This book showcases papers presented at the annual Advertising and Consumer Psychology Conference. The contributors -- active scholars with both practitioner and academic backgrounds -- share an interest in the general area of psychographics, values, and lifestyle in advertising. The interdisciplinary and international mix of authors bring a diverse perspective to this volume, which is divided into four nonorthogonal sections. The first section deals with theoretical and conceptual issues in advertising research, while the second section presents chapters devoted to improving methodology. The final two sections illustrate how value, lifestyle, and psychographic research have been used to understand differences among people. The first of these final two sections emphasizes differences among people at different times (commonly called trend research), and the second emphasizes differences among people across national boundaries. Collectively, these chapters illustrate how practical state-of-the-art research in values, lifestyles, and psychographics can be. Thoughtful consideration of values, lifestyles, and psychographics as they are manifested in quality research can improve advertising and marketing practice, and can help the business community deliver products and services that are more in line with consumers' needs.
