2007-04-09

The Clustered World : How We Live, What We Buy, and What It All Means About Who We Are by Michael J. Weiss (2000)

This is an excellent introduction to clusters used in marketing (and political marketing) and example based description of the 62 clusters used to classify US households, and some details on how similar clusters used in various other countries like Canada, England, and others (and even "world" clustering classifications). Instead of mass marketing, using clusters provide much better marketing results, and really this is "just" a giant step towards individual marketing (although it is debatable if you want some unregulated data gathering company to know that much about you ...). Your address is really considered to speak a lot about you (even if you consider yourself being nothing like any of your neighbors). The almost missing references to race in these classifications are a noteworthy detail, it seems that marketing people consider race having little relevance to how people are to be grouped (as compared to the various governments still clinging to their various race based classifications). Want to learn more about a neighborhood (or at least how it is seen by marketers), do a lookup at Claritas' MyBestSegments.

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