NEOs dominate the top socio-economic quintiles

Splitting the population into five socio-economic groups is conventionally a simple way to segment the population and define, what are perceived to be, the most valuable parts of the population. This is typically done using a combination of income, education and occupation.

Almost 70 % of all NEOs are in the top two socio-economic quintiles. And taking the top socio-economic quintile as a whole, more than half (53%) are NEOs. That’s the good news for socio-economics as a measure of high-value consumers. However the bad news is that 20% of this top segment are low-spending Traditionals and 27% are Evolvers. As a consequence, at least a quarter of advertising-spend is wasted when the top socio-economic quintile is used to target those who spend the most.