Values in Advertising Research: A Methodological Caveat

In a recent issue of JAR, Durgee, O'Connor, and Veryzer present a potentially highly useful method for integrating “values” into advertising strategy. Unfortunately, their unorthodox method of measuring values leads to two problems common not only in advertising research but in all behavioral research-the reliance on instruments of unproven validity and incommensurability across those ad hoc instruments. Instead, researchers should rely on instruments of known validity and reliability, such as the Rockeach Value Survey (RVS) or Kahle's List of Values (LOV), both of which have been used widely in the effort to develop some cumulative knowledge on values and consumer behavior.