ABSTRACT
Early in my doctoral studies, I found myself strongly attracted to the work of Ernest Dichter, Burleigh Gardner, William Henry, Sidney Levy, and other consumer motivation researchers. Their deep, provocative, and sometimes controversial insights about why consumers think, feel, and behave in various ways struck me then as profoundly interesting and basic. Today, in my Consumer Behavior classes I explain on Day 1 the centrality of “why” questions in managerial research and decision-making, while simultaneously acknowledging how difficult such questions often are. The subsequent coursework leads students through activities that emphasize analytic diversity and creativity. My hope is that the class experience will encourage some young managers to approach marketing behavior “why” issues in more nuanced, original, and less drone-like ways. And I am frequently looking for new materials that will support this objective. Consequently, it has been a pleasure to read and comment on a volume that focuses so directly on consumption “whys.” The chapters provide a rich yield of new and productively-recycled concepts that promise to reinvigorate our field's analyses of why consumers do what they do. Also, several chapters extensively detail innovative techniques and data sources for investigating goals, motivations and desires.
