If you are interested in 50-plus housing

This US blog posting is useful if you are interested in trends in the older market for housing.
Certainly in Europe we have followed, certainly pre-recession, a lot of the trends set in the US.

The report references a new report from MetLife on the subject. You can download that from here. Dick Stroud

A new 50-plus agency in the Netherlands

Some of the guys I know in the Netherlands have formed a new agency called bureauvijftig’ (literally translated agency fifty).

Chuck Nyren has covered the launch in his blog so I will not repeat the same stuff – best check it out there.

I wish them good luck – I am sure they will not need it. Dick Stroud

Don't use technology use as a proxy

At one time the following twaddle, taken from an article about the Retail Industry, would have really annoyed me.

As is always the case, one generation’s “noise” is another generation’s music. One thing I do get is that those who are in the social media vibe are tuned into a life rhythm that is much faster, more intense, and less tangible than what most of us aging boomers have ever experienced before. Meaningful participation in social media is probably too big of a goal for a baby boomer.

Perhaps an appreciative awareness and acceptance is the best that we can hope to achieve when it comes to the phenomenon.

As it pertains to retailing, an appreciative awareness is really all that is needed to make social media work, providing that you also have a sufficient number of millennial buzz-savvy staff members who know the how-to’s of actually putting it to work.

This person is clearly one of the breed of older people who fumbles about with their notebook when giving a presentation gurgling about: “I normally get my grandchildren to help me out” or some other fatuous statement.

There is another type of older person, typified by Gordo (age 58), who thinks that it is cool to use the Web; even better, something called “social media” to communicate to the ‘young’ and in the process makes a complete twat of himself.

There is another type of oldie that thinks that understanding digital stuff is an ageing virility symbol (i.e. I know as much about this stuff as any yoof).

The more attention that is drawn to the way older people use digital the worse it becomes, because it forces people into stereotypes. Even worse is to use technology savvyness as some form of proxy for the lifestyle behaviour of the individual. Dick Stroud

age OK launched

The Age OK accreditation mark is awarded to products and services that an expert panel judge to be sufficiently 'age-friendly'. In order to win the accreditation the product goes through a rigorous selection process to ensure that it has been designed inclusively, factoring in the needs that might pertain to an older person.

The organisation behind the Age OK venture is the merged Help the Aged and Age Concern.

Today I attended the launch of the scheme. What a professional event.

Terrific location (The Design Museum) - good speakers (Joan Bakewell, Martin Bell, ex MP and journalist and Tom Wright, CEO of the merged charity).

The first prize winner was a high profile organisation - BSkyB for their accessible remote control.

The sun shone, the event had pace and direction. All in all an excellent launch. The Engage Business Network, the part of the charity responsible for the venture, should be well satisfied.

Let’s hope other companies appreciate the commercial logic that persuaded BSkyB to design and seek approval of its device. Dick Stroud

New ventures that target the 50-plus

Yesterday I attended an event by an organisation called NESTA - the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The organisation bills itself as: “a unique and independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative.” You certainly cannot disagree with the organisation’s mission.

Yesterday’s event was all about a fund that NESTA is managing (£650,000) – that will buy you a detached four bedroom house in London – so not a lot of money. The purpose of the fund (titled Age Unlimited) is to fund ventures, each limited to £50,000 that will assist people in their fifties and upwards.

Part of the rationale for stimulating new thinking is NESTA’ view that: “Without bold new approaches, our public services will be over-stretched by the short-term demands of the recession and overwhelmed by the long-term challenges of the future. What alternative to radical innovation do we have?”

Gordon Lishman, the ex head of Age Concern, and not somebody I would normally agree with, made the comment that there is no shortage of “good ideas” or small community projects but the problem is scaling them up into something that can have any real impact. Absolutely right.

I have a couple of other concerns. Some of the ‘issues’ that NESTA identified, like age discrimination, are mega cultural factors that this programme cannot possibly hope to affect.

Secondly, many of the people attending this event don’t seem to have realised that we have reached the end “Government Funding”. The days of easy Government spending have ended for years, maybe decades to come.

I wish the NESTA venture good luck. Dick Stroud

Words of wisdom from Tom Peters

I supposed like all gurus, Tom Peters pronouncements have a familiar ring about them - like maybe he has said the same things before?

In this article in revisits a few of his favourite themes. The fact that they are familiar doesn’t make them any less important.

His main thoughts are:

Women aren’t a market segment; they are the market. Marketers should have a men’s initiative for the residual male.

If you want to effectively exploit the women’s market, then the majority of your executive team (and I’m talking about a 20-person business, as well as a 2,000-person business) had better be women.

The “squint test.” If I’m looking at the executive committee or board, I should be able to squint and it oughta-sorta look like the market.

The other giant market that is underserved is made up of baby boomers and what I call “geezers,” who are just older than boomers born between 1946 and 1964.

By marrying the boomer-geezer idea to the women idea you get - Bingo!

Read this article for more of the great man’s ideas. Dick Stroud

Winners and losers from the recession

Sometime in the future, when the recession seems like a bad dream, which countries do you reckon will be the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ from these uncertain times?

The latest poll of senior executives, published by McKinsey, doesn’t leave much room to doubt. Looks like the soon to be fastest ageing country on the planet, China, will be where it is at - India not being far behind. Looks like bad news for the US. Dick Stroud

What happened to Senio the German franchise chain for senior products?

I was recently contacted by somebody trying to find out the reasons why Senio, the German retail company selling products for seniors, went out of business.

The company was founded in 1993 and by 2002 was a chain of stores with plans to open a further 8 shops. Apparently it implemented a number of different sales concepts including retail shops, shop in shop systems, sales representatives, mail order catalogues and an on line store.

The Senio chain was wound up this year (2009) having been sold by the founder to a subsidiary of the troubled Arcandor Group in 2008.

So what went wrong? Bad business model? Recession? Poor implementation?

Anybody with any knowledge of the company's demise please leave a comment. Dick Stroud

 

Factlet about cinema audiences and age

Here are a couple of facts to slip into the conversation to impress your peers about your knowledge of the 50-plus market. The research is from Millward Brown.

Movies are particularly important to teens and young adults, who go in larger numbers and more often than older age groups. This is most pronounced in the Asia-Pacific region. In Singapore 52% people aged 18–24 have been to the movies in the last month compared with 3% of people aged over 55.

In Hong Kong the figure is 40% for the younger age group compared with just 1% percent of people over 55.

I think this sends a pretty clear message there! Dick Stroud

Strategic Planning for the real world

Strategic Planning has gone out of fashion, mores the pity. Tactics is everything has been the motto of most organisations – and politicians. Perhaps we should label this the era of:"Don't confuse me with the facts."

This paper from Nicholine Hayward is a real breath of fresh air that illustrates how strategy and tactics can come together.

Just download it and have a quick scan – you will see what I mean. Even if you miss out on the strategy bit, the details about the tools available to understand the online world are invaluable.

This is how the author describes herself:

Half consultant, half leader of thought and half agent of change, I am a different kind of planner. This difference manifests itself in, for example, a unique research methodology I have developed, which harnesses online data sources, to deliver authentic consumer insights which can be applied to devise resonant integrated strategies. Some of Grey London’s most exciting and effective recent work, including several successful pitches, is based directly on these insights.

What Nicholine is talking about is as applicable to the 50-plus as any other group of consumers. Dick Stroud

Golf clubs = the 50-plus

Where are you bound to reach an older audience? Everybody knows that golf clubs are populated by older people so what better place to advertise your product.

Well yes and no. Firstly, most golf clubs have a high proportion of men – maybe these are not your target audience? Secondly, when somebody is in the protected world of the golf club, are they really susceptible to advertising?

A month or two back I was contacted by the guy who runs Golf Club Media, an agency that specialises in getting promotions in front of golf club members. I asked him to send me an example of how it works.

The above is a campaign that he ran for the Portugal Tourist Board to target the over 50's. It was presented using 600 A3 posters in the club changing rooms. It seems the results were excellent with a recall of over 85% plus a huge increase in the traffic to the travel destination’s Web site.

That facts that further three campaigns have been run seems a good evidence of client satisfaction. An interesting approach. Dick Stroud

The impact of our ageing population cannot be ignored

This is a personal gripe with zero use to your 50-plus marketing.

Today’s Guardian has an article with the above title that is all about the work of an organisation called 5050vision that has developed a plan for the North West of England to help it with the challenges of an ageing population. You can download the document that contains loads of data about ageing related issues facing this part of the UK. It is a very nice looking document. I would think it cost a few bob to produce.

Unfortunately, if I were a 50 year old living in the North West I doubt if I would take much comfort from knowing that the report recommends that the five partner organisations (Northwest Regional Development Agency, NHS North West, 4 North West, Government Office North West, DH North West) should:

• commit to the incorporation of the Framework in new Regional Strategy
• recognise the combined effect and interdependent relationships of housing, economy,
• endorse the interim arrangements proposed to allow for a leadership, governance and implementation process to be secured in order to support the delivery of the outcomes set out in the Framework and deliver stakeholder engagement (detailed in section three p. 46)

As the UK faces at least a decade of stringent cuts in public spending the chance of any of this gobbledygook ever seeing the light of day is remote – to put it mildly. This document and its jargon ridden recommendations is a microcosm of what is wrong with the UK.

A lot of no doubt well intentioned public sector workers producing acres of waffle riddled text that is all about extending and justifying a costly bureaucratic machine that delivers very little to the people who actually need assistance – in this case the 50-plus. Dick Stroud

Excellent presentation about the 50-plus in AsiaPac

Kim Walker has added an excellent presentation to his Web site. It is his keynote session "The Rise of the Silver Surfers" presented to the iMedia Brand Summit in Kota Kinabalu, E Malaysia.
Great source of date and insights about the Asia Pac market.

Fascinating stuff about “how do you think, feel and behave relative to your actual age”. What a range of results.

As usual the Australians are at the extreme, feeling a shadow of their chronological age. Just shows you what drinking Fosters Larger and wearing a funny hat with corks hanging from it does to your self-perception. Dick Stroud

Making it easier to share my blog postings

Something I have been meaning to do for ages is to add functionality to make it easier for people to share my pearls of wisdom.

You will find the Share button on each posting so if you want to Twitter, StubleUpon, E-mail or the other host of things you can do with a blog posting all you need to do is roll the mouse over the button and fire away.

I have checked the functionality out with IE, Chrome and Firefox browsers but if you find any problems with other varieties please let me know. Dick Stroud

Property slump costs pensioners £220 Billion - maybe

This was the headline of an article in the Guardian.

I am not so sure.

The implications of the article are this:

• Total value of pensioner’s property now equals £800 Billion hence
• Original value was £1020 Billion so
  
• Each pensioner is supposed to have lost £52,000 of the value of their property meaning
• The number of pensioners owning property = 4.2 million but
• Total number of people in the UK aged 65-85 = 8.7 million meaning
• 48% of pensioners are property owners but
• Total property ownership for the UK is 70% and
• Older people have disproportionally high level of property ownership conclusion

Either my arithmetic is wrong or the originators of the research screwed up and the total loss is even higher. Both are possible explanations.

Whatever the answer it means that older people have suffered a big dent in their wealth (and their kid’s inheritance) to add to a list of woes including near to zero interest rates on their savings but...

Like all analysis, the averages only tell part of the story. Dick Stroud

Employment of Australian over-50s on the up

It looks like Australia is following the trend in the US with the recession hitting youth rather than 50-plus employment.

The Bureau of Statistics shows that the under 25s lost 91,500 full-time jobs in the year to February, people over 50 added 104,000 full-time jobs.

More unexpectedly, while the number of under-25s who were unemployed or out of the workforce shot up by 129,000 over the year, the number of over-50s unemployed, retired or taking time out shrank by 3000.

Why the surge in 50-plus employment? Is it to replenish their coffers, badly hit by the plunging stock market and interest rates, or to pay for their unemployed kids? Dick Stroud

"older consumers are less impressionable" - discuss

Many thanks to Kim Walker for telling me about this article in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper entitled: “Disney film (Up) sparks ageism debate.”

Disney's Pixar studio is launching a film called Up and apparently it is being given the thumbs down by investors and toy manufacturers because its main character, a grumpy 78-year-old man, is not considered commercially attractive.

It would seem to be a story of an old guy who ties balloons to his house in order to become airborne. He accidentally drags an eight-year-old scout along with him and the pair then go on adventures in South America. It sounds dreadful!

"The film doesn't sound like much of a goer," said one buyer for a leading British toy retailer. Why doesn’t that surprise me?

The really interesting part of the article is that it goes on to get a quote from Hamish Pringle, director general of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), who is quoted as saying: "Older people are rarely the centrepiece of campaigns despite the booming grey market and the obvious reality that we are an ageing population.”. Yep, no doubt about that.

Mr Pringle then goes on to say, as quoted in the paper "There have been one or two specialist ad agencies catering for the older market but they haven't been particularly successful, partly because older consumers are less impressionable."

I won’t comment about the success, or not, of specialist agencies but the bit about older consumers being “less impressionable” needs a response. I am not sure if he is using as a criticism or a compliment. It doesn’t really matter since whenever you try and categories 10s of millions of people as being like ‘this’ or ‘that’ it shows that you have lost the plot.

Commentators should distinguish between something being a bad idea, as it would seem Disney’s film might be, and not go on to derive more abstract and generalised conclusions. Dick Stroud

Whatever happened to Tgi50?

Today my Google alerts came up with an article from the Independent that was about a campaign by Greenpeace who was getting itself in a tizzy about palm oil and blaming it all on Unilever.

Incidentally, it seems that Unilever found the experience worthwhile and has put more bucks into its global PR to react to similar sorts of events. Of course it doesn’t actually say that but couches it words like: “brands are now becoming conversation factors where academics, celebrities, experts and key opinion formers discuss functional, emotional and, more interestingly, social concerns.”

Also, it seems that Unilever and Greenpeace are in some sort of dialogue about palm oil. The words of Michael Corleone “keep my friends close and my enemies closer" haven’t been lost on Unilever’s management!

Somehow the author of the article made a jump from palm oil to Madonna’s approaching 50th birthday and the launch of Tgi50 a new agency that was going to transform the 50-plus marketing scene. What? This was ancient news, like a year ago ancient news.

Google must have re-indexed this article and thrown it up in the alerts e-mail.

That got me thinking - what did happen to Tgi50. You won’t get much by looking at the web site. Dead as a doornail. Anybody know? Dick Stroud

A rambling discussion about oldies and social networking

You can listen to this rather rambling discussion about the issues of older people and social media on blogtalkradio. It takes a hell of a long time to make a few basic points. It took all of 15 mins to ask the basic question: “how/why would an older person use social media?"

The other weakness in the discussion is that it ignores the mega big issue about the imbedding of social networking in corporate web sites. The idea that social media = Facebook or Linkedin is very 2008.

One of the panel members is an Aussie called Des Walsh who has written some interesting stuff about the worth of the word ‘Boomer’ outside the US. If you don’t have 40 mins to listen to the podcast then read his blog about the event. Dick Stroud

55+ and on Facebook? CNN wants to hear from you

According to Facebook its fastest-growing age group is women older than 55.

CNN recently covered the subject of older people and Facebook. What is really interesting is to look at CNN’s discussion board on Facebook where oldies talk about their social networking experiences.

Thanks to Kathy Dragon who mentioned this item in one of tweets. Dick Stroud

The future looks bleak for American retirees

Thanks to Rick for telling me about this data published in the WSJ.

A full copy of the research, upon which the article was based, can be downloaded from the Employee Benefit Research Council.

These are the points from the WSJ article.

• Among current retirees, only 20% -- versus 41% in 2007 -- are very confident of being able to afford a financially secure retirement.
• 25% say they expect to have enough to pay for medical expenses, down from 41% in 2007.
• 34% are optimistic about covering their basic expenses, compared with 48% two years ago.

The age at which workers say they plan to retire has crept up from a median of 62 in 1991 to 65 since 2004, with almost half of current retirees say they left the work force sooner than expected due to health problems, downsizings or obsolete skills.

Most worrying is that the survey has consistently found that about two-thirds of workers plan to work after retiring whist fewer than 35% of current retirees say they have actually held down jobs at some point during retirement. Where goeth the US the UK is bound to follow.

It doesn't need me to explain the impact this change of sentiment will have on consumer spending of retirees. Mmmm. Dick Stroud

Health is the new Wealth

Sorry for such a detailed chart but it contains some fascinating data - click on the image to size a readable version.

The research comes from DDB Worldwide Communications Group and the report is available on BrandChannel.

DDB interviewed 1831 consumers and physicians in 11 countries (US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, China, India, Australia, and Singapore) understand patient behaviours and attitudes. The type of questions asked related to:

• How do people feel about their health?
• How do those perceptions translate into attitudes and behaviours, especially concerning how they take care of themselves and interact with their physicians?
• What are the social, behavioural, and psychological differences between patients who suffer from a pathological condition and those who have a lifestyle condition?
• How the global economic crisis is affecting global health priorities
• And so on ……

All things to do with health and wellness are very relevant to the 50-plus. It is a pity that the data was not also split by age but I guess that with a relatively small sample size that would be asking a bit much.

The chart shows what actions/interventions people are doing to help improve/stabilise their health.

I despair about the UK. What an apathetic bunch. Just look at the national differences in attitudes about exercising regularly. The UK has the lowest ranking (18%) compared with the average of 41%. Undoubtedly, there will be a huge difference by socio economic group but even so the attitudes of the Brits are dreadful. Dick Stroud

New online seminar about 50-plus marketing

My thanks to John Rae (CACI Ltd), Sarah Robson (Millennium), Stephen Croncota (Haggar Clothing), Janet Kiddle (Steel Magnolia), Gill Walker (Evergreen), Chuck Nyren (Consultant) and Arjan in’t Veld (Inthefield) for contributing to Henry Stewart's online seminar about the: “Latest thinking in marketing to the older consumer”.

What seems like a lifetime ago, Henry Stewart asked me to contribute and edit this series. The gestation period may have been long but the result has been worthwhile.

Sorry folks but this is not free content. You can get a feel of what it is all about by looking at the above link. My thanks to everybody who helped with the content and production of the seminar. Dick Stroud

Baby Boomer is not a universal term

This is a very interesting blog posting by Des Walsh about the usefulness of the term “Baby Boomer” or any of the other generational definitions (e.g. Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Jones ..) when talking about the demographics of China. He concludes that the term doesn’t have much relevance. Do have a look at his presentation about PR 2.0 that was given to a Chinese audience.

The above graph shows the birth rate in the UK and US normalised to 1940. As you can see the UK tracked the US birth rate for a few years after the war, then declined and didn’t start increasing again until 1956. The term Baby Boomer is about as much use in the UK context as it is in China (i.e. none at all). Of course that doesn’t stop marketers bandying it about, without any real understanding if its meaning.

Also, I wish we would ditch the terms Gen X and Gen Y, neither of which are based on any real behavioural evidence. We marketers just love this meaningless jargon.

It appears from the blog that Forrester has realised the lack of relevance of the term to the Chinese market. I wish they would do the same for the UK. Dick Stroud

Effects of the recession

The branding consultancy Clear (part of M&C Saatchi) has divided the way UK consumers are reacting to the recession into eight groups. The original article was published in Marketing Week – unfortunately it is subscriber only.

The most extreme group are those who are "cutting back". These tend to be older females on a lower income and have changed their behaviour the most, compared with any other group.

Other consumers that are living more cautiously are joining the "life on hold" tribe. These people are staying in more and cutting out big-ticket purchases such as cars.

This group are generally in the 35 to 54 age bracket. Vauxhall's "You pay we pay" redundancy marketing campaign is an example of a company responding to the fears of this group.

There is another group who are slightly less pessimistic frame of mind. The groups have been divided into those who are trading off, those who are trading down and those who have the occasional treats.

Those who are "trading off" tend to be between 25 and 44 years old and might decide not to buy a new car in order to jet off for an annual holiday. Those who are "trading down" are still buying the same types of goods but looking for cheaper options, such as own-brand or searching for bargains in less pricey shops.

The group that is probably least targeted by marketers - despite making up 42% of the population - is those that are still spending money and feeling positive about their own financial situation. This group has been sub-divided into three segments - "it's worth it", "life goes on" and "on the up". Marketers should take note of these groups, which are largely made up of male high earners. Of the "on the up" group, 37% bought a new car in the past two years and claim they won't put off replacing it.

It is interesting to see how the “life goes on” group increased in the period until Nov 2008. I wonder if anybody has more recent data? What would be really interesting is to see an age breakdown of each of these groups. Dick Stroud

Post-recessionary consumerism

Marketers should have a couple (well two business and one personal) questions that are dominating their thinking.

The business ones are - how does my business navigate and prosper during the recession - secondly how will consumer behaviour change as we move into the post-recessionary era.

The personal question, and probably the most pressing, is how the hell do I keep my job.

This article in Marketing Week is a perfect example of Xmas Tree speculation about post recessionary consumer behaviour. Beware; I am not sure how long the article will remain freely accessible.

This question enables writers to take all of their personal prejudices, wishes, desires and hunches and dress-up the Xmas tree so that it appears to have a pattern and form. Exactly the same thing happens with much of the commentary about global warming.

This writer has four propositions that he attempts to support with the scantiest of evidence.

Using vs wasting. Sustainability and thrift will become mainstream.

Being good at something. A return of ‘skills’, particularly among young people.

Trading vs consuming. Consumers recognise and exert their buying power.

Social vs individual objects. Individualism still prospers but not at the expense of shared values and endeavours.

The fairy on the top of the tree is that: “the new era should be more communal and shared; purchases will be more considered, young people will understand the importance of developing a skill and we will be more likely to live within our means financially and ecologically.”

Who knows this maybe true but it sounds a lot like wishful thinking. In fact this line of argument is really all about rebounding attitudes. The writer reckons we have all been greedy nasty and selfish consumers. We have hit the wall of economic collapse and rebound with these attitudes inverted. Somehow I think it will be a lot more complicated than this. Dick Stroud

Consumers' use screen media

Matt Thornhill’s excellent newsletter about Boomers referenced the Video Consumer Mapping Study conducted on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence (CRE) by Ball State University's Center for Media Design. This is no quick PR generating study but a $3.5 million year research project.

This page has links to the main documents resulting from the study. This is an Adobe copy of the research presentation (it is a BIG document 17 Mb).

It does the research project a disservice to try and distil the findings into a few single sentence headlines. Having said that it is the nature of blogging that you have to just that. I really do recommend that you download the report and study the results. I suspect it will dismiss some of the myths that have grown up about media consumption habits.

The research is US only but I am sure it applies to most of Europe.

• You might think that "free TV" via the Web consumes a substantial part of video watching – not true. It represents an average time of just two minutes a day.
• TV in the home still commands the greatest amount of viewing of the 18-24 age group.
• Even in major metropolitan areas, where commute times can be long and drive-time radio remains popular, computer use has replaced radio as the No. 2 media activity. Radio is now No. 3 and print media fourth.
• On average, TV users were exposed to 72 minutes per day of TV ads and promos dispelling the belief that today's consumers are channel-hopping or otherwise avoiding most of the advertising in the programming they view.

I found the above slide one of the most interesting. It shows the different types of video streams watched by age group and the amount of time spent on each. As the slide states, the 18-24 year group watch 10 different screen sources for longer than 10 mins/day compared with the 65+.

My bet is that these results vary considerably by socio economic class. I would think that your wealthy, better educated 55+, would have a much higher screen use of playback via DVR, mobile talk, mobile text and games console.

This is a really brilliant bit of research. Dick Stroud

Something worth Twittering about

Comscore Media Metrix have come up some fascinating demographic data about Twitter users. 18-24 year olds are 12% less likely than average to visit Twitter (Index of 88). It is the 25-54 year olds and 45-54 year olds who are the ones driving its use (i.e. this older group are 36% more likely than average to visit Twitter). Interesting to see the oldest groups are not your usual techno-laggards. The blog posting by this Reuter's guy is also worth reading. Maybe older people have more to talk about?

Age Concern / Help the Aged in the news

Older people feel their lives are getting worse according to a new report from Age Concern and Help the Aged. One in four older people in the UK admit their quality of life has deteriorated in the last 12 months. A further two thirds of people, aged 65 and over, say their lives have not improved at all.

Unfortunately I cannot get the report to download to look in detail at the research. You might have more success.

It is not only older people who feel their lives are getting worse. Today the charity announced that it is shedding 300 jobs in an attempt to save £10 million. Clearly the repercussions of the Heyday disaster are still swilling around. Sad news. Dick Stroud

Where goeth advertising spend?

The latest Bellwether report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) - published 6th April - has found that the rate of decline of marketing spend slowed in Q1 (i.e. it is still declining but not as fast as it was).

The IPA President says: “This data supports the view that the bottom of the market has been reached. It will be a long road to full recovery, but this maybe the turning point. It’s good to see a graph going in the right direction for a change.”

When a budget cut, that is the second steepest decline in the survey’s nine-year history, is seen as positive news then you really are grasping at straws.

Maurice Levy, the chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe, isn’t so positive in his views about the future. He believes the global advertising market is weakening faster than previously feared. In his words: "The advertising market is locked into a downward spiral” he goes on to say: "Since the beginning of the year, the indicators haven't stopped getting worse. In February, I was expecting a global decline of the order of 3 per cent. It is now accepted that the drop will be even stronger."

I think the Advertising Industry would be wise to keep expecting ‘disaster’ and then be delighted if it is only ‘dreadful’.

The problem is that it is not only about companies reducing their advertising spend to reduce costs. I suspect that companies are realising that consumers aren’t likely to be too impressed by companies that are seen to be splurging out on advertising at a time when they are worrying if they will have a job tomorrow. Dick Stroud

Goodbye JWT Boom

According to Chuck, JWT has shut the division of its business that specialised in the older market.

The WSJ reports that the agency has closed its Chicago office, however, Boom was based in San Francisco, so it couldn’t have had anything to do with that.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that JWT Specialized Communications (of which Boom was part) is the largest creditor of Zounds Inc, a company that manufactures and sells hearing aids and that has filed for Chapter 11.

JWT is in for over $4.25 million. Dick Stroud

The effects of the recession are tiny compared with population ageing

The International Monetary Fund estimates that the G 20 nations will, as a result of the recession, have increased their national debts by an average equivalent to nearly 25% of gross domestic product between 2007 and 2014. That is a lot of money.

BUT, to 2050, the cost of the economic crisis will be no more less than 5% of the financial impact created by the ageing of their populations. As the IMF says, “in spite of the large fiscal costs of the crisis, the major threat to long-term fiscal solvency is still represented, at least in advanced countries, by unfavourable demographic trends”.

This factlet is taken from a long and detailed article in today’s FT. It is hard to come to grips with the enormity of the effects of ageing on the world’s major economies.Dick Stroud

The pluses (and negatives) of being 50-plus

Back in February I was sent a copy of The Rainbow Years: The Pluses of Being 50+, a book by Barrie Hopson and Mike Scally.

We are now into April and the book remains unread. Pressure of work and all of that stuff...

Last weekend I had an old friend staying who started to read the book and kept reading. If it had this effect on Robert then it must be doing a lot of things right since he is the sort of guy who gives short shrift to waffle and psychobabble.

As he departed I thrust the book in his hand and asked him to write a short review - this is what he said.

Written largely in the format of a workbook, it follows a path of individual life review and assessment - a personal SWOT analysis, supported with helpful articles and anecdotes to encourage clear and informed future life decision making for those traditionally approaching retirement.

However, as one actually in the target age group, there is much to be commended in this extension to the Rainbow theme. Firstly there is the purely practical discipline of the section by section approach. After all, few of us really plan beyond the immediate arrival of an event, and many stop full time work honestly admitting that they really don’t know what they are going to do.

Preparation provided by employers in the past is increasingly rare, and with job continuity so much less secure than it was, opportunity for detailed planning is limited and unguided. Consequently whilst I can see the described process forming a framework for seminars and group approaches, the Rainbow workbook is more likely to come into its own as a personal tool for those aware that they should be planning for change, but lacking support as to structure.

The authors however, go beyond the pure retirement consideration. It references directly the massive change in prospective longevity combined with improved health. It focuses the mind on the range of alternatives other than moving from work to retirement in one fell swoop. Discussion identifies the wealth potential in over 50`s, yet is sufficiently up to date to note the life inconsistencies between capital wealth and pension income over a possible non working period of 40 or 50 years.

The authors suggest a future “norm” of a “mixed activity” which could contain traditional or charitable work, pure recreation, physical and mental stimuli, continued over many years.

The essential difference which they highlight in this “third age” is the matter of choice. Never before has a generation been so placed as to be able to decide their later life balance, or to have so long to regret a lack of planning. No longer driven by necessity to absolute ambition and earnings to the detriment of other things, but aware that only so much golf or so many holidays are possible before frustration kicks in, the new over 50`s may have the same opportunity to shape their future as they had at 20, largely without the same fear and pressure, but potentially with the same anticipation and satisfaction.

To be recommended to anyone over 50 needing to reshape their future, to any prospective retiree stumbling myopically into the future, and even to those already retired, but honest enough to admit that they are not enjoying life as they might have hoped!

Clearly the book worked for Robert. If you are interested in the 50-plus market then the book provides you with insights into the options, decisions and the range of emotions swelling around in the heads of your target customers. Sounds like a good buy to me. Dick Stroud