the ac rn user gulde The consumer classification Consumer classification just got smarter User Guide The consumer classification Welcome Welcome to a radical approach to describing customer behaviour Acorn is a segmentation tool which categorises the UK’s population into demographic types. Acorn segments households, postcodes and neighbourhoods into 6 categories, 18 groups and 62 types. 2 Contents Contents Page Acorn User Guide Introduction 4 1 Affluent Achievers Types 10 A Lavish Lifestyles 11 1 Exclusive enclaves 12 2 Metropolitan money 13 3 Large house luxury 14 B Executive Wealth 15 4 Asset rich families 16 5 Wealthy countryside commuters 17 6 Financially comfortable families 18 7 Affluent professionals 19 8 Prosperous suburban families 20 9 Well-off edge of towners 21 C Mature Money 22 10 Better-off villagers 23 11 Settled suburbia, older people 24 12 Retired and empty nesters 25 13 Upmarket downsizers 26 2 Rising Prosperity Types 28 D City Sophisticates 29 14 Townhouse cosmopolitans 30 15 Younger professionals in smaller flats 31 16 Metropolitan professionals 32 17 Socialising young renters 33 E Career Climbers 34 18 Career driven young families 35 19 First time buyers in small, modern homes 36 20 Mixed metropolitan areas 37 3 Comfortable Communities Types 40 F Countryside Communities 41 21 Farms and cottages 42 22 Larger families in rural areas 43 23 Owner occupiers in small towns and villages 44 G Successful Suburbs 45 24 Comfortably-off families in modern housing 46 25 Larger family homes, multi-ethnic areas 47 26 Semi-professional families, owner occupied neighbourhoods 48 H Steady Neighbourhoods 49 27 Suburban semis, conventional attitudes 50 28 Owner occupied terraces, average income 51 29 Established suburbs, older families 52 I Comfortable Seniors 53 30 Older people, neat and tidy neighbourhoods 54 31 Elderly singles in purpose-built accommodation 55 J Starting Out 56 32 Educated families in terraces, young children 57 33 Smaller houses and starter homes 58 4 Financially Stretched Types 60 K Student Life 61 34 Student flats and halls of residence 62 35 Term-time terraces 63 36 Educated young people in flats and tenements 64 L Modest Means 65 37 Low cost flats in suburban areas 66 38 Semi-skilled workers in traditional neighbourhoods 67 39 Fading owner occupied terraces 68 40 High occupancy terraces, many Asian families 69 M Striving Families 70 41 Labouring semi-rural estates 71 42 Struggling young families in post-war terraces 72 43 Families in right-to-buy estates 73 44 Post-war estates, limited means 74 N Poorer Pensioners 75 45 Pensioners in social housing, semis and terraces 76 46 Elderly people in social rented flats 77 47 Low income older people in smaller semis 78 48 Pensioners and singles in social rented flats 79 5 Urban Adversity Types 82 O Young Hardship 83 49 Young families in low cost private flats 84 50 Struggling younger people in mixed tenure 85 51 Young people in small, low cost terraces 86 P Struggling Estates 87 52 Poorer families, many children, terraced housing 88 53 Low income terraces 89 54 Multi-ethnic, purpose-built estates 90 55 Deprived and ethnically diverse in flats 91 56 Low income large families in social rented semis 92 Q Difficult Circumstances 93 57 Social rented flats, families and single parents 94 58 Singles and young families, some receiving benefits 95 59 Deprived areas and high-rise flats 96 6 Not Private Households Types 98 R Not Private Households 60 Active communal population 61 Inactive communal population 62 Business addresses without resident population Detailed Characteristics for all Acorn Types 100 3 Introduction Now you can gain real insight and a deeper understanding of consumers and communities... Customer and consumer insight Understanding the needs of consumers and Acorn provides a detailed understanding of the communities is important to both private sector people who interact with your organisation. It and public service organisations. Acorn helps you helps you learn about their relationship with you. to analyse and understand consumers in order This knowledge gives you the opportunity to to increase engagement with your customers target, acquire and develop profitable customer and to deliver successful strategies across relationships and improve service delivery. all channels. The rise of digital technologies and economic pressures are reflected in the lifestyles, behaviours and socio-economics ...understanding of consumers. the people that Acorn delivers the opportunity to define and interact with your deliver appropriate strategies across all business functions. It provides a detailed understanding organisation... of the consumer characteristics of people and places across the UK. In the user guide we look at each Acorn type across a wide range of demographic, behavioural and attitudinal attributes. The descriptions What is Acorn? of each category, group and type provide an Acorn is a geodemographic segmentation of overview of the wider range of topics for which the UK’s population. It segments households, information is available. postcodes and neighbourhoods into 6 categories, 18 groups and 62 types. By analysing significant social factors and population behaviour, it provides precise information and an in-depth understanding of the different types of people. 4 ...so you can target, acquire Introduction and develop profitable customer relationships and improve service delivery... The Acorn family For a general understanding of the attributes We build my.Acorn segmentations tailored of households, postcodes and neighbourhoods. to individual clients’ requirements. my.Acorn Acorn meets the requirements of many provides client specific classifications to meet organisations. We ensure that the naming a variety of needs where the client holds typology of Acorn is respectful of all substantial information on their individual communities. We build specialist Acorns customers at individual, household and postcode when new segmentations are required rather level. These segmentations range from using than renaming and re-branding existing client data to provide a more relevant set of segmentations. Acorn descriptions, all the way through to fully bespoke my.Acorn segmentations developed to client requirements. For example, using a client’s ...we build specialist customer transaction and service data. Acorns when new By channel, a segmentation of customers can segmentations are be built and then overlaid onto the rest of the population showing purchasing potential and required rather channel preferences. my.Acorn can be supplied than renaming and with an interactive website for use on an re-branding existing organisation’s intranet. We supply free Acorn UK datasets at category segmentations... level for postal sector geography to enable organisations to understand more as to how We recognise the specialist needs of some Acorn would benefit their organisation. business sectors and public policy areas and have developed classifications covering, for example, To find out your personal Acorn code health, retail and leisure activities as well as go to acorn.caci.co.uk Acorn for countries outside the UK. 5 Introduction Acorn is driven by new private and public sector data sources and defines difficult areas with greater precision... Using Acorn A wide range of organisations use Acorn to By assessing the Acorn mix of residents of provide an accurate picture of the needs of a local neighbourhood you can define the their customers and local communities. residents’ demand for products and services in any local area – and compare it to any Acorn is used to understand consumers’ other area in the UK. lifestyle, behaviour and attitudes, together with the needs of neighbourhoods and How can you use Acorn? people’s public service needs. It is used to analyse customers, identify profitable Acorn is licensed from CACI as a dataset of prospects, evaluate local markets and focus households and postcodes coded by Acorn on the specific needs of each catchment categories, groups and types or as counts of and neighbourhood. population and household by Acorn type for any geographic area. ...helps understand Our consultants have experience in applying Acorn to a range of issues. If you wish to consumer behaviour discuss the most appropriate segmentation and a community’s for your needs please contact us or for details of licence fees please email [email protected] public service or call us on 0800 181 851. needs... You can learn more about your business by adding Acorn codes to a customer database. You can also identify prospects who resemble your best customers. 6 ...resulting in unprecedented Introduction levels of accuracy which can be kept up to date for years to come... How Acorn is built We use a specialist team of CACI experts to Our new approach to geodemographics develop Acorn. No other organisation has as rejects a ‘one size fits all’ approach in favour many people with experience in developing of using the best method appropriate to and applying geodemographic segmentation the circumstances. tools. Acorn is built from a combination of government data and consumer We use different data and statistical models, if research data. we can demonstrate the results are better. This makes Acorn more accurate. CACI has created a unique and radically different approach to geodemographics. This takes advantage of the new data ...our new approach environment created by government to geodemographics policies on Open Data. rejects a ‘one size To keep Acorn fully up to date we take fits all’ approach... advantage of new data immediately it becomes available. Our alternatives were to reject all information that was not perfect across the whole of the UK, Our Acorn Methodology or to create different algorithms according to CACI has pioneered a radical departure the available data. We chose to make use of all from the traditional approach to building data that gave a measurably better Acorn. geodemographic segmentations. The traditional approach is to build the structure More details are available in CACI’s Acorn of segmentation and assign postcodes or Technical guide, which is available on request.