What is customer segmentation?

Report produced by Customer Segmentation Group

Strategic Needs Analysis Team, Gloucestershire County Council

Copyright © 1979-2014 CACI Limited.

This report shall be used solely for academic, personal and/ or non-commercial purposes.

Contents

What is customer segmentation? ....................................................................................................... 1

What is Acorn? .................................................................................................................................... 1

Where does the data come from? ...................................................................................................... 2

How is the population segmented? .................................................................................................... 3

Gloucestershire’s population .............................................................................................................. 4

1

What is customer segmentation?

Customer segmentation is about recognising that people are different and will not need the same services. It is the process of dividing the population into homogenous groups based on shared characteristics, including who they are (socio demographics), what they do (behaviours) and how they think and feel (attitudes).

Figure 1: Segmenting a population

The purpose of segmentation is to understand the differences between communities to enable more effective targeting and tailoring of local services.

What is Acorn?

There are various customer segmentation tools available, these include Experian’s Mosaic, the ONS Output Area Classification or CACI’s Acorn. Gloucestershire County Council uses CACI’s product Acorn, which stands for a classification of residential neighbourhoods.

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Figure 2: What does Acorn mean?

Where does the data come from?

Acorn takes traditional inputs such as the Census of Population and public data from organisations like the Land Registry and the Department for Work and Pensions. This is used alongside lifestyle and commercial data, including credit ratings and information about private renting from online property sites. They also collect their own data about the location of particular sites such as prisons, traveller sites, age restricted housing and student accommodation, this ensures these areas are reflected in the classification.

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Figure 3: Data Sources

How is the population segmented?

Acorn divides the population on a hierarchical basis into 62 types which nest into 18 groups and then 5 main categories, with an additional category of non-private households. Acorn provides us with a description of each type, group and category and information about their likely characteristics and behaviours. Figure 4: Acorn Categories and likely characteristics

LATEST DATA

CENSUS, LIFESTYLE

DATA

PUBLIC DATA GROUP, OPEN

DATA, FOI

COLLECTED DATA,

COMMERCIAL DATA

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Gloucestershire’s population

Figure 5 shows Affluent Achievers and Comfortable Communities are the dominant categories in Gloucestershire.

Figure 5: Gloucestershire’s population by Acorn category

There are noticeable variations between the six Gloucestershire districts. Figure 6 shows

Cotswold district has the highest percentage of people within the Affluent Achievers

category amounting to 51% compared to Gloucester district with the lowest percentage at

18%. In Cheltenham 13% of the population are classed as Rising Prosperity which compares

to less than 1% of the population in the Forest of Dean.

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Figure 6: District's population by Acorn category

An interactive report breaking down the population by the 18 Acorn Groups at county, district and ward level can be found in the “Accessibility

– Transport & Internet” section of Inform Gloucestershire.

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Tewkesbury