Mosaic (geodemography)

Mosaic UK is Experian’s system for classification of UK households. It is one of a number of commercially available geodemographic segmentation systems, applying the principles of geodemography to consumer household and individual data collated from a number of governmental and commercial sources. The statistical development of the system was led by Professor Richard Webber in association with Experian in the 1980s and it has gone through a number of refreshes and reclassifications since then, each based on more recent data from national censuses and numerous other sources. Since its initial development in the UK, the Mosaic brand name has also been used to market separate products which classify other national consumers, now including most of Western Europe, USA, the Far East and Australia.

Contents

• Mosaic 2010 Classifications
• Mosaic 2004 Classification Groups and Types
• References

The initial UK version was based at the postcode level, which would cover an average of 20 properties with the same code. More recent versions have been developed at the individual household level and offer more accurate classification based on specific characteristics of each household. The current version, Mosaic UK 2009, classifies the UK population into 15 main socio-economic groups and, within this, 67 different types.

Professor Webber also developed the competing ACORN system with CACI. Both Mosaic and Acorn have found application outside their original purpose of direct marketing, including governmental estimates and forecasts and it is regularly employed by life insurance companies and pension funds in the UK to assess longevity for pricing and reserving. Both are also used extensively in understanding local service users, although Mosaic’s naming has proved to be controversial leading Experian to introduce Mosaic Public Sector with more politically correct segment names.