Personal values are the guiding principles in consumers’ lives. They influence the way people live and the choices they make. Understanding and acting on values enhances brands’ competitive advantage.
Part of the appeal of values is that core values tend to be relatively stable compared with many other attitudes, such as mood and consumer confidence. But it is also a misconception to believe that consumers adopt sets of values in their formative years and then stick with them throughout their lives. Those of us who are a little bit older can testify that, as we age, our priorities change -- and so do some of our aspirations and guiding principles in life. Many values – such as Excitement, Ambition, and Tradition – are more life-stage driven than true generational imprints. The interpretation and manifestations of values can be different for different people and evolve over time. So values are best combined with an understanding of trends and lifestyle behaviors to inform strategies. But values do have huge importance for strategizing and decision making on a number of levels. Let’s look at just a few.
1. Grounding innovation at a deeper level
Values are a flexible and dynamic tool that can be integrated into detailed brand strategy exercises and help deliver meaningful innovation. Some of the brands GfK Consumer Life works with have established a values-based branding framework that they use to profile their key customers – understanding the reach of key values, determining overlaps in target segments, and exploring potential opportunity areas related to values that are emerging or not currently reached.
2. Creating messages that inspire loyalty
A deep understanding of values can also be critical to develop and hone messaging, marketing, and portfolio alignment. For example, it’s possible to develop two distinct marketing strategies for the same product or brand based on the needs and priorities of two different values segments.
In this set of ads for the same car model, you can see that the first example is appealing to a segment that might align with our Aspirers – go-getters, people who want to stand out and be recognized. In contrast, the second example aligns more with an Indulger segment – people who want adventure, excitement, and personal fulfillment. It’s likely that other aspects of the strategy for these two segments would vary, such as the media plan and key partnerships.
3. Driving brand differentiation
If you have more of a global portfolio, values insights can help you better understand cultural differences across markets – and create a more nuanced and differentiated brand strategy in each region.
In Chart 3, we see that Asian markets like China rest heavily in what we call our “power” corner – distinctly ambitious, attention-seeking, and likely craving the respect of others. These consumers will align more with ads that emphasize benefits like knowledge and a sense of accomplishment. In contrast, the US veers more towards the “people” corner, with a stronger priority on maintaining relationships and social connections. Marketing that shows people connecting over the product, as well as strong relationships (familiar or otherwise) will resonate more.
These insights provide powerful guidance for developing smart, differentiated products and marketing and driving to greater success.
4. Enhancing customization
Values can also be a powerful tool when leveraged in a wide array of custom research, especially segmentations. We know from our research that category behaviors are based not just on attitudes within each industry, but on broader consumer attitudes and personal values, as well. Consumers not only expect products and services to cater to their individual needs – they also are increasingly choosing brands that exhibit similar personal values. It makes sense that these types of “explicit” and “implicit” motivators should be embedded within consumer segmentations, particularly to answer questions of who and why.
Values in action: Selling similar products to different audiences
Values can also be used to create distinct messages for two brands or products within a company’s portfolio. In these examples from two beer brands with the same parent company – Anheuser-Busch InBev – both emphasize enjoying life; but the Stella ad is more likely to appeal to an Indulger segment that seeks the finer things in life, while the Corona ad might appeal more to Discoverers, people who are more exploratory in nature.
