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...