Global SEL: classifying the world

Geoff Wicken, TGI global product development director at BMRB, describes the TGI Global Socio-Economic Levels (SEL), a multi-country classification scheme that links together surveys possessing their own national systems.

Global SEL: Classifying the World

Geoff Wicken

Rightly or wrongly, the British class system is renowned worldwide. Its historical foundations are nowadays perpetuated by the film industry, through productions such as Gosford Park, or almost any role played by Hugh Grant.

It is, however, true that marketers and planners in Britain rely heavily on social grade classification in defining consumers, strategies and target audiences. The system in use is driven by traditional class distinctions: white collar and blue collar, or ABC1s and C2DEs.

Many other countries have social classification systems too, but most are conceived differently and have...

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