Arthur Asa Berger
Lifestyle Typologies
1
Lifestyles can be defined as the way people live and present themselves to others.
They do this through the brands of products they purchase, which reflect matters such as
their taste, values, beliefs and socio-economic status. Typologies involving lifestyles are
classifications of different categories of consumers. These lifestyle typologies are generally
developed by marketers to enable advertisers to target individuals more effectively.
Marketers are interested in classifying people in order to understand people’s consumer
behavior better. There are two rules that must be followed when classifying people’s
lifestyles. First, the categories must not be ambiguous--each person must fit into one and
only one group. Second, the classification of lifestyles must be comprehensive and cover
everyone.
There have been numerous lifestyle typologies developed by marketing companies
over the past decades. We will deal, here, with a few of the more interesting ones, and
begin with the Total Research Corporation of Princeton, New Jersey. It developed an
instrument called “Equitrends” that studied approximately two hundred brands in fifty-five
product groups. The company used a survey to study consumption practices and ended up
classifying Americans into seven categories and listing some products they prefer, which
are described below.
1. Intellects: Michelin Tires, Wall Street Journal
2. Conformists: Kodak, Hallmark, Crest
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Lifestyle Typologies
2
3. Popularity Seekers: Nike, Mercedes Benz, Home Box Office
4. Pragmatists: Fisher-Price, Rubbermaid, Mr. Coffee
5. Activists: Maytag, Kenmore
6 Relief-Seekers: IBM computers, CNN, Hilton
7. Sentimentalists: Campbell soups, Hershey’s, Folgers
Marketing companies tend to give jazzy, descriptive, and memorable names to their
categories.
One of the more popular typologies was the Values and Lifestyles or VALS
typology developed by SRI, the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California.
SRI developed two different typologies: first VALS1 and then its successor, VALS 2. The
VALS typologies categorize consumers by their demographics and on the basis of cultural
trends. The categories were developed by giving consumers a thirty question survey that
obtained demographic information but also provided insights into their values and beliefs.
The charts below show the different categories for each of the VALS marketing typologies
and briefly describe each of them.
VALS1
\
1. Survivors
Old, poor and not in the cultural mainstream.
2. Sustainers:
Young, on edge of poverty, and ambitious.
3. Belongers:
Conventional and conservative tastes, sentimental.
4. Emulators:
Upwardly mobile, status conscious, want to be successful.
5. Achievers:
Arthur Asa Berger
Lifestyle Typologies
3
Society’s leaders. Successful, with high status. Materialistic.
6. I-Am-Me’s:
Narcissistic, young, exhibitionistic, individualistic.
7. Experientials:
Grown up I-Am-Me’s. Focus is on inner growth.
8. Societally Conscious Individuals:
Simple living, environmental causes, smallness of scale.
With VALS2, we now have a different list of categories, based primarily on the
ability of people to actually purchase desired products.
VALS2
1. Actualizers.
Wealthy and successful. Interested in social issues and social change.
2. Fulfilleds.
Practical. Like durability and functionality in products. Mature. Well off.
3. Achievers.
Career oriented, buy things to reflect their success. Value structure, stability.
4. Experiencers.
Young, impulsive, enthusiastic, love to spend money. Risk takers.
5. Believers.
Highly principled conservative consumers. Buy well known brands.
6. Strivers.
Desire approval of others, Are like Achievers but have less money.
7. Makers.
Active, self-sufficient, are like Experiencers.
8. Strugglers.
Poor and struggling to survive.
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Lifestyle Typologies
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These categories assume that people act rationally and don’t purchase things they can’t
afford.
We now move to the Claritas Corporation, now called Claritas Nielsen, which has
developed a typology based on the notion that people tend to live in places with other
people like them, principally in terms of their socio-economic status. Claritas Nielsen bases
its typology on zip codes and has developed a typology which divides American consumers
into fourteen lifestyle groupings, based on income and lifestyles, and sixty-six different
consumer preference groupings, based on zip codes. Like other marketing companies,
Claritas Nielsen tends to give groups “catchy” names that offer some insights into the
nature of the groups being dealt with. The fourteen lifestyles are shown below:
Lifestyles
Urban
Suburban
Second City
Town & Country
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
n
c
o
m
e
Urban
Uptown
Elite
Suburbs
Second City
Society
Landed
Gentry
Midtown
Mix
The
Affluentials
City
Centers
Country
Comfort
Urban
Cores
Middle
Burbs
Micro City
Blues
Middle
America
Inner
Suburbs
Rustic
Living
We can see that this list focuses upon where people live, and that those at the top of the
chart are wealthier than those at the bottom of the list.
Claritas Nielsen developed a more refined typology called PRIZM a number of
years ago that lists sixty-six groupings. It describes PRIZM as follows:
PRIZM operates on the principle that “birds of a feather flock together.” It’s a worldwide
phenomenon that people with similar cultural backgrounds, needs, and perspectives
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Lifestyle Typologies
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naturally gravitate toward one another, choose to live in neighborhoods offering affordable
advantages and compatible lifestyles. That’s why, for instance, many young career singles
and couples choose dynamic urban neighborhoods like Chicago’s Gold Coast, while
families with children prefer the suburbs which offer more affordable housing, convenient
shopping, and strong local schools.
Claritas Nielsen also obtains its information from the government and survey data. It
argues that its data should be interpreted in a general way and not as an actual portrait of the
lifestyles it deals with, which means it deals with purchasing preferences and not actual
purchasing behavior. It focuses on zip codes, where it provides as many as five different
PRIZM clusters in a single zip code even though there may be as many as twenty different
clusters found in that zip code.
For Claritas Nielsen, our identities are based on location; it argues “You are where
you live.” Each zip code covers from 2500 to 15,000 households but the Claritas Nielsen
PRIZM groups deal with census block groups of between 250 and 500 households and its
ZIP+four with from six to twelve households. Claritas Nielsen claims to offer rather precise
information about the consumption behavior of the different groups in its typology.
It should be pointed out that many social scientists don’t believe that “you are where
you live,” because of several factors. For example, in some wealthy suburban areas, a
number of homeowners are “grandfathered in,” which means they purchased their homes
many years ago when the home were relatively inexpensive. A list of the Claritas Nielsen
sixty-six consumer cultures follows, with 01 Upper Crust being the wealthiest and most
successful group and 66 Low Rise Living being the least successful group, socioeconomically speaking.
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Lifestyle Typologies
6
01.
Upper Crust
34.
White Picket Fences
02.
Blue Blood Estates
35.
Boomtown Singles
03.
Movers & Shakers
36.
Blue-Chip Blues
04.
Young Digerati
37.
Mayberry-ville
05.
Country Squires
38.
Simple Pleasures
06.
Winner’s Circle
39.
Domestic Duos
07.
Money & Brains
40.
Close-In Couples
08.
Executive Suites
41.
Sunset City Blues
09.
Big Fish, Small Pond
42.
Red, White, & Blues
10.
Second City Elite
43.
Heartlanders
11.
God’s Country
44.
New Beginnings
12.
Brite Lites, Li’l City
45.
Blue Highways.
13.
Upward Bound
46.
Old Glories
14.
New Empty Nests
47.
City Startups
15.
Pools & Patios
48.
Young & Rustic
16.
Bohemian Mix
49.
American Classics
17.
Beltway Boomers
50.
Kid Country USA
18.
Kids & Cul-de-Sacs
51.
Shotguns & Pickups
19.
Home Sweet Home
52.
Suburban Pioneers
20.
Fast-Track Families
53.
Mobility Blues
21.
Gray Power
54.
Multi-Culti Mosaic
22.
Young Influentials
55.
Golden Ponds
23.
Greenbelt Sports
56.
Crossroads Villagers
24.
Up-and-Comers
57.
Old Miltowns
25.
Country Casuals
58.
Back Country
26.
The Cosmopolitans
59.
Urban Elders
27.
Middleburg Managers
60.
Park Bench Set
28.
Traditional Times
61.
City Roots
29.
American Dreams
62.
Hometown Retired
30.
Suburban Sprawl
63.
Family Thrifts
31.
Urban Achievers
64.
Bedrock America
32.
New Homesteaders
65.
Big City Blues
33.
Big Sky Families
66.
Low Rise Living
It is possible to find out what people in any zip code are like by
accessing the Claritas Nielsen web site at www.mybestsegments.com.
Our final typology is one developed by social anthropologist Mary
Douglas, who argues—based on what is called Grid-Group Theory--that there
are four, and only four, lifestyles in modern societies. This theory
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Lifestyle Typologies
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maintains that each of us is a member of a group with either weak or strong
boundaries and also that each group has either few or many rules and
prescriptions. When you combine the kinds of groups to which people
belong and the number of rules and prescriptions to which they are subjected,
you get four mutually hostile lifestyles: elitist, (hierarchist), individualist,
egalitarian and fatalist. (Douglas and other grid-group theorists use other
names for the lifestyles in some cases).
Lifestyle
Group Boundaries
Number of Rules
Elitist
Strong
Many and Varied
Egalitarian
Strong
Few and Weak
Individualist
Weak
Few and Weak
Fatalists
Weak
Many and Varied
What is important to recognize, Douglas argues, is that our desire to
purchase products and services are not based on individual taste and
psychological temperament but on the unconsciously held imperatives of the
lifestyle to which we belong.
Arthur Asa Berger
Lifestyle Typologies
8
Bibliography
Berger, Arthur Asa. 2007.
Ads, Fads, & Consumer Culture. Third Edition.
Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield.
Berger, Arthur Asa. 2005.
shop ‘til you drop: Consumer Behavior and American Culture
Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield
Douglas, Mary. “In Defence of Shopping,” in Falk, Pasi and Colin Campbell,
eds. The Shopping Experience. 1997. London: Sage.
Michman, Ronald D. 1991.
Lifestyle Market Segmentation.
New York: Praeger.
Mitchell, Arnold. 1983.
The Nine American Lifestyles: Who We Are & Where We Are Going.
New York: Macmillan.
Vyncka, Patrick. “Lifestyle Segmentation: From Attitudes, Interests and
Opinions, to Values, Aesthetic Styles, Life Visions and Media Preferences.”
European Journal of Communication. Vol. 17, No. 4, 445-463. 2002.