Discussion Board Two
Samantha N. Bostwick
Liberty University
BUSI 745: Marketing for Competitive Advantage
Dr. Kendrick Brunson
July 9, 2020
The Elements of Value
In the Elements of Value article Almquist et al., (2016) expanded on Maslow’s hierarchy
of needs in order to better understand what customers value in a product or service. The authors
created 30 “elements of value” that met four kinds of needs: functional, emotional, life changing,
and social impact. If companies could identify the needs of their customers and meet the ones
that are most important in their industry, product strategy and branding could be more impactful
generating increased revenue and growth. Quantitative and qualitative customer studies on
decades of research led the authors to identify the 30 fundamental attributes. The attributes are
listed in a pyramid with the functional attributes making the base of the pyramid. These attributes
include reduces cost, reduces risk, connects, integrates, and informs. The emotional and life
changing sections of the pyramid sit on top of the functional and contain less attributes. These
attributes include reduces anxiety and nostalgia for the emotional need and provides hope and
motivation for the life changing needs. The top of the pyramid is the social impact need,
consisting of only one attribute- self transcendence. Companies that provided more elements
(any combination of the 30) had increased customer loyalty and sustained revenue growth. The
authors believe that it is unrealistic for any one company to have all the 30 elements and stress
that strategic implementation of some of the elements was necessary. Product strategy should
consist of elements that provide value to the customers of specific industries. The authors found
that elements shed light on market share growth of pure-play digital retailers. The article deduces
