Social classes...

According to Encyclopedia Brittanica social class is a group of people within a society who possess the same socioeconomic status. Besides being important in social theory, the concept of class as a collection of individuals sharing similar economic circumstances has been widely used in censuses and in studies of social mobility. History of social classes is very long. There were two main civilizations which were divided into classes – Aztecs and ancient Romans. Social class played a major role in their lives.

Romans:

There were four main classes of person in Rome: the Aristocracy known as "Patricians", the common folk known as "Plebeians", the slaves and finally the free men who came into Rome to conduct business known as "Clients".

Aztecs:

Aztec society traditionally was divided into classes. The highest class were the pīpiltin or nobility. The second class were the mācehualtin (people), originally peasants. The other 80% of society were warriors, artisans and traders. Slaves or tlacotin also constituted an important class. Aztecs could become slaves because of debts, as a criminal punishment or as war captives. A slave could have possessions and even own other slaves.

Social class system has been changing for years. It is also very popular in modern Great Britain. The different positions represent different levels of power, influence and money. The British society were considered to be divided into three main groups of classes at the turn of the century:

• the Upper Class,
• the Middle Class, and the
• Lower or Working Class

This system is much more complicated now. Nowadays, British society is divided into 7 main categories. As it can be seen in the picture:

There are w few interesting facts related to their purchase behaviour:

• Social class is a better indicator of purchases that have a symbolic aspect but low to moderate prices e.g cosmetics, liqueurs
• Income is a better indicator of purchase behaviour for non-symbolic, high expenditure products e.g. fridge freezers
• Both social class & income data are needed to predict behaviour with expensive & symbolic products e.g. cars, homes

This division is not as strong as e.g in India where there is no chance to change social class. The Indian caste system has been in use for many years. Still today the values of the caste system are held strongly. It has kept a sense of order, and peace among the people. There are five different levels of the system: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, and Harijans. Within each of these categories are the actual "castes" or jatis within which people are born, marry, and die.(Calaham, 2009)

World around us is changing but there are a few things which seem to impossible to change. Rich people have a need to differentiate them from others. Marketing specialists are aware that advertising has to be more luxurious. What is more adverts for each class should be suitable for them. These are few examples:

luxurious advert

middle class advert