Adding Value to the Census

3rd March 2004

One of the principal ways of adding value to the Census lies in using the results to build geodemographic classifications. Although the main outputs from the 2001 Census were published barely six months ago, the CGG seminar on 3rd March 2004 brought together experts from no less than eight commercial developers to discuss their new systems. Around seventy interested users attended in order to learn about the new products and question the speakers.

The event was chaired by Keith Dugmore, from Demographic Decisions, with considerable expertise. As the speakers were keen to provide as much information as possible in their presentations, Keith also did a sterling job of ensuring that the programme ran precisely on time.

The seminar began with two scene-setting talks. The first, by Peter Sleight of Target Market Consultancy, presented the audience with a roadmap of all the types of products available from 2001 Census data, and so helped to position the presentations that followed. The second briefing was given by Chris Denham and John Charlton from the Office for National Statistics. Chris summarised very clearly the main features of the data and how users can access it free of charge. Then John described the area classifications that his team at ONS have built from the Census, and demonstrated the interactive analysis and mapping available on the Neighbourhood Statistics website.

Download Peter Sleight’s presentation

Download Chris Denham’s presentation

Download John Charlton’s presentation

After a short break, Neville Hilton (AFD Software) and Tim Drye (DataTalk) kicked off the supplier presentations with a talk about their Censation classification. Tim explained why segment titles can conceal rather than reveal and how their product avoids this pitfall.

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The second presentation, from Simon Perry (Beacon Dodsworth), discussed Census issues and how the P2 People & Places classification is being developed. Simon stressed the importance of testing classifications in order to tell which works best and provided a methodology for comparing test results.

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In the last presentation of the morning, John Rae (CACI) explained the two-stage approach taken in developing the new acorn classification. John also discussed some of the internal requests that the developers had turned down and why these decisions were taken.

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After lunch, Martin Bradbury (EuroDirect) discussed the dangers of taken an overly complex modelling approach to targeting, as opposed to using a straightforward geodemographic discriminator. With the aid of two case studies, Martin suggested that the discriminatory power of the CAMEO classifier had increased, using 2001 Census data.

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The next presenter, Rob Haslingden (Experian), discussed the importance of understanding societal change in Britain. Rob talked about the impact of using non-Census data to identify consumer segments and how this will facilitate updating the UK mosaic classification.

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The third presentation in this section was given by Eli Kling (GeoBusiness Solutions). Eli explained the dimensions used in the ATOMIC product and discussed the benefits of data mining using customer data linked to the census.

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After the break, Gordon Farquharson (Streetwise Analytics) discussed the importance of developing spatial measures to overcome regional effects, for example in house prices, and identifying segments of people most likely to change in the future.

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The final presentation of the day, from David Griffiths (TRAC Consultancy), described the development of the Sonar classification. David explained how a large number of alternative solutions were tested in order to optimize performance.

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The seminar ended with a lively panel session, in which many members of the audience asked questions and made comments and observations. This session included a heated discussion between the speakers on the relative merits of area and household classifications.