More on postcodes

Following my entry on postcode profiling, I have been asked two further questions. The first is whether you have to use Experian's Mosaic system. The answer is no, and there are other profiling systems which also work well in the United Kingdom. There are equivalent systems such as Acorn (from CACI Ltd) and CAMEO (from Eurodirect), and these work as well as Mosaic.

The second question was what do you do if you want to analyse non-UK data where there is no postcode. The answer is that you can still use a geodemographic profiler, but you need to use the whole address. Both Mosaic and CAMEO are available in countries outside the UK, including USA, Canada, the Netherlands, France and Germany (and many more). By using the whole address, these systems can profile the actual household where someone lives, rather than just the street as a whole.  Last month we did some work in Ireland using full addresses and Mosaic, for example.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that such household profiling is also possible in the UK. We commonly just use postcode-dominant profiling, but it is possible to do household profiling if you think the extra effort is worth it.