General Chat

Class is very important in marketing. Advertisers want to target the big bucks, so they go to great lengths (and have done since I did sociology in 1960's) to classify people into A. B, C1, C2, D and E. These 7 new research class groups seem to hardly develop on from that classification, tbh. I think the 6th one, the thrusting new people (Technocrats?) is quite useful.

Think we might all agree that there are 60 million classes in the UK - and one person in each class. We are all USPs (Unique and Special People). Advantage of living in a democracy and not North Korea.

Only classifying that has upset me is when a car dealer decides you cannot possibly suit or afford a particular vehicle, or an estate agent does the same with property. And calling us "elderly" when we reach 50 or 55 or 60. Hmmmm!! Even "mature" instead of "old" or "elderly" does not fit in my case :-D ;-)

Move with ease among Princes and Paupers and treat each with respect and dignity.

Both are the same........human beings.

Quite right Stephen..................... :-D

John...............class isn't important in marketing, income and age are only to ensure the customer is able to pay for the product the seller wants them to have.

I have always believed that class is at the very heart of marketing, Kittie. You can see from link below that Maketing Class A, B and so on also relate historically to social classes like upper and working class.

http://www.abc1demographic.co.uk/

Marketeers are very keen to put everyone in convenient boxes and assume someone in A will buy smoked salmon and someone in E will buy roll mop. I have spent time as an B and an E (and also C1 and C2) so have expensive food tastes with no apparent means of supporting that lifestyle :-(

I love living in a country where there is no class

there is ......

obscenely wealthy

very wealthy

wealthy

rich

well-to-do

doing OK

having problems

poor and very poor



and the difference from the UK is that one moves from one to the other as your financial situation changes.



If you are capable, you will move up the ladder, and no-one criticises you for having been born in the east end, west end or wrong end of the town


If you win millions on the lottery ............. no-one sneers at you for being a jumped-up ******

They might sneer or laugh at you for wasting the millions on wine, women and booze :-D but not for having won it and buying a new house in the best part of town.


It's great!


You are taken for what you are, and what you achieve, NOT for what your parents did or where you grew up.


It's the same in Australia

Nobody cares that we live in a small house and have done so since 1972 ................. and that we do so for 2 reasons

a) we love it

b) we'd rather spend our money on travel than on mortgage ............... and have always done that.


As for class in marketing ....................


over here, AGE is important in marketing ............ even wealth as shown by the area you live in is less important.

Age is because it has been realised that age largely determines what you want to buy AND if you have the money to buy what you want.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, the two groups with money to spend are .................

1) between the ages of about 18 to 28 and 2) seniors over the age of about 60


so they are target ages for clothes, perfumes, fast cars (18-28), and cars, holidays, travel (seniors)

Money does not buy class, good manners or Love.

Like I said John................income dictates what foods, furniture clothes etc we buy, not class.

Paula.......I agree, we have little money but have love and good manners by the bucketload :-)

xx

Kitty,
You are forgetting that the upper class do not have to buy their own furniture

'"The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy all his furniture'

(Alan Clark, as of Saltwood Castle, and son of Baron Clark of Civilization fame)

Both my grandfathers were coal miners and I was brought up in both their houses at some point before the age of 17, I had a good education and did well at school then college, and I rose to the dizzy heights of a senior manager.

Over the course of my life I have counted people from many walks of life as my friends, apart from my friends from ordinary working backgrounds, I was friends with, teachers, clergymen, lawyers, politicians, businessmen, and members of the aristocracy. That said I have never forgotten my roots and have always considered myself to be working class.

I would add that the only people who frowned on my background and upbringing were certain self made businessmen who seemed to think they were superior to everyone else, they were what I called the "fur coat and no drawers brigade" ;-)

Who cares?! People are people, some are nice and some are nasty, some are academic, some aren't, why does it matter?! I think most of us can go back in out family history and find this or that person who, who I suppose was classified as this or that class; family ups and downs do wax and wane over the course of the years, and quite honestly, these days, who cares?, what you are like as a person is what matters,and obviously your abilities in the job market,not where you come from, what school you went to, or who 'your people are, or were,or what'!!! For heavens sake what a load of old fashioned tosh!!

That's the point I was trying to make, LilyL.

Class is unimportant and wasn't/isn't even static. Most people are too busy making a living to worry about labels.

Lily. YPes, 'tis old fashioned tosh. Exactly the conversation I had with my estate gamekeeper and my forester when we promenaded with our Labs and Jack Russells this morning before cook made us all finnan haddie in the riverside lodge.

All four of us commented that the old class structure is now dead :-) ;-)

Guinevere said “It's time we stopped trying to label ourselves and others.”
Quite right.

Maggiewinchester has given a very good example of how a person’s ‘class’ is not set in stone. It doesn’t matter what our parents were, or our education – life is more fluid now and it’s up to ourselves to make of our lives what we will.

When the link to the BBC survey was posted both OH and I had a play about with it.
With the inheritance, I was Elite, without it I was Working Class. The results are probably influenced by my working part time in a low paid job which fitted around the children.
OH did it with our joint finances and contacts – that labelled us as Established Middle Class.
We are the same people and personalities as before.

One thing I forgot to mention in my ramble. We lived in a caravan because our dad was in the services, and mum refused to live in married quarters - does that make us 'Bohemian' or still trailer trash?
What level of trailer trash were we?
We started off in a converted bus and went through a couple of different types of van, until we reached the giddy heights of a 'Swedish Cottage' - 3 bedrooms, seperate kitchen & living room, bathroom, and believe it or not, a verandah and french windows.
These weren't static caravans, the Swedish cottage, which came in 2 halves travelled from Scotland to Cornwall. Unfortunately, one half didn't quite fit under a low bridge, so while it was being fixed, we stayed in a Manor house - sudden rise to the 'elite'?

My main point about how useless this 'class' thing is, is that whilst we (mum, dad, sister & I) lived in said caravans, my 2 elder brothers were at boarding school :-D
Does that automatically make them of a 'better' class than the rest of the family?

I have always been of the opinion that if one has to work for a living, irrespective of size of salary, then one is of working class.

i don't know and i don't care,we all go to the same place in the end,regardless of class.

Well said Martyn.

We live, we die ...................... that is it !

People with long noses and down cast eyes are the ones who ladder rung class.

When I first went to uni in the 1990s, my lecturer Dr xyz told us that 'class' was defined by your occupation, nothing to do with money

Therefore, my brother is working class (a spark) and I am middle class (a lecturer)

Load of old tosh!

I've always said, if you have to work, you are working class........