TGI is developing a new 'social grading' system, TGI Global SEL (Socio Economic Levels), according to the latest newsletter from Kantar. The system promises the grail of a consistent means of segmenting different populations into discrete groups based on social and economic status.
TGI stresses that the development of a global social economic classification system is not intended to replace or challenge the local or regional definitions already in existence in many countries - the latter are 'created on the basis of the local economic environment, respecting national cultural concepts, which makes them vital in local marketing' - but can differ significantly between countries. However, the expansion of brands and media beyond the boundaries of individual countries has resulted in increasing demand for direct comparisons between the social economic status of brand users and potential users in different parts of the world.
Global SEL is based on a points-scoring system of 13 variables covering education, ownership of selected household durables, mobile phone and credit card ownership, usage of the Internet and air travel. Each respondent is given a score, the overall maximum score attainable being 100 points. The scores for each country are allocated to 4 mutually exclusive groups of increasing size, indicating the different levels of social / economic standing:
Bought
Levi's jeans
in the last
12 months (index score: ie a score of 100 indicates that penetration for this social group equals that of the country as a whole) (broken down by TGI Socio-Economic Level) |
||||
USA
(23% penetration) |
GB (11% penetration) |
China (0.5% penetration) |
India (2% penetration) |
|
Top 10% | 107 | 125 | 309 | 374 |
Next 20% | 112 | 130 | 208 | 80 |
Next 30% | 105 | 107 | 55 | 102 |
Next 40% | 88 | 73 | 30 | 46 |
Base: individuals age 18-plus |
More information on TGI Global Socio-Economic Levels is available from Andrea Dinning, author of a recent ESOMAR paper which is also available in full: andrea.dinning@us.kantarmedia.com
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
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