In 1985, Richard joined CCN (which subsequently became Experian in 1997), where he developed the system known as MOSAIC (UK’s first neighbourhood classification based on data sources for multiple geographic levels) and build up a team of 200 persons under his directorship of Experian’s Micromarketing Division. Today, there are few large consumer-oriented organizations that do not use neighbourhood classifications such as ACORN or MOSAIC as a key element in their processes for retail planning, for target marketing, and for customer management. During recent years the classifications have also increasingly been used by government departments and agencies both for research purpose and for the targetting of resources.

SELECTED FUNDED RESEARCH

Reconstruction of UK Mosaic
Experian, June 03 – March 04, £250k

Quantitative Analysis of Family Names (as a tool, inter alia, for assessing local variability in social cohesion) ESRC, Sept 03 – Sept 04, £40k


PUBLICATIONS

Webber, R., (2004) 'Designing Geodemographic Classifications to meet Contemporary Business Needs’, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 5, (3), January/March 2004

Webber, R., (2003) 'Geodemographic analysis of similarity and proximity : their roles in the understanding of the geography of need’, in Longley, P., Batty, M., (eds) 'Advanced Spacial Analysis: The CASA book of GIS',ESRI press.


Webber, R., Farr, M.,(2001) 'MOSAIC: From an area classification system to individual classification’, Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 10 (1), August 2001