'Choice' Model confusion

Hi Class,

Does seem like the term 'choice models' is generating confusion. Must take part of the blame for this state of affairs.

First off, what is an (economic)'model'?
In a nutshell (or 1 line) its a set of relations between any set of (economic) variables. All our models in marketing are essentially, economic models.

The term "Choice" models implies a model primarily about consumer choice. The way I envisage using marketing models based either on secondary or primary data, is much more general. So a simple linear relation (or linear model) between sales and (say) promotion, distribution and product attributes, based entirely on secondary sales data (like that in the beer dataset, for example) should find place in the course.

Hence, I propose to remove the term 'choice' in choice models and replace it with the term 'math'. This is just to clear up any potential for confusion. Thanks to the student who pointed this anomaly out.

Feedback welcome. The comments section below can be used for this purpose.

Sudhir