Thursday, February 05, 2004

The Tipping Point for 50+ marketing

On the 21st Jan 2004 my post was about Malcolm Gladwell’s book and marketing theory - The Tipping Point. I attempted to use the theory to explain if and how older consumers will become marketing’s primary audience rather than the niche status they current inhabit. This article has now been published by WNIM.

In the article I asked for readers comments. One of the best I received was from Mike Glennon who is the MD of a design agency and himself over 50. I thought this was an interesting take on things.

“..TV programming schedules are driven by one thing and one thing only...SOAPS.
Soaps' storylines are driven by incidents involving people under 40. Anyone over 50 is considered irrelevant or a makeweight. The 50 pluses in UK soaps are scratching a living and do not convey affluence and so their younger audiences regard the age group as unimportant. For the importance of the 50+ to be widely accepted the writers of television need to escalate the presence and importance of the 50 pluses in order to engender wider respect and to attract a more appropriate spread of advertisers during peak time viewing…”

Makes a lot of sense.

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