Measuring Inherent Product Values

Abstract

Values have become a subject of growing interest, and are now generally accepted as an important factor in marketing research. However, value research that relies solely on a simple first‐order value paradigm, faces certain conceptual difficulties. By using a radically different formal value theory in a new approach to values, a method for measuring inherent product values directly as perceived by buyer groups is developed. The discriminatory power of this method has been tested on seven small samples of two product classes and two different models of the same brands. Clear discriminatory results were generated between product classes and brands but slight differences only were found between models of the same brand.