Attitudes of advertising executives toward the consumer behavior course

What should be taught to marketing students has always been an intriguing question. The marketing curriculum as a whole and specific courses have been the topic of much debate. One of the marketing courses, consumer behavior, was the subject of this research. A survey of advertising executives revealed some interesting perceptions regarding the consumer behavior course. Most executives believed the course was helpful in making decisions in the advertising area. However, the advertising executives ranked the consumer behavior course as only moderately important in usefulness to advertisers when compared with nine other marketing courses. Interestingly, the executives that had completed a consumer behavior course ranked the course lower in importance than the executives who had not taken the course. Generally, advertising executives believed the consumer behavior course was too abstract and theoretical in orientation and could be imporved through the use of case studies and more direct application examples of the consumer behavior theories presented in the course.