Geodemographic segmentation

Geodemographic segmentation is a multivariate statistical classification technique for discovering whether the individuals of a population fall into different groups by making quantitative comparisons of multiple characteristics with the assumption that the differences within any group should be less than the differences between groups.

Technologies employed
The information technologies employed in geodemographic segmentation include geographic information system and database management software.
 * Geographic information system: a business tool for interpreting data that consists of a demographic database, digitized maps, a computer and software.
 * Database management software: a computer program in which data are captured on the computer, updated, maintained and organized for effective use and manipulation of data.

Principles
Geodemographic segmentation is based on two simple principles:
 * People who live in the same neighborhood are more likely to have similar characteristics than are two people chosen at random.
 * Neighborhoods can be categorized in terms of the characteristics of the population which they contain. Any two neighborhoods can be placed in the same category, i.e., they contain similar types of people, even though they are widely separated.

Geodemographic segmentation systems
The two most famous geodemographic segmentation systems are ACORN system and MOSAIC system.

ACORN system
A Classification Of Residential Neighborhoods (ACORN) system is conducted by Consolidated Analysis Centers Incorporated (CACI). It is the first and leading geodemographic tool to identify and understand the UK population and the demand for products and services. ACORN categorizes all 1.9 million UK postcodes using over 125 demographic statistics within England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and employing 287 lifestyle variables. The classification system of ACORN contains 56 types of household under the 14 groups in 5 categories:
 * Wealthy achievers
 * Wealthy executives
 * 01 - Affluent mature professionals, large houses
 * 02 - Affluent working families with mortgages
 * 03 - Villages with wealthy commuters
 * 04 - Well-off managers, larger houses
 * Affluent Greys
 * 05 - Older affluent professionals
 * 06 - Farming communities
 * 07 - Old people, detached houses
 * 08 - Mature couples, smaller detached houses
 * Flourishing families
 * 09 - Larger families, prosperous suburbs
 * 10 - Well-off working families with mortgages
 * 11 - Well-off managers, detached houses
 * 12 - Large families & houses in rural areas
 * Urban Prosperity
 * Prosperous professionals
 * 13 - Well-off professionals, larger houses and converted flats
 * 14 - Older Professionals in detached houses and apartments
 * Educated Urbanites
 * 15 - Affluent urban professionals, flats
 * 16 - Prosperous young professionals, flats
 * 17 - Young educated workers, flats
 * 18 - Multi-ethnic young, converted flats
 * 19 - Suburban privately renting professionals
 * Aspiring Singles
 * 20 - Student flats and cosmopolitan sharers
 * 21 - Singles & sharers, multi-ethnic areas
 * 22 - Low income singles, small rented flats
 * 23 - Student Terraces
 * Comfortably Off
 * Starting Out
 * 24 - Young couples, flats and terraces
 * 25 - White collar singles/sharers, terraces
 * Secure Families
 * 26 - Younger white-collar couples with mortgages
 * 27 - Middle income, home owning areas
 * 28 - Working families with mortgages
 * 29 - Mature families in suburban semis
 * 30 - Established home owning workers
 * 31 - Home owning Asian family areas
 * Settled Suburbia
 * 32 - Retired home owners
 * 33 - Middle income, older couples
 * 34 - Lower income people, semis
 * Prudent Pensioners
 * 35 - Elderly singles, purpose built flats
 * 36 - Older people, flats
 * Moderate Means
 * Asian Communities
 * 37 - Crowded Asian terraces
 * 38 - Low income Asian families
 * Post Industrial Families
 * 39 - Skilled older family terraces
 * 40 - Young family workers
 * Blue Collar Roots
 * 41 - Skilled workers, semis and terraces
 * 42 - Home owning, terraces
 * 43 - Older rented terraces
 * Hard Pressed
 * Struggling Families
 * 44 - Low income larger families, semis
 * 45 - Older people, low income, small semis
 * 46 - Low income, routine jobs, unemployment
 * 47 - Low rise terraced estates of poorly-off workers
 * 48 - Low incomes, high unemployment, single parents
 * 49 - Large families, many children, poorly educated
 * Burdened Singles
 * 50 - Council flats, single elderly people
 * 51 - Council terraces, unemployment, many singles
 * 52 - Council flats, single parents, unemployment
 * High Rise Hardship
 * 53 - Old people in high rise flats
 * 54 - Singles & single parents, high rise estates
 * Inner City Adversity
 * 55 - Multi-ethnic purpose built estates
 * 56 - Multi-ethnic, crowded flats

MOSAIC system
Mosaic UK is Experian’s award winning people classification system. Originally created by Prof.Richard Webber in association with Experian, it classifies the UK population into 11 main socio-economic groups and, within this, 61 different types.

Mosaic is also a global consumer classification tool. Classifying more than a billion consumers across a third of the surface area of the Earth, Mosaic is available in all the world’s most prosperous economies including China, North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Mosaic Global is a consistent segmentation system that covers over 400 million of the world’s households using local data from 25 countries. It has identified 10 types of residential neighbourhood that can be found in each of the countries. The 10 types include:


 * Sophisticated singles
 * Bourgeois prosperity
 * Career and family
 * Comfortable retirement
 * Routine service workers
 * Hard-working blue collar
 * Metropolitan strugglers
 * Low-income elders
 * Post-industrial survivors
 * Rural inheritance