Geodemographics

Question 1

Anagram =

Answer 1

AHV SMADA

Question 2

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About
Classifying an area based on social characteristics
- links age, ethnicity, social class
Mostly commercial (ACORN by CACI)
- some in public sector (Langley et al., 2005)
Used in retail geography - people often stop there
Output Area Classification - created by ONS after 2001 census (Vickers, 2006)

Question 3

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Answer 3

History
Charles Booth - based on Sight
Burgess - concentric circles, urban planning, too simple
Hoyt expansion - sectors based on transport/river
Classification based - began in 70’s/80’s
- easier to map
- can have many more variables/ outputs

Question 4

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Answer 4

Variables

• Main driver is the census - age, unemployment, class, household type, car ownership, qualifications,
• Also// Acxiom survey (newspapers, hobbies, pets etc.), Product buying surveys, Court data,

Question 5

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Scale
Regional = broad brush, good for niche retailers, h/ ecological fallacy
Local = with powerful GIS can be street level,

Question 6

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Methods

Cluster Analysis - grouping together variables to find clusters

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Advantages
S - Simple
T - Theoretically Grounded - roots in urban structure
R - Robust - in time and space
I - Intuitive - outputs match expectations
P - Powerful - seems to work

Question 8

D =

Answer 8

Disadvantages
D - Data - census out of date,
E - Ethical Issues - making money out of personal data, labelling people (Goss, 1995), (Pickles, 1995)
T - The ecological Fallacy (Openshaw, 1984). Reduced by scale

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Applications:

1. Estimating Demand
   - find demand for your product at each classification
   - breakdown expected expenditure by area (penetration index)
2. Customer Targeting
   - looks at geodemographic classification of your customers by postcode
   - find classifications that mostly use your product
   - target areas with lots of these
   - e.g. Tesco (Humby et al., 2008)
3. Scoring
   - Used by marketing companies
   - create index to see what classifications buy your product above the national average
   - Target these groups

Question 10

Openshaw, 1984

Answer 10

The Ecological Fallacy

Question 11

Goss (1995), Pickles (1995)

Answer 11

Ethics of Geodemographic Profiling

Question 12

Longley et al., (2005)

Answer 12

Geodemographics are used in Public Sector

Question 13

Vickers, (2005)

Answer 13

Output Area Classification