The problem posed to the Study Group was to construct models for consumer behaviour that might be useful in tools for brand management in markets for fast-moving consumer goods. Such models must take into account various psychological and sociological factors that describe respectively how consumers are influenced by what is on sale and who else is already buying. The outputs of the models should be predictions for the division of market share between competing products. Two phenomena of particular interest for assessing modelling options are the 'decoy effect' and 'lock-in'.

Problem presented by
Shail Patel and Antoine Schlijper, Unilever Corporate Research

Study Group contributors
Pablo Casas (Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña)
Jon Chapman (University of Oxford)
Linda Cummings (University of Nottingham)
Jeff Dewynne
Janet Efstathiou (University of Oxford)
Matt Finn (University of Nottingham)
Edward Green (University of Nottingham)
Rob Hinch (University of Oxford)
Robert Hunt (University of Cambridge)
James Ing (University of Aberdeen)
Gregory Kozyreff (University of Oxford)
Andrew Lacey (Heriot-Watt University)
Emeline Larrieu (University of Cambridge)
Robert Leese (Smith Institute)
Miranda Lewis (University of Southampton)
Steven Noble (Brunel University)
James Parrott (University of Bristol)
Tiina Roose (University of Oxford)
David Schley (University of Southampton)
Jennifer Siggers (University of Nottingham)
Lydie Staron (University of Cambridge)
Marcus Tindall (University of Oxford)
Antoinetta Venter (University of South Africa)
Caroline Voong (Heriot-Watt University)
David Wood (University of Warwick)

The following people contributed on behalf of Unilever to the problem description prior to the Study Group and provided valuable advice in steering discussions during the Study Group itself:

Ogi Bataveljic
Bob Hurling
Guoping Lian
John Melrose
Shail Patel
Antoine Schlijper