NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwire) -- 10/13/08 -- Nielsen Claritas, The Nielsen Company's leading marketing information source, announced today the launch of Claritas GenerationIQ, an age-based segmentation tool that classifies American consumers into seven generational groups based on the events, lifestyles and values that have shaped their lives.

Mike Mancini, Nielsen Claritas' Vice President of Data Product Management, said that Claritas GenerationIQ was designed as a complementary tool for use in conjunction with Nielsen Claritas' leading segmentation systems to ensure that marketers get "the best of all worlds" by adding a generational view of the breadth of applications and market linkage that these systems provide. The segmentation systems are PRIZM®, which classifies Americans into 66 lifestyle types; P$YCLE®, a 58-segment system based on financial behavior; and ConneXions®, which consists of 53 consumer segments defined by video, voice and data purchasing preferences.

"By being linked to these segmentation systems, Claritas GenerationIQ allows marketers to better understand the defining moments of each generation and what's driving their product preferences, media tastes and attitudinal views. Understanding the particular experiences of each U.S. generation," he added, "can be critical to the success of a business -- whether the challenge is launching a new line of clothing, convincing consumers to recycle plastics or selecting the right location for a bookstore."

In the Claritas GenerationIQ typology, Mancini said the seven generational groups are aligned within the five more common generations familiar to most marketers, which are the GI Generation, Baby Boomers and Generations X, Y and Z. He noted that these common generations represent too large a proportion of the American population for precise targeting of population segments.

The seven groups, ranging in size from 12 percent to 19 percent of the population, are:

--  Authority Figures (GI Generation, Born Pre-1946) -- This group
    consists of older Americans whose members include both soldiers who fought
    in World War II and Korea as well as Americans born before the war whose
    core values include patriotism, a strong work ethic and respect for
    authority. Their children were the first wave of Baby Boomers.
--  Counterculturals (Early Boomers, Born 1946-1955) -- These Americans
    came of age during the 1960s and rejected the rules of their conformist
    parents. Their desire for a more perfect "counterculture" featured hippies,
    communes and protests against social injustice, and a revolution of
    personal fulfillment that lingers with them today.
--  Brady Boomers (Late Boomers, Born 1956-1964) -- These younger siblings
    in the second wave of Boomers may have protested less but still experienced
    social change, including high divorce rates that created the blended
    families portrayed in sitcoms like "The Brady Bunch," and the after-effects
    of civil unrest in the 1960s.
--  Indie Vanguards (Gen X, Born 1965-1976) -- While the Boomers
    experienced culture in a unified way through network television, these Gen
    X members grew up in a fragmented world, with its creative artists becoming
    independent musicians and filmmakers and its computer pioneers establishing
    paradigm-busting companies like Google, eBay and Amazon.
--  iM Dotcomers (Early Gen Y, Born 1977-1985) -- This Generation Y sub-
    group came of age in the 1990s with the popularity of email and instant
    messaging. They are now actively in the workforce and affecting the way
    business gets done.
--  Social Netizens (Late Gen Y, Born 1986-1994) -- The emergence of
    social networking sites gave rise to this generation of content-producers
    fervently blogging and sharing photos on their Facebook and MySpace pages.
    Even in the midst of completing their educations this group is creating new
    social norms.
--  Born Digitals (Gen Z, Born 1995+) -- The turn of the 21st century
    marked the arrival of the first generation of Americans who have spent
    their entire life connected to each other by high-speed digital devices.
    Still in adolescence their societal impact is only beginning.

    

"Together, these generational groups define all 305 million Americans today, distinguishing each group's shared demographics, common experiences, attitudes and -- most important to marketers -- consumer behavior," said Mancini.

To create Claritas GenerationIQ, Mancini said that Nielsen Claritas analysts examined a wide range of nationwide surveys detailing how Americans spend their time and money. These profiles captured basic demographics such as age and income as well as preferred leisure activities, shopping habits, media choices and social values. Analysts then sorted this information by generational markers using links to the three segmentation systems.

"The generational data was weighted and balanced to reflect national norms as well as aligned with local data from Nielsen Claritas' demographic update for accuracy at small levels of geography," he explained.

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA. Nielsen Claritas is the pre-eminent source of marketing information about people, households and businesses within any geographic area in the United States. For more information please visit: www.nielsen.com or www.claritas.com.