Applying Laddering Data to Communications Strategy and Advertising Practice

This article provides a summary of personal observations, practical experience, and discussions with leading professionals in the field of advertising and communications regarding how to identify a communications strategy expressed in a means-end framework and how to use the framework to develop advertising copy.

Applying Laddering Data to Communications Strategy and Advertising Practice

Thomas J Reynolds and David B Whitlark

For more than a decade, means-end theory and research techniques such as laddering (Gutman and Reynolds, 1979; Reynolds and Gutman, 1984) have been used to develop effective communications strategies for many leading corporations, industry organizations, public service groups, and political candidates. While the theory and mechanics of conducting laddering interviews and constructing descriptive maps of decision criteria, ie, hierarchical value maps, are well documented (Gutman, 1982; Olson and Reynolds, 1983; Reynolds and Gutman, 1988; Reynolds, Westberg, and Olson, 1994), few specifics or...

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