Lecture Nineteen: Social Class & Marketing

This weeks lecture was all about how 'Social Class' influences the Consumer's purchase behaviour but what exactly is social class; for me I see social class by the wealth of someone. Rich, well off, comfortable, borderline, struggling, really struggling and poor. However someone's social class is not just defined by there income but it is a mix of:

1 - Level of Income
2 - Type of Occupation
3 - Type of Lifestyle
4 - Family Background

(Krech, Crutchfield & Ballachey in Dubois 2000) define social class as:

"a division of society made up of persons possessing certain common social characteristics which are taken to qualify them for intimate, equal status relations with one another, and which restrict their interaction with members of other social classes."

Now I like how they state that it is "a division of society" because people are divided by there social class although in recent decades the lines between the classes have blurred.



If you look at the image above it shows you how the classes used to be ordered. You have you 'Upper Class' at the very top of the triangle because even small in number they are the at the top on society. Then followed in the middle by the 'Middle Class' as you would expect and finally ending with, yep you got it the 'Lower Class'. Then if we look at a more modern look on the spread on social classes you can see that the shape has changed dramatically and each class has split into similar but still different classes.



Now the emphasis is more on the middle classes as this is where the majority of the UK population are and this has allot to do with the fact that the UK government introduced the the Welfare State in 1940's-50's.



This was all aimed to get the population out of poverty by providing homes, education and health services at the expense of the state. This then allowed people to move up a class in some cases as they were on the border anyway. However when compared to some of our other allied countries we see that we could be doing better.



You now may be asking that how do you measure social class; well the answer is by categorising people into different social classes. In the UK our system is A, B, C1, C2, D & E.

• A - Upper Middle Class


• B - Middle Class


• C1 - Lower Middle Class


• C2 - Skilled Working Class


• D - Working Class


• E - Lower Class

It understanding how these different classes differ in buying behaviour is what marketers use to further segment their target market. People of a high social status will want to be associated with objects and people that reflect the same level of status as themselves. This is where marketers tailor make and style adverts to suit the right target group.



This advert for the sun as aimed generally and the young and working class. A sense of sharing a togetherness makes the viewer feel happy. Compare this with the advert for the Harrod's sale below...



... you seen that they use the sense of elegance to promote their sale. They do this by using soft colours and having luxury items displayed, coupled with the background opera music, this ad is definitely tailored to the upper classes.

I think in all social class has changed and because of this change advertisers and marketers have had to change with it. After all it is not as simple as it once was. There are many more factors affecting peoples social class. It is now excepted that people can marry in classes above or below their own and may even socialise with a class that is not their own. Women are almost at equal with men in terms of levels of occupation and with more and more young people going on to higher education the standard occupation level is also set to rise. Watch out in the next decade as the social structure of our company is set to change again.