Psychographic Segmentation is one of the many different approaches taken in dividing the market into segments. It divides the market into groups based upon social class, lifestyle and personality. It is based upon the assumption that types of products and brands an individual purchases will reflect that person's characteristics and patterns of living.
Social class is the single most used variable for research purposes, and divides the population into groups based on the occupation of the Chief Income Earner, as such it can be seen as a socioeconomic scale.
An example of this is the National Readership Survey in the UK. The following chart summarizes the socioeconomic scale:
Social Grade
Description of Occupation
Example
Upper Management
Company director
Middle management
Middle manager
C1
Supervisory
Bank Clerk
C2
Skilled manual Labor
Plumber
Semi- & unskilled labor Laborer
Pensioners and Unemployed
Unemployed, Retired
This scale operates on the assumption that individuals in...
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