Personality Characteristics of Market Mavens

Abstract

A number of papers have been published investigating the demographic, motivational and psychological characteristics of the maven, but none has attempted an in-depth investigation of their personality traits. This paper tests the relationships between the characteristics of market mavens with Extraversion-Introversion and four personality orientations or traits that have been developed recently. The findings suggest that it is possible to anchor the construct of market mavens within a broader personality theory. The research found strong relationships between market mavens, physical/sensing personality orientation and extraversion. EARLY ADOPTERS (INNOVATORS) In general, all consumers are the targets of marketing communications, although some consumers are more valuable to businesses and industries than others (Feick and Price, 1987; Goldsmith, Flynn, Goldsmith, 2003). An examination of the marketing literature has revealed that three types of consumers are especially valuable to businesses and the marketplace. These are known as reference groups and can be grouped into the early adopters (innovators), opinion leaders and market mavens. Their value to businesses and industries originates from their affinity to share knowledge about the marketplace, products and services. The first of the reference groups, early adopters (also known as innovators) tend to be associated with usually a bell shape type of normal distribution, which is characterised as product or category specific as opposed to being interested in all product categories across the board (Rogers, 1995). Studies of early adopters/ innovators have found that early adopters tend to be better educated, younger ages, upwardly mobile and come from the higher socioeconomic status relative to others in the social system, who usually can afford to take the risks and have the money too (Engel, Blackwell and Miniard, 1995). In comparison to other social groups, early adopters are more likely to adopt a new product or service comparatively earlier than other groups of consumers (Clark and Goldsmith, 2005) and are more likely to disregard the risks associated with new products or services (Engel et al., 1995). Numerous studies have shown that early adopters are heavy users of commercial, professional and interpersonal information sources (Goldsmith, Flynn, and Goldsmith, 2003; Fisher and Price, 1992; Mahajan and Muller, 1990). These studies also showed that early adopters tend to be more likely to share information they have gathered about a specific product or service with other members of their local reference groups.