Feature Summary

Based on extensive teaching and writing experience, we have included a number of features in each chapter that should help students learn about consumers. First and foremost, each and every chapter is global in theory and scope, and up to date with reference to both contextual factors such as new technologies and topical theory and research. In addition, we offer a unique blend of old and new.

• Introductory Vignette. Each chapter opens with a consumer story that overviews many essential aspects of the chapter. The vignettes often draw from the authors' own experiences and are typically global in character. We refer back to these vignettes throughout the chapter to make subsequent theories more tangible for the reader.

• Learning Objectives. Each chapter begins by outlining a few essential learning objectives that can be used by readers to gauge their comprehension of the text.

• Consumer Chronicles. Each chapter includes several boxed and detailed consumer examples that help to illustrate a particular theory or idea with the real thoughts, feelings, and experiences of consumers around the world.

• Good Practice. Each chapter uses set-aside examples of marketing/management good practice related to consumers. Sometimes good practice refers to what companies can, should, and are doing. Sometimes good practice provides a hands-on opportunity for readers to apply a good practice of their own. These sections are target opportunities for in-class discussion and exercises.

• Industry Insight . Each chapter includes examples from industry that help to highlight the application of consumer theory and research to the practice of marketing and management. As in the case of consumer chronicles, these set-aside illustrations help to texture readers' understandings.

• "You Make the Call." In addition to a set of end of chapter questions and exercises, each chapter concludes with a short case that can help students grasp the big picture and elaborate on their own understandings of the chapter material. The cases are fun vehicles for class discussion, chapter review, and mini-projects. They may even generate some future research!

• Abundant Use of Full-color Exhibits. This book draws on a wide-array of visual materials. We include author-developed charts, graphs and exhibits, but also include cartoons, photos of billboards, packaging, advertisements, and consumers. More than simply eye-catching and aesthetic, these exhibits are intended to convey the richne-ss and complexity of global consumers. Numerous examples illustrate the Internet and emerging technologies, but other examples illustrate the many places that high technology has not yet penetrated.