{"id":156,"date":"2026-10-29T14:53:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T14:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omd.com\/uk\/?p=156"},"modified":"2026-11-04T10:13:48","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T10:13:48","slug":"reclassified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omd.com\/uk\/2026\/10\/29\/reclassified\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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OMD UK launches reCLASSified<\/span><\/h1>\n

A new audience framework designed for modern Britain, challenging advertising’s reliance on socio-economic grouping<\/span><\/h2>\n

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For decades, socio-economic grouping such as ABC1 and C2DE have been a cornerstone of audience planning across the advertising and media industry. But in a world shaped by rising living costs, changing household structures, multiple income streams and increasingly complex financial realities, is occupation still the best way to understand audiences?<\/span><\/p>\n

ReCLASSified<\/strong> is a major new industry initiative that challenges some of the advertising industry’s longest-held assumptions about how people live, spend and behave.<\/span><\/p>\n

Developed in partnership with the IPA and supported by News UK, Global and ITV, ReCLASSified is the culmination of a two-year collaboration involving organisations from across advertising, media and research.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Where It Started<\/span><\/h3>\n

ReCLASSified first began in late 2024 following the publication of OMD UK’s fifth volume of the Real Britain Series,<\/span> The Farce of Class<\/a>.<\/span> The Real Britain Series is OMD UK’s proprietary research and thought leadership programme, designed to challenge assumptions about the audiences marketers seek to understand and influence.\u00a0 The Farce of Class explored social class, social mobility and socio-economic grouping.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Introducing ReCLASSified<\/span><\/h3>\n

The Farce of Class raised a fundamental question: is occupation still the best way to understand how people think, feel and behave?<\/span><\/p>\n

To answer that question, OMD UK partnered with the IPA, with support from News UK, Global and ITV, to launch ReCLASSified. Led by Laura Rowe, Managing Partner, Marketing Intelligence & Inclusion at OMD UK, the initiative brought together more than 70 representatives from agencies, media owners, industry bodies and research organisations to explore whether a more contemporary audience framework was needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The research highlighted a simple but important reality: people with similar occupations can have vastly different financial experiences, while people from very different socio-economic backgrounds can often behave remarkably similarly.<\/span><\/p>\n

To address this, ReCLASSified is built around two questions:<\/span><\/p>\n

Can I spend?<\/span><\/h4>\n

The degree of financial freedom a person has.<\/span><\/p>\n

Will I spend?<\/span><\/h4>\n

Their orientation towards spending, saving and consumption.<\/span><\/p>\n

Combining these dimensions created six distinct audience groups<\/strong> that provide a richer understanding of how people navigate financial decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The framework demonstrates that financial behaviour cannot be understood through a simple hierarchy of “wealthy” versus “less wealthy”. People’s relationship with money matters just as much as the resources available to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

What we found<\/span><\/h3>\n

Drawing on a nationally representative study of more than 10,000 UK adults<\/strong>, the research explores the relationship between occupation, financial circumstances and consumer behaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the headline findings:<\/span><\/p>\n