MKT30040 Consumer Psychology Project Description 2026 | UCD Ireland

MKT30040 Project Description

Aim of The Project

The aim of the project is to help a goods or services facility of your choice by analysing the consumer psychology of their current or potential consumers and use this to recommend changes in their marketing strategy. To do this, you must evaluate and analsyse a facilty of your choice (Part A) and design a marketing strategy (Part B)

PART 1  – Evaluation and analysis

The aim of the first part is to evaluate and analyse the current situation in a facility and assess how changes in consumers’ behaviour can benefit the facility. The objective is to understand the psychology of the consumers of your chosen facility. There are three components to this.

1. a) Select a goods or services facility. This can for example be a supermarket, book shop, gym, restaurant, pub etc. The facility needs to be an existing ‘physical’ facility in your local area (not an online one) that you can locate on a map and visit. Start by explorating relevant facilities in your area and deliberate about the best facility for this assigment.

Some dos and don’ts

1. Do take you time to investigate which facility you select. Best is to focus on a facility that offers a good opportunity to evaluate consumer behaviour. Make sure you have access to the facilty.
2. Do select a facility that can be evaluated. A facility with room for improvement is usually a workable choice, as that means there is something to analyse.
3. Do some basic research when selecting your facility, but don’t start any indepth research untill you have made your final decision.

***In prinicple there is no need to discuss the choice of facility with me if it meets the criteria above. If you can defend your choice, it’s a good facility. ***

b) Explorative research how the facility can benefit from a change in consumer behaviour. The aim of part one is to evaluate and analyse how the the facility’s business could benefit if their consumers would behave differently. This requires that you get a good idea of the context of the facility (e.g., what type of facility is it? What is their business model?) but also how do their consumers behave (e.g., who are typical consumers? How do they

interact with the facility?), and think about the pschology of the consumers (e.g., what are their motivations to buy in this facility? Which self-identity do these consumers have?). For this some explorative research like observational research or some interviews (with e.g., consumers, staff or manager) must be conducte. There is no fixed way to do this research. However, you’ll have to visit the facility at least once (and perhaps more). The main aim of the research should be to get a good overview of how consumers behave in the facility, how this affects the facility’s business and how a change of consumer behaviour can help the facility.

Some dos and don’ts

1. Don’t start your research before you have thought carefully about your research questions (i.e., what do you want to know?). Do clearly articulate your research questions in the report.
2. Do critical consider if you have answered your research questions. Consider if all questions are answered or if you need to conduct some follow-up research to complete the evaluation.

***You should describe how you did your explorative research and explain what the main outcomes and conclusions are. You don’t need to provide the raw data.***

c) Draw your conclusions. Now you need to put the pieces together and be able to answer the following questions. Target group: Which consumers need to change their behaivour for the facility to benefit (and what would this benefit be?)? Type of behaviour change: What type of behaviour change is needed to achieve this? Underlying consumer psychology: Which psychological mechanism underpin this behaviour that needs changing? For the latter you should use the course material and if you can, use other relevant sources too.

Some dos and don’ts

1. Define your target group and target behaviour – but do not use sociodemographics (age, gender, generations, socio-economic status) as segmentation criterion.
2. The analysis should provide new insights, so do interpret your result, and don’t only report the results.
3. Do cite the original sources (and check how this is done appropiately according to UCD’s Academic Integrity policy), and don’t cite slides, the introduction videos or discussion in class.

***Focus on the quality of your references (i.e., add citations to support arguments), the quantity of the citations is not relevant***

PART 2  – Design a marketing strategy

Use the analsyis of the first part to recommend changes to the manager/ owner of the facility. These recommendations should be marketing strategies aimed at changing consumers psychology so that the facility will benefit. Base your recommendations on the literature – and use relevant concept(s). Explain what these concepts mean and why they are relevant? Also describe the implications of your recommendations for the facility? How feasible are they? How would you present your suggestions to the manager of the facility – why should they consider them?

Report Requirement

Format:

• The report consists of max 15 pages, including the title page, illustrations, references and appendices;
• The title page includes
  o student names + numbers;
  o module name and code;
  o project title;
  o declaration of honesty – see below;
  o indication of contibution of each group member.
• Report written in 12-pnt Times New Roman; 1.5 line spacing; – References in Harvard style (focus on quality, not on quantity).

***Make sure you follow these requirements, if will affect your grade if you don’t***

Learning Outcomes

After completing the course students should have obtained an overview and understanding of the most important concepts and theories that are relevant to understand consumer behaviour. Upon successfully completing this module, students will:

1. Understand how consumers process information, form attitudes and make decisions, and how these are shaped by internal and external influences.
2. Gain insights in how principles of consumer psychology is applied to marketing strategy and practices.
3. Gain ability to explain why and how marketing strategies can impact consumer behaviour.