So we’re all middle class now?

As John Prescott famously said, “we’re all middle class now” and this seems to have been confirmed in a recent study undertaken by research company Britain Thinks. The study shows that 71% of Britons define themselves as middle class, almost a quarter are working class and interestingly no-one saw themselves as upper class (as we know not even old-Etonians such as our Prime Minister describe themselves as upper class).

The reason this matters is that this group is responsible for 79% of all income earned in this country and 91% of all savings. So the views and attitudes of the middle class are crucially important for brands and politicians alike.

The study, entitled ‘Speaking Middle English’ examines which brands are favoured; their favourite media, and TV/ radio programmes; how they view education; and what their political attitudes are.

It then attempts to categorise them in 6 sub-sets describes as: Bargain Hunters, Daily Mail Disciplinarians, Comfortable Greens, Urban Networkers, Deserving Downtimers and Squeezed Strugglers. Objects that seem to define today’s middles class included a cafetiere, Cath Kidson, books, theatre, a BlackBerry and a Golf!

While I am not sure that putting people into groups with funny names helps, there is no doubt that a greater understanding of people’s minds and motivations help us to create the most appropriate PR programmes and craft the right type of stories. PR professionals do not typically segment audiences in perhaps as clinical a manner as media buyers or brand managers do, but relevancy is equally key to our activity.

And as for me, what category did I fall into? Well a bit of everything .. I’m a little bit of a ‘Comfortable Green’ as well as a ‘Deserving Downtimer’.  And my key media was “Strictly Come Dancing” rather than “X-Factor”.