VALS Survey Assessment

Just recently, I took the VALS survey (which can be found at: VALS SURVEY) and received "Experiencers" and "Innovators" as my two individual types. Persuaders typically use surveys, like VALS, to understand and target audience members according to their attitudes. They take the survey results and break them down into consumer categories.

The first critique of this survey that I have is that of the about 20 questions that were asked, half of them were repetitive in nature and equated out to the same response as the other similar ones. I think this survey would be more practical if they had scenarios tied into them. This way, the survey taker doesn't feel like they are responding to very similar questions. Aside from this, when looking at the different consumer groups that VALS has, their descriptions of each are quite accurate, in my opinion. For example, my two groups that I was placed in were Innovators and Experiencers.

Innovators are described as:

-Are always taking in information (antennas up)

-Are confident enough to experiment

-Make the highest number of financial transactions

-Are skeptical about advertising

-Have international exposure

-Are future oriented

-Are self-directed consumers

-Believe science and R&D are credible

-Are most receptive to new ideas and technologies

-Enjoy the challenge of problem solving

-Have the widest variety of interests and activities

Experiencers are described as:

-Want everything -Are first in and first out of trend adoption -Go against the current mainstream -Are up on the latest fashions -Love physical activity (are sensation seeking) -See themselves as very sociable -Believe that friends are extremely important -Are spontaneous -Have a heightened sense of visual stimulation

Because of how accurate these two categories are to my life, I can't really critique them too much. It's very interesting that a 20 question survey can pin point me into two categories that almost perferctly depict my interests and habits. I am surprised by the results in the sense that they were so accurate. Persuaders can use this information and pair my interests to linking ways of persuasion or advertising. For example, an advertiser could see that I am into physical activity and that I am confident enough to experiment. With this, they could see that I may be willing to take a risk on purchasing a new product in the sports equipment field.

I encourage you all to take the VALS survey and find out your own categories and critique them yourself!

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