Heyday folded into Age Concern

Poor old Heyday. Less than a year after the launch, Age Concern has decided to pull the plug. I don't think that is exactly how Age Concern would describe the situation - but that is what it looks as if they have done.

That must have been a horrible decision, since it has invested £8m in the new venture.

Heyday magazine, produced by Redwood Publishing, will continue for two issues on a smaller scale, before being retendered. Heyday had initially hoped to recruit 500,000 members by 2007, but has now revised the target to 50,000 by April.

'Heyday's core purpose is charitable and our board decided its activities sit best within Age Concern England,' said the spokeswoman. 'The new business plan reduces our operational costs in line with the pace in membership growth’. More accurately, the lack of pace of acquiring new members.

I am very sorry but not surprised. From the botched launch of the business it has always looked to be on rocky foundations. There were two fundamental problems.

Firstly, it didn’t know what type of organisation it wanted to be. Was it a commercial AARP type business or a younger version of Age Concern? Secondly, it was attempting to sell a service on the basis of age.

We might not have learnt a great deal about marketing, but it is pretty obvious that age is poor proxy for predicting behaviour and consumer needs. Trying to create a proposition that would appeal to the ultra heterogeneous 50-65 age group was next to impossible.

I think the seeds of its failure were present from day one. The pace of Heyday’s demise was hastened by not very smart marketing and what appears as to have been indecisive management. Dick Stroud