Social Grade A
Very often the most critical group marketers wish to reach are those in the high social grades, as they are likely to be the most profitable customers. There was a time when this market was taken as the ABC1 market, for sample size reasons. However, over the last 20 years or so, social and economic shifts have meant that the numbers of adults in the higher social grades have increased enormously and now it is the AB market that many marketers concentrate on as the most profitable.
Recently released data for Premier TGI which measures only those in the A and B social grades, shows that there are 1.4 million adults aged 20 and over in Great Britain who are in social grade A, up from 1 million back in 1987. That in itself is no small rise, however, the big rise has been in social grade B, which numbers 8.5 million adults, up from 5.5 million in 1987 – an increase of 55%. Of the AB market, the B proportion accounts for 86% and the As just 14%.
So often lumped with the Bs and swamped by their numbers, it is instructive to use the huge sample size of As on Premier to discover who these people in the A grade are. A new product called TGI Searchlight which compares one variable against every other in the TGI survey and can rank by the top matches, is very revealing when it comes to analysing those fortunate enough to be at the top of the social grade scale.
If we rank the A graders by index, i.e. how different they are from the Bs, we find that amongst the top results are that they just over twice as likely as the average (AB) to earn £60,000 or more per year. Not surprisingly, many of them are high-ranking business people with important responsibilities. They are 72% more likely to be a director of a company, 51% more likely to be responsible for corporate entertaining decisions and 51% more likely to drink Champagne most often at business functions.
They are three-quarters more likely to read the Sunday Telegraph and Vogue, 61% more likely to read the Daily Telegraph and 58% more likely to occasionally read BA magazine High Life occasionally.
In terms of attitudes and opinions, they are 69% more likely to rate the Body Shop as “poor”, 60% more likely to like to follow the stock market and 54% more likely to “definitely disagree” that they would never buy animal tested cosmetics.
If we look at some simple demographics of As on Premier TGI we find that they tend towards the older end of the age spectrum. 27% are aged under 40, whilst 47% are over 50. In terms of most popular places to live, we find that they are 19% more likely to live in the South-East and 9% more likely to live in the North.
