Respected Pillars of the Community: A values-based profile of the British Market Maven

Market Mavens are consumers who are active purveyors of word of mouth (WOM) communication in society. In contrast to opinion leaders, mavens provide information that cuts across product categories, and advise on old and new products. Consequently, mavens can impact a wider number of social networks with WOM, and are therefore a valuable target for marketers. Despite much empirical work, a socio-demographic profile of the market maven remains elusive, and recently work has focused on those intrinsic characteristics that may distinguish mavens from others. However, no previous work has considered the possibility that personal values may be a distinguishing maven factor. Using the original market maven scale, the full Rokeach value survey and the List of Values (LOV), this research (n = 158) found mavens to place significantly more importance on several values than do non-mavens. Results suggest that mavenism has an external social dimension to sharing marketplace information that is not motivated out of self-interest, but by altruism and a genuine concern for others. Contrary to some previous research, this study shows that market mavens can be identified in a useful way to marketing practitioners. In addition to the obvious need for marketing communications to supply the maven with plenty of information about products and services, communications strategies need to focus on positioning brands around the values which reflect altruism, respect, helpfulness, and responsibility. In this way, the usefulness of market mavens and WOM communications can be harnessed successfully