Arnold Mitchell crowned a 37-year career at SRI with the creation of the Values and Life Styles (VALS) program—a pioneering method of applying psychographics to business management and marketing research. VALS grew out of Arnold’s longtime interest in how people’s values influenced the way they lived and made consumer decisions. It was cited by research executives in a poll by Advertising Age magazine as “one of the ten top market research breakthroughs of the 1980s.” VALS continues as a major component of SRI Consulting’s activities.
Arnold came to SRI in 1948 from McGraw-Hill, as an editor of research reports. In 1963, his broader capabilities were recognized when he became research director of the Long Range Planning Service (predecessor of the Business Intelligence Program). There, he specialized in taking the research achievements of SRI staffers and converting sometimes nerdy technical reports into standard business English that could be understood by typical clients. He helped train many young staffers in the art of writing clear, terse business reports, imposing standards of excellence seldom matched in business writing. Especially, he mentored several women staffers who achieved professional recognition in their own right.
All this time, he pursued his own interest in the changing cultural aspects of people. He persuaded SRI management to sponsor the new multiclient program on Values and Life Styles (VALS), which continues to be a leading—and widely copied—guide to product planners and marketers worldwide. Granted one of SRI’s first McBean Fellowships, he used the time to write Nine American Life Styles (McMillan, 1983), which became a business best seller.