Behavioural economics and marketing: how cognitive biases contribute to shaping sales strategies

This thesis explores the interaction between behavioural economics and marketing, focusing on how cognitive biases are strategically used to influence consumer behaviour. The work is divided into four chapters. The first chapter provides an historical overview of behavioural economics, tracing its development from the limitations of classical economic theory to the emergence of a more psychological approach developed by personalities such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Richard Thaler and Herbert Simon, with their theories of bounded rationality, heuristics, and prospect theory. The second chapter examines the integration of behavioral economics into marketing practices. It investigates how insights into human psychology and decision-making process have reshaped marketing strategies, enabling businesses to move beyond models based on the idea of a rational-thinking consumer and adopt more behaviourally informed approaches to targeting and persuasion. The third chapter is focused on the analysis of specific cognitive biases, namely salience, reciprocity, ambiguity and familiarity, and their practical application in marketing strategies. The final chapter deals with the application of cognitive biases in cross-cultural marketing and the importance of taking into account the cultural differences in the adaptation of the marketing strategies to the different target markets. Through this study, the thesis underlines the growing relevance of behavioral economics in developing more effective marketing strategies.