Everyone in the media stopped work today to play with the YouGov Profiler, a visualisation tool that pulls the survey company's data into a profile of a typical customer for any given brand. What's great about it is the way it confirms all the prejudices you have about who shops where.
Did you secretly believe that people who eat lunch at Greggs were a bunch of old working class blokes who still wish that the Labour Party membership card carried its Clause IV commitment to socialism? Then you were right! That's exactly who they are, YouGov says:
Greggs Man has less than £125 a week spare, and he probably works in a factory or the social services. And now we've got the YouGov data to say that Greggs Man's personality is "moody", "accident-prone", and "stroppy." That's literally in a database!
Now look at who eats at Pret A Manger, the sandwich chain that has most of its branches in London and very few in the North. To borrow a joke from the comedian James Acaster, if you're not familiar with Pret A Manger, it's a fine French restaurant.
Pret Girl lives in London, has £1,000 a week to spend, and works in advertising! Just as you suspected. YouGov describes her personality as "control-freaky," "self-absorbed" and "arrogant". But then we knew that already.
