I Wanted To Watch Ted Koppel, But All I Could Find Was Nancy Grace and Entertainment Tonight

We’re in the business of selling audiences to advertisers. They [the sponsors] come to us asking for women 18 – 49 and adults 25 – 54 and we try to deliver.
Robert Niles, NBC VP of Marketing

In an earlier blog, I reviewed some of the social class theory developed in the 1950-60s to help better understand my parents, neighbors, and the families we grew up in within what were extremely homogenous, lily white suburbs of East Dallas. In the new millennium, social class is much harder to define. Whereas Herbert J. Gans in The Levittowners could provide some fairly salient generalizations about marriage, family life, parenting attitudes, and civic participation of blue collar, lower middle class, upper middle class, etc., today categories of age, income, ethnic background and educational level can explain less.

Here’s a quick assessment of how one might be classified today for the purposes of consumer marketing demographics. This online assessment only takes a minute and provides immediate results.

http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/presurvey.shtml

I come in as an Innovator (Actualizer), Thinker (Fulfilled).
http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/types.shtml

The following is a description of the VALS categories by James B. Twitchell in Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture, 1996. He is more entertaining than the SRIC website in his descriptions, though his book is a bit dated.

The psychographic system of SRI is called acronymically VALS, short for Values and Lifestyle System. Essentially this schematic is based on the commonsense view that consumers are motivated "to acquire products, services, and experiences that provide satisfaction and give shape, substance, and character to their identities" in bundles. The more "resources" (namely, money, but health, self-confidence, and energy also figure) each group of consumers has, the more likely they are to buy the "products, services, and experiences" of the group with which they associate. But resources are not the only determinant. We are also motivated by such ineffables as principles, status, and action. When SRI describes these various audiences, they peel apart like this (I have provided them with an appropriate car to show their differences):

Actualizers [Changed to Innovators in the current VALS terminology]. These people at the top of the pyramid are the ideal of everyone except advertisers. They have "it" already or will soon. They are sophisticated take-charge people interested in independence and character. They don't need new things; in fact, they already have their things. If not, they already know what the finer things are and refuse to be told. They don't need a new car, but if they do, they'll read Consumer Reports. They do not need a hood ornament on their car.

Fulfilled [Changed to Thinkers in the current VALS terminology]. Here are mature, satisfied, comfortable souls who support the status quo. Often they are literally or figuratively retired. They value functionality, durability, and practicality. They drive something called a town car, which is made by all the big auto makers.

Believers. As the word expresses, these people support traditional codes of family, church, and community, wearing good Republican cloth coats. As consumers they are predictable, favoring American products and recognizable brands. They regularly attend church and Wal-Mart [buying Chinese goods if they are a value], and they are transported there in a mid-range automobile like an Oldsmobile. Whether Oldsmobile likes it or not, they do indeed drive "your father's Oldsmobile." [Can't find Olds anymore; better buy a Buick.]

Achievers. If consumerism has an ideal, it is achievers. Cha-ching, goes the cash register. Wedded to job as a source of duty, reward, and prestige, these are the people who not only favor the establishment, they are the establishment. They like the concept of prestige. They demonstrate their success by buying such objects as prestigious cars. They like hood ornaments.

Strivers. Young strivers are fine; they may mature into achievers. But old strivers can be nasty; they may well be bitter. Because they are unsure of themselves, young strivers are eager to be branded so long as the brand is elevating. Money defines success and they don't have enough of it. Being a yuppie is fine as long as the prospect of upward mobility looms. Strivers like foreign cars even if it means only leasing one.

Experiencers. Here is life on the edge--enthusiastic, impulsive, and even reckless. Their energy finds expression in sports, social events, and "doing something." Politically and personally uncommitted, experiencers are an advertising dream come true, because they see consumption as fulfillment and are willing to spend a high percentage of their disposable income to attain it. When you wonder who could possibly care how quickly a car will accelerate from zero to sixty miles per hour, it is the Experiencers.

Makers. Here is the practical side of Experiencers; Makers like to build things and they experience the world by working on it. Conservative, suspicious, respectful,
they like to do things in and to their homes, like adding a room, canning vegetables, or changing the oil in their pickup trucks.

Strugglers. Like Actualizers, these people are outside the pale of Adcult, not by choice but by economics. Strugglers are chronically poor. Their repertoire of things is limited because they have so little. Although they clip coupons like Actualizers, theirs are from the newspaper, not from bonds. Their transportation is usually public, if at all.

The categories are very fluid, of course, and we may move through as many as three of them in our lifetimes. So, for instance, from ages eighteen to twenty-four most people (61 percent) are Experiencers in desire or deed whereas fewer than 1 percent are Fulfilled. Between ages fifty-five and sixty-four, however, the Actualizers, Fulfilled, and Strugglers claim about 15 percent of the population each, whereas the Believers have settled out at about a fifth. The Achievers, Strivers, and Makers fill about 10 percent apiece, with the remaining 2 percent Experiencers. The numbers can be broken down at every stage, allowing for marital status, education, household
size, dependent children, home ownership, household income, and occupation.

So I can understand that as an Actualizer, Thinker (and Maker in the making) and old, overeducated semi-retiree, I should not expect anyone to program television, radio, movies or periodicals for me, since I rarely buy anything. It should be no surprise to me that I find the mass media to be a great wasteland. But I’m not complaining. I actually like Nancy Grace on occasions. I understand there are millions of overworked, underpaid, big-spending, young moms who deserve a break in the evening to see some tabloid titillation and pervert perps brought to justice. And only in America can old nonspenders like me still find plenty to entertain ourselves with given that there is so little to find within the media.