Our Wall Street Journal article for next week is “Emerging Lessons” by Madhubalan Viswanathan, Jose Antonio Rosa, and Julie A. Ruth, Oct 20, 2008, p. R2. If you have an online subscription to the Wall Street Journal, you can access this article directly at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122427233015845347.html?mod=djem_jiewr_MK .  If you do not have an online subscription to the WSJ, please see instructions at the end of this e-mail on how to access the article for free through the Crocker Library’s ABI/Inform database.  The article will NOT be distributed in class.  This article will be covered on the final exam. In preparation for the final and our class discussion next week, please consider these issues:

1. Aside from humanitarian concern, why are American “subsistence consumers” important?
2. What are some problems that low income consumers tend to face (over and beyond having limited means to buy things that are needed)?
3. In what ways do low literacy consumers tend to differ in how they process consumer relevant information?
4. What are the implications and suggested remedies of the tendency toward “concrete” thinking?
5. What are some ways in which low literacy consumers tend to misspend energy?
6. What are some suggestions for making a shopping environment more friendly to low literacy consumers?

I hope to complete comments on most of the project proposals over the week-end.  By tomorrow afternoon, I will post on the “Projects” page of the course web site some brief podcasts discussing the different options available for the Preliminary Paper.  Sample papers taking the three approaches are available on the “Projects” page of the course web site at http://www.buad307.com/project.html .

As a reminder, the Department of Marketing requires that each student enrolled in BUAD 307 participate in two research studies.  To be notified of upcoming studies, you need to be registered on Experimentrak as explained at http://www.buad307.com/ResearchParticipation.pdf .  I have been informed that, at the moment, we are running ahead of the other BUAD 307 classes in registrations, but they might catch up.  If you have not already registered, please do so now so that we can maintain our lead!

To access this week’s article through the Marshall Library:

1. Login to MyMarshall at https://mymarshall.usc.edu .
2. Click on “Academics,” then “Marshall Library,” and then “Electronic Resources.”
3. Select the "ABI/Inform through Proquest Direct" link.
4. Click on the “Publications” tab.
5. Click on the “W” link under “Show all publications.”
6. Click on the Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition link.
7. Click on October 20, 2008.
8. In the list of articles, find the article entitled “Business Insight (A Special Report)--Emerging Lessons: For multinational companies, understanding the needs of poorer consumers can be profitable and socially responsible."  If the index structure remains static, this will probably be article #15.  To reach this, you would click on the number 2 on the bottom right corner of the screen and then select article number 15.