IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB518108478

When the New Magic was New: The Claritas Corporation and the Clustering of America (2022)

McKelvey, Fenwick (Author)

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Volume: 44
Issue: 04
Pages: 44-56
Publication date: 2022
Language: English

DOI: 10.1109/MAHC.2022.3214223

URI: https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2022/04/09927132/1HGJ5slocNy

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Technology and politics Business history Social sciences Computational methods Census tabulation Digitization Demography; population research 20th century, late United States

In 1982, geodemographics was 'the new magic.' The system promised to pinpoint voters. One of its key developers, Jonathan Robbin, boasted, 'Tell me someone's zip code, and I can predict what they eat, drink, drive-even think.' What was the secret? Robbin and his company, the Claritas Corporation, were among the first to merge newly digitized census data and computational social science into a geodemographic system called PRIZM. It produced new categories of populations known as clusters. These clusters provided a novel and legible form of computer demographics for marketers reliant on direct mail. Drawing on interviews and historical research, this article chronicles the understudied history of the Claritas Corporation. At a time of growing distress about microtargeting and behavioral advertising, the Claritas Corporation is a critical case to understand how computing changed how marketers and politicians distinguished, described, and marketed to Americans.

...More

Included in

Article Emily Klancher Merchant; Myron P. Gutmann (2022) The IT of Demography. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (pp. 6-15). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB518108478

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Steven Ruggles; Diana L Magnuson; (2020)
Census Technology, Politics, and Institutional Change, 1790–2020 (/p/isis/citation/CBB460583621/)

Article Catherine Gibson; (2022)
Experiencing Enumeration: Local Reactions and Resistance to Censuses in Imperial Russia, 1863–81 (/p/isis/citation/CBB413173323/)

Article Kaat Louckx; Raf Vanderstraeten; (2015)
Household and State-istics: Cornerstones of Society in Population Censuses (Belgium, 1846–1947) (/p/isis/citation/CBB247423523/)

Article Nilay Özok-Gündoğan; (2020)
Counting the Population and the Wealth in an “Unruly” Land: Census Making as a Social Process in Ottoman Kurdistan, 1830–50 (/p/isis/citation/CBB117466199/)

Article López, Raúl Necochea; (2010)
Demographic Knowledge and Nation Building: The Peruvian Census of 1940 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022034/)

Article Labbé, Morgane; (2007)
Institutionalizing the Statistics of Nationality in Prussia in the 19th Century (From Local Bureaucracy to State-Level Census of Population) (/p/isis/citation/CBB000773206/)

Article Carvajal Bañados, Yuri; Yuing Alfaro, Tuillang; (2013)
Gramáticas de vida: el censo de 1907 yla población como uso de gobierno (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420680/)

Article Minvielle, Stéphane; (2013)
Les ménages de Charleville aux xviiie-xixe siècles (/p/isis/citation/CBB001510202/)

Book Mespoulet, Martine; (2008)
Construire le socialisme par les chiffres: enquêtes et recensements en URSS de 1917 à 1991 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022569/)

Article Jeff Forret; (2016)
"Deaf & Dumb, Blind, Insane, or Idiotic": The Census, Slaves, and Disability in the Late Antebellum South (/p/isis/citation/CBB580416903/)

Article Michal Kravel-Tovi; (2020)
The Specter of Dwindling Numbers: Population Quantity and Jewish Biopolitics in the United States (/p/isis/citation/CBB978239418/)

Article Sébastien Plutniak; (2018)
Aux prémices des humanités numériques? La première analyse automatisée d'un réseau économique ancien (Gardin Garelli, 1961). Réalisation, conceptualisation, réception (/p/isis/citation/CBB631225558/)

Article Francisca Grommé; Evelyn Ruppert; (2020)
Population Geometries of Europe: The Topologies of Data Cubes and Grids (/p/isis/citation/CBB040735180/)

Article Rowse, Tim; (2014)
“Rooted in Demographic Reality”: The Contribution of New World Censuses to Indigenous Survival (/p/isis/citation/CBB001201587/)

Article Munno, Cristina; (2013)
La crise démographique de 1740 à Charleville: Évolutions et dynamiques entre deux dénombrements (1739 et 1742) (/p/isis/citation/CBB001510203/)

Article Boudjaaba, Fabrice; Gourdon, Vincent; (2013)
Quitter Charleville dans les années 1860--1870: Une analyse de la mobilité urbaine à court et à moyen terme (/p/isis/citation/CBB001510204/)

Article Rathier, Carole; Ruggiu, François-Joseph; (2013)
La population de Charleville de la fin du xviie siècle à la fin du xixe siècle: Une enquête d'histoire démographique (/p/isis/citation/CBB001510201/)

Article Aparna Nair; (2024)
Enumerating Infirmity: Disability, Demography, and Empire, 1820–1950 (/p/isis/citation/CBB148141470/)

Article Moritz J. Feichtinger; (2022)
Computing Counterinsurgency: The Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) and Databasing During the Vietnam War (/p/isis/citation/CBB615498445/)

Book Halfon, Saul; (2006)
The Cairo Consensus: Demographic Surveys, Women's Empowerment, and Regime Change in Population Policy (/p/isis/citation/CBB000772375/)