Shopper Marketing Education

In response to expressed concerns from industry leaders about a lack of shopper marketing talent in the market, and as the Path to Purchase Institute prepares to launch the Path to Purchase Leadership University in 2015 (see box at right), Shopper Marketing this fall set out to identify how major universities are equipping their marketing students to be effective shopper marketers when they enter the workforce.We assembled a virtual roundtable of professors and researchers at six universities where curriculums range from one course to a full spectrum of dedicated and related courses:Vikas Anand, Associate Professor, Management Department, Sam M. Walton College of Business; Director of MBA Programs and Executive Director of Walton College’s Career CenterEli Jones, Dean and Professor of Marketing, Sam M. Walton Leadership Chair, Walton College of BusinessClaudia B. Mobley, Director, Center for Retailing Excellence, Sam M. Walton College of BusinessSteve Kirn, Executive Director, David F. Miller Center for Retailing Education and ResearchRay Burke, E.W. Kelley Professor of Business Administration; Director, Customer Interface Laboratory, Kelley School of BusinessTim Dorgan, Associate Partner, Global Business Services, IBM; Adjunct Faculty Member, Medill IMC Graduate SchoolDan Flint, Regal Entertainment Group Professor of Business, Department of Marketing and Supply Chain ManagementVenky Shankar, Coleman Chair and Professor of MarketingHere, we present edited responses to our questions from the eight academicians.Are universities and business schools equipping students to enter the shopper marketing discipline?Ray Burke (Indiana): It’s been a slow process because the discipline is still new, and the tools – as well as shoppers – are changing so quickly. But more schools are making a push to introduce curriculum in this area, so we’re doing a better job of responding.Steve Kirn (Florida): Much of the research being done falls under the shopper marketing umbrella, but it hasn’t been designated as a discrete discipline of research. Rather it’s seen as one of the stages of consumer decision-making.Dan Flint (Tennessee): A lot of academics still see shopper marketing as just a context, a nuance or part of retailing and merchandising. We have a lot of attention around it due to our Shopper Marketing Forum (ShopperMarketing.bus.utk.edu), and we custom train our MBA students to be prepared for this space.Claudia Mobley (Arkansas): Our job is to connect industry and academics through our outreach centers. We have more than 100 companies involved with the college of business and our students.Vikas Anand (Arkansas): Our new MBA curriculum will include a specialized track in retail marketing. The skills needed for shopper marketing are very diverse, and students will look at some micro-level phenomenon like traditional consumer behavior coupled with courses based on predictive analytics and data visualization, among others.What is “shopper marketing” called at your institution?Burke (Indiana): We call it consumer marketing but have incorporated a significant amount of shopper marketing content. We have a full curriculum of classes, and many MBA students join our Consumer Marketing Academy, where they interact directly with practitioners.Venky Shankar (Texas A&M): Undergraduate students can get a certificate of retailing, and shopper marketing is a big component. We offer a full curriculum, and our Master’s program in marketing provides extensive education on shopper marketing and related issues.Mobley (Arkansas): We offer a full curriculum in retail marketing. A new class called “Path to Purchase” on the undergraduate level takes students through a case study-type situation with industry partners and mentors. It gives them real-world application and an opportunity to network through the industry.Anand (Arkansas): One of the things we’ve heard a lot from corporate employers is that students need knowledge about shopper insights and shopper behavior, not just in the U.S. but around the world. We’re introducing a globalization course in our executive MBA program where students may go to a foreign country and spend a week being a store keeper.Tim Dorgan (Northwestern): Shopper marketing is a single course taught in the graduate Integrated Marketing Communications program.Flint (Tennessee): Shopper marketing ideas are introduced in numerous courses at the undergraduate and MBA levels, but there isn’t a full curriculum.When did your school start offering shopper marketing-related courses?Mobley (Arkansas): It has always been in our curriculum. We’ve managed to keep moving it forward and into shopper insights. We also have an incredible program on both levels in theory-based curriculum. We added this to help students hit the ground running so our industry partners don’t have to spend a year training them.Dorgan (Northwestern): In 2011, and over-enrollment every time this class has been taught confirms that it was the right thing to do. Flint (Tennessee): In 2009 two senior executive alumni approached us about the knowledge and skills gaps in the graduate pool in this area. We modeled our Shopper Marketing Forum off the success we’ve seen from our Supply Chain Management Forum. It then moved into the classroom.Burke (Indiana): We introduced a consumer channels management course in 2000 that focuses on how manufacturers and retailers can partner to enhance the shopper experience and improve retail performance.What kind of shopper-related research is being conducted?Eli Jones (Arkansas): Different components of shopper marketing-related research are happening across the college. Many disciplines beyond marketing are doing work in the area.Anand (Arkansas): Our state-of-the-art behavioral lab allows us to simulate storefronts, and we have biometric measuring equipment. Some of our best research is being done using this lab. Coming next is a Retail Innovation Lab.Burke (Indiana): We’ve been doing research in this area since 1996 in our Customer Interface Lab, using virtual reality simulation, in-store customer tracking and eye-tracking.Flint (Tennessee): Specific shopper marketing projects began here in 2010. We’ve executed several dissertations and smaller projects hitting on shopper behavior/shopper insights, strategic partnerships between manufacturers and retailers, and execution.Shankar (Texas A&M): Much of the research we do is in partnership with retailers and manufacturers. We get to publish cutting-edge research and they benefit from gaining insights.How much progress do you anticipate in a shopper marketing curriculum?Shankar (TEXAS A&M): It will be accelerated. We’re weaving all aspects of shopper marketing throughout our curriculum as well as in our research. The emphasis will continue as we go along.Burke (Indiana): Real-world research is driving our curriculum development in this area. We’re learning from the industry about best practices, but we’re also applying our academic research methods to generate new insights to share with our corporate partners as well as our students.Jones (Arkansas): When we cut the ribbon on the School of Global Retail Operations and Innovation [it’s still in development] and it becomes interdisciplinary, we think we will have arrived. We’re producing merchants – students who can think critically and at a global level – and they have the technical competence to deliver the goods.What should/will the curriculum look like five to seven years from now?Flint (Tennessee): A full-blown curriculum would focus on [our view on] the four phases of shopper marketing (insights, planning, execution, measurement), and each phase could have a number of courses behind it. Ideally it would also involve courses in shopper research, business research, relationship marketing, account management, brand management, supply chain management and measurement analytics, and incorporate hands-on work at every step of the process.Anand (Arkansas): The global component is very important. It’s already being recognized but it will be seen as an attention item four or five years from now.Dorgan (Northwestern): We would like to get input from the consumers of the talent, including CPGs, retailers, agencies, to help create the vision. Our frequent guest speakers tell the class what they do, but I also ask them to talk about how they got to where they are.How can brands, retailers and agencies contribute to the college educations of future shopper marketing talent?Dorgan (Northwestern): Contribute to a serious discussion on the vision mentioned above and participate in any way they can in the curriculum that results. We could assemble a task force to lay out what’s needed to build the perfect shopper marketing person – and work backward from there.Mobley (Arkansas): The center has two conferences per year focused on thought leadership around retailing. Major retail folks are speakers, and they and others come to learn and interact with students and help us determine where those connections are. That supports a lot of our endeavors.Kirn (Florida): Our job is not to do job skill training in a highly technical sense, but rather provide the fundamental grounding and research methodologies and the conceptual analysis needed to do it. [Brands, retailers and agencies] can’t just throw the ball over the wall to the universities and ask why we aren’t training our students narrowly and deeply in these areas. Students can get training through experiences like internships or participation in research projects. We need companies to partner with us to provide those kinds of opportunities.Burke (Indiana): Practitioners can help us identify priority topics, create experiential learning opportunities and prepare students to immediately contribute to their businesses.Shankar (Texas A&M): The more involved agencies, retailers and brand marketers are, the better the outcomes will be.

Shopper Marketing Education

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