Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Celebrate good times, come on!


Congratulations to everyone for completing your first case study!

You should reward yourself (i.e., self-gift) by taking some time to relax and treat yourself to something special...


SPIKE
Hot Dog Tea
www.spike.com
Spike Full EpisodesSpike Video ClipsSpike on Facebook



Image source: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eQ6SG5qNy0c/TOqUn_c6wdI/AAAAAAAADLY/4R8IiYcxFWE/s1600/disco-dancing-sil.jpg

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Case 1, Question 1


Hi everyone,

Here's the first question for the first case study (due next Wednesday, Feb 29).

Obviously, it requires a lot of reading, and a lot of thinking, before you can really start writing.  Be sure to give yourself enough time to do a good (or great!) job on this assignment.  If you leave it to the last minute, you might find yourself freaking out...

Remember, you need to submit both your answers to Turnitin.  Also, you'll be using your code names on the copies you turn into me to grade.

Finally, please consider visiting the BBCC to sharpen up your answer to Q1; I guarantee it'll help you answer Q2 as well!

Image source: http://artsyspot.com/img/misc/steampunk-computer-made-from-antique-organ/steampunk-computer-made-form-antique-organ02.jpg

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

(Baby) sick day

Hi everyone,

Sorry to cancel at the last minute -- I have a sick baby at home, and my schedule could flex more than my husband's today.

If you're reading this at home before class, please note the following re turning in your book reviews:


·    Put only your code name on the hard copy
·    Hard copy in the file folder on my office door – Reid 347

 PUT YOUR PAPER IN THE FOLDER, BECAUSE...


·    Katrina (the TA) will pick up all the papers at the end of each class
·    Submit to Turnitin


I'll post materials & additional instructions for case study #1 here either today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, enjoy your week(end)!

Image credit: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJLvF3FEJ62VFxlcR9OePoz1rJD5r26k3tnQqlAu05ZPA9ZdLsfCA0RB_kkM4ga8ayfjdVkp0UZvJSEofV_9vDmjUq-xMUFfjfrY_wQxdJeLfxBzNhp75eBcCMmjOK0bH-N0cVegj0HsTZ/s320/sick_baby.jpg

Thursday, February 16, 2012


An article published this month in the premiere CB journal, the Journal of Consumer Research, is totally relevant to the material we've been discussing in class recently.

Here's the opening paragraph:
       Stephanie, a first-year MBA student, is shopping for a new suit to wear to her internship   
       interviews. She finds a suit she likes and decides to try it on. As she approaches the dressing
       room, she sees another customer standing in front of a three-way mirror wearing the same suit
       she has in her hands. The customer is beautiful and looks stunning in the suit. Stephanie tries on
       the suit, is  not satisfied with how it looks on her, and decides to keep looking at another store.
       The question we examine in the current research is whether or not Stephanie’s evaluations of the
       suit would have been different had she not seen the other customer wearing it and what factors
       might influence this social comparison process.

From "Social Information in the Retail Environment: The Importance of Consumption Alignment, Referent Identity, and Self-Esteem," by Darren W. Dahl, Jennifer J. Argo, Andrea C. Morales

If you're on campus, you should be able to link to the full-text article seamlessly.  If you're off-campus (or if the on-campus link is sticky), you can access it through our wonderful library website (note: you have to log into the lib site to have access to any paid-for material).

********

Why am I pointing you in this direction, hoping that you'll read, or at least skim, the article?  Why is research important in general?  Why is research important at Montana State University?  Why should research be important to you, as an undergraduate?

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Oh yeah...


Happy Valentine's Day!

Love,
Your always-overthinking CB professor

Image source: http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/431248_10150603557673290_509738289_9037810_1357882801_n.jpg

Assignment instructions

 
Sorry to have been a slack blogger recently.  Crummy cold...

I've posted the link to the instructions for Book Review #1 in the sidebar to your left.

You should use your shiny new code names on these papers, and upload them to TurnItIn.  If I've recommended that you use the BBCC (as feedback on an earlier assignment), now is the time to start!

Image credit: http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/american-idol-ed-slack.jpg

Monday, February 6, 2012

Sick day

I don't think anyone wants me within a mile of Reid Hall today -- I'm a walking germ bomb, averaging about 10-12 sneezes per hour. 

"Going viral": Good for marketing, bad for ... well... viruses.

We'll do today wiki presentations on Wednesday.  I apologize to everyone who burned the midnight oil to get your pages done on time for today!

Image source: http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll98/teenoff/nuclear-bomb-explosion.jpg

Friday, February 3, 2012

Mad Men, yo



People with Sharpies can be so creative!

In the CB lingo, this kind of consumer activity is classified as "twist."  Post links to your favorite twists in the comments section.

Happy weekend :-)

Image source: http://gothamist.com/attachments/garth/201201_moremad01.jpg

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Privacy...?


Watching "The Persuaders" this week has been perfect timing, considering the latest news from Google.

In a nutshell, Google will now integrate information collected from all of its services so that it can create a comprehensive profile of each of its users.

Click here to find out who Google thinks YOU are.  (Note: this works best from your personal computer, rather than a public terminal in an on-campus lab.)  I suppose, with teaching, research and personal use, not to mention my teenage daughter's love affair with the Internet, my computer is just too confusing for the "inferred demographics" algorithm to get a bead on.   Google tells me this:


Your categories and demographics
No interest or demographic categories are associated with your ads preferences so far. You can add or edit interests and demographics at any time.
 
Isn't that helpful of them to let me give them more info about myself?



As for the whole cell phone + GPS location tracking that we discussed in the 9:30 class, the reason no one was really clear on the legality of that maneuver is that it's still not really been decided one way or the other (yet).  Probable cause, third party doctrine, blah blah blah -- it's up in the air, or at least in the legislative branch and the lower court system, for the time being.

From a Wired story about last week's Supreme Court case on GPS & privacy:
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that “the present case does not require us to answer” whether police need a warrant to employ GPS monitoring of targets “without an accompanying trespass.” He said the court may have to “grapple” with that issue “in some future case where a classic trespassory search is not involved.”
 
Note that the SCOTUS is only dealing with the GPS question from a law-enforcement standpoint; they don't address the question of private firms using this info for marketing research purposes at all.

 
Image sources: 
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikILInyF9gmXhB0h1aDxHVSk5kf-apEnnX9sBRHV0OxkrWvLOxVA2dqgzQ63koUFqV7nr9jDE04u8nNFzCN0PL_-85i_cY8VcocQGfvjLZk0xbI4lzwvNU0pGd9fbg0exEI91znICeOPQ/s1600/Independent-070524-Google.jpg
http://blog.homesecuritystore.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/gps-tracking.jpg