Values

Let me ask you a simple question, what are your values?

This week we learnt about values, and I must say I really enjoyed this week. In fact, the past few weeks have been really interesting as they are focusing on going back and thinking about your past (it has put a big smile on my face in class!).

So values what are they?

“Generally speaking, a value can be defined as a belief about some desirable end-state that transcends specific situations and guides selection of behaviour. (Solomon, 2010)

“If we believe our overall values drive our behaviour, then we should be concentrating on the important, underlying motives that drive consumers to make product or service choices rather than simply product attributes” (Ries and Trout, 1982)

The best way I would describe them are that they affect us, it is our morals, our beliefs and what we believe in that creates our values. An example of one of my values is I care for my family. Values are what you hold on to throughout your life, they come from our culture, our family our friends, the values we have can depend on how we were brought up.

The list below is the values that Kahles (1983), chose as the most important in our lives. Ruth gave us a task in class to rank what value was our most important to the one that was least important to us.

Kahles list of Values (1983)

1. Self Respect

2. Excitement

3. Being Well Respected

4. Self-fulfilment

5. Sense of accomplishment

6. Warm relationship with others

7. Security

8. Fun & enjoyment

9. Sense of belonging

My Values (1 being most important, 9 being the least important)

1.       Self Respect
2.       Warm relationship with others
3.        Being well respected
4.       Self-fulfilment
5.       Security
6.             Sense of belonging
7.        Sense of accomplishment
8.        Fun & enjoyment
9.        Excitement

 Where do you rank your values?

So, how does this relate to marketing? Let me ask you, can you identify any products which you buy to try to achieve these end-states? Like:

1.  Clothes
2.  Car
3.  Facebook
4.  Alcohol
5.     Cigarettes