Comments about Teammate's Post

One of my teammates recently took the VALS test, an online survey that asks a number of questions about demographic and motivational characteristics that are then processed to determine shopping habits as well as media, product, and service preferences. Marketers may use this information to more precisely target consumers. My teammate found her survey results to be accurate, and recommended that others take the survey. So I did, and although I responded to the questions as honestly as possible I found that the shopping habits, lifestyle and recreation choices that VALS predicted I would exhibit did not reflect my actual behavior and preferences. If the inaccurate prediction about my behavior is in any way indicative of the quality of the results received by the majority of other respondents to the VALS test than there is a discrepancy between the objectives of the survey (to allow businesses to more accurately target consumers.) and the questions used to predict behavior. I feel that the survey should be expanded to also ask more direct questions specifically dealing with shopping habits, personal behavior and personal preferences. These types of questions together with the existing questions would elicit responses that I feel would more accurately predict behavior and preferences.