Why I hate the word ‘value’
Value is one of those slippery words with two meanings in one: price + what you get. And like the word ‘good’, it’s subjective. Anyone can say it so it doesn’t mean anything.
I especially hate when the word shows up on a brief (a favourite with some package goods client). Because you can’t do anything with ‘value’ creatively. Except tell people that what you’re selling has it.
For example, as seen today on the back of a taxi:
The Sydney airport owners are currently being investigated for abuse of monopoly powers in relation to their high airport parking prices.
October 27th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
This is one I’ve raised with clients a number of times and asked that it be banned from their briefs – there’s the creative problem you mention and gives marketers the false perception they’ve defined why a customer should want to buy anything from them (“Ah, there it is: they’ll buy it because, we’re offering, um, VALUE!”).
If I’m in the market, I could as well define value in a multidimensional and very personal way – for instance despite being limited in the kind of software I can run and being more expensive, for my needs an Apple iBook represents good value…to me. But the joy of Apple’s interface and the quality of the output, I’d place high value on that.