The IPA definition of advertising referred to the ‘right prospects’ and ‘lowest possible cost’. The social grades system makes it possible to identify certain groups of people – prospective buyers – and then to pinpoint the media which will reach them most effectively. In developing countries where only a minority of people are literate, and they are mostly the ones reached by the media, the idea of selecting media to reach certain groups may seem strange. In such countries it may be more appropriate to talk about income or socio-economic groups.
However, in Britain the social grades, based on occupation and not income, are as shown in Table 2.1. In Table 2.2 the author has related social grades to British national morning newspapers, but this is a broad generalization and some people will read a variety of newspapers.