A third of Britons are unhappy with their lot, struggling with life in the modern age, according to market research released yesterday. The group - dubbed resistors - makes up 36% of the population. They are offset by embracers, the 1990s' successors to the 1980s' yuppies who see new technology as a style statement. Embracers are physically and socially active but decidedly selfish.
Only one-third of this group, who make up 27% of the population, believe it is their responsibility to help people worse off than themselves. In the middle are the pragmatists - the ‘ordinary' men and women who adopt new technology when they believe it offers them proven benefits and are more concerned with the community than a computer - and the traditionalists, the smallest group, at 15%. Generally the oldest, generally well off, they are ‘a happy self-confident bunch', according to Michael Svennevig, the project's research director.
The classifications come from futura.com, a research project run by Leeds University in partnership with the Independent Television Commission and Ogilvy & Mather and sponsored by a string of big companies including Unilever, IBM, Guinness and Ford as well as the Department of Trade and the Central Office of Information. Source: Timmins26 (reprinted with permission)
Question
1. Discuss how the classifications given in this case study might be used in segmentation research studies.