss the interface between humans and brands - how psychological processes and marketing techniques affect us. The first part of the course will define basic concepts in marketing and consumer behavior. The second part will deal with how advertising persuades us to change our attitudes and behavior. Psychological research of basic attitudes and motivations, as well as perceptual biases, will be described to understand the effect of advertising. The third part of the course will deal with brand personality, with cultural archetypes and with national culture to understand how advertising meets the psychological needs of humans, the consumers.