VALS

VALS™ is a marketing and consulting tool that helps businesses worldwide develop and execute more effective strategies. The system identifies current and future opportunities by segmenting the consumer marketplace on the basis of the personality traits that drive consumer behavior. VALS applies in all phases of the marketing process, from new-product development and entry-stage targeting to communications strategy and advertising. The basic tenet of VALS is that people express their personalities through their behaviors.

So basically, it is behavioral interviewing and used to find the root cause of WHY people buy things. VALS blames motivation to purchase on personality traits. If companies focus on the reason for consumer behaviors, they can segment the market and focus marketing to the specific personalities with buying power.

The VALS survey categorizes people into 1 of 8 “VALS Type” based on their answers:


My primary VALS Type is EXPERIENCER and secondary is INNOVATER. According to VALS, the primary represents my dominant life approach and secondary represents a particular emphasis I give to my dominant approach. I agreed with most of the statements about my personality; however I thought that the descriptions make very bold statements about my consumer behaviors based on very generalized questions. I also feel that people have a preconceived notion about themselves (myself included) and a vision of what they want to be that might influence how I answered. Although I tried to be as honest as possible, maybe my personality is suppressing my true feelings. Being an analytical person, it is hard for me to believe the reliability and validity of psychological surveys. Observation of consumers would provide more truthful and accurate results, but would also require more resources and time.

Thoughts on the VALS theory:

Positives	Negatives
Quick assessment of consumers in market	Questions that determine each category focused on 1 behavior
Questions related to behaviors, not thoughts	Scale of 4- doesn’t encompass exact feelings, no choice of exemption
Pre-determined segmentation	Types seem to reflect Myers-Briggs with different titles
Compares VALS Types to geographic distribution	Selection bias and convenience sampling
	Underlying variables of geographic distribution of personalities
	Very strong words in questions- immediately affect emotion and attitude
	Response bias- perceptions about self, society, and our ideals