In a session during today’s ( 10 March) MRS Conference, chair Laura Rowe, managing partner at media agency OMD UK, was joined by Channel 4 director of media and effectiveness Jennifer Carey; Caroline Clear, client strategy controller, ITV; and Jon Puleston, chief methodologist of Ipsos.

Rowe noted that the industry needed to ditch outmoded socio-economic grouping (SEG) and move towards methodologies that more accurately segment audiences.

The SEG system was created in 1956 and is as outdated as many of the values of that era seem today, segmenting people on the basis of the chief income earner in a household.

“Socio economic grouping is simply not fit for purpose within research anymore as an audience profiling tool or as a trading currency,” she said. “And I hasten to add, in media we still trade TV against ABC1s in many cases.”

This means that the research is misfiring, or entirely missing its target. For instance, in spite of the fact that plumbers are sitting on a minimum annual income of £60,000, the fact they are classed as C2s means they are not squarely hit by any advertiser buying ABC1s.

SEGs are also not a proxy for for taste, behaviours and attitudes, she added.

Jennifer Carey, director of media and effectiveness, Channel 4, stressed that the industry needed to remember that it’s talking about people rather than data-points.

“At Channel Four, part of our remit is to serve unrepresented voices, but also to serve youth audiences, and we're seeing their behaviour transform as they move towards more digital channels.

But, she added, that youth “as a proxy for our target audience, specifically in paid media, has been a bit of go-to however, we're now seeing that, you know, that older generation are starting to migrate away from linear and discover VOD.”

Puleston said: “What’s needed is, is a new, fresher way of segmenting the population. It’s scandalous really that we're still basing it upon occupation.

“So there are no Ds any more in society, they’re all C1s and C2s, technically. That classification with jobs has become so nuanced. There’s millions of different ways of earning a living, and it’s ludicrous that we're still anchoring our entire media planning on essentially what the head of the household does for a living.”

‘The age of ageism’

In a follow-up session that dived into the notion of ageism and how marketing’s obsession with youth is costing brands billions, Kurt Stuhllemmer, partner at Hall & Partners, said that “we are sitting in an age of ageism”.

“It feels like ageism is horribly a last acceptable prejudice,” he said. “And I think this is costing brands billions.

“How many times have we had the brief where it says that our growth challenge is this: how do we win Gen Z?

“It’s too prevalent. It’s too simplistic. It’s creating a problem. It’s like the audiences of focus. The only audience of focus now becomes this Gen Z audience. It’s a shorthand for a growth strategy, which is completely not and we all know this, yet somehow it still proliferates our agency.

“But I don't believe this is Gen Z problem. Actually, this is a growth problem. It’s getting people severe effect on how brands grow and how marketing succeeds.”