by Every Ad Agency (@EveryAdAgency) Often, understanding the different LSM levels may prove difficult, and for that reason we have provided a handy guide to help you talk the talk in the next meeting with a junior brand manager.

The living standards measure is a massive player when it comes to strategising your marketing plan going forward. Here at Every Ad Agency, we make sure that all our employees fully understand how this measure segments the market to help us target individuals with our advertising.
TV and kitchen appliances
We strongly feel that anybody who has satellite TV should be categorised as LSM 9–10. Even if they’re living in a one-bedroom apartment that only has cold water. Being able to watch more than four channels immediately pushes them to the top 10% of the market.
The same applies to silver appliances. One silver appliance in the kitchen immediately provides us with the insight that the consumer has money to burn. More than two white kitchen appliances, however, shows us that the consumer is in the lower spectrum of the market and can’t really afford anything.
Reading
Research also shows that nobody under LSM 7 bothers to read (they can’t afford iPads, after all). Vital insight, this. It provides us with the opportunity to show almost no copy in any of our advertising and make use of diagrams and pictures.
On the other end of the spectrum, we know that LSM 9–10 only reads Twitter and GQ and Condé Nast House & Garden. A great opportunity here to only show advertisements of the luxury German cars and Swiss watches that they can never afford (they will pretend otherwise). These ads will include a Twitter handle because we are a through-the-line agency with 360-degree vision and are staffed by LSM 9 and 10 hipsters.
However, luxury German cars are also sometimes allowed to take the backseat as most BMW drivers really fall into LSM 7 but a Mercedes driver is definitely LSM 10.
Insights money can’t buy
At the end of the day, this valuable measurement that doesn’t take anything into regard besides which items people have in their homes provides us with insights that money can’t buy.
Until 2011, it was about whether they owned a video cassette player (yes, 2011). Today, it’s still not about emotion, where people are in their lives, what their opinions are; it’s all about whether they own a microwave and if it’s silver.
We are Every Ad Agency (@EveryAdAgency). You’ve either worked for us, with us or against us. What’s more, we make every advertising and marketing cliché work. Headquartered in Johannesburg; branches everywhere.
All these satirical “Bad ADvice” columns, which are exclusive to MarkLives, are written by the Chief Operating Creative Director in Charge of Ideas (COCDCI).
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