Small is beautiful?

Matt Thornhill has an interesting feature in his newsletter titled: “The End of Housing Excess”.

It appears that the American dream is shrinking.

For the first time in at least a decade, builders are substantially reducing the size of new houses. The director of research for the National Association of Home Builders says growth in the average size of new single-family homes, which went from 1,750 square feet in 1978 to 2,479 in 2007, is starting to reverse.

It would seem that Boomers are also looking for smaller abodes. This seems to be partly driven by necessity but also by a desire to de-clutter their lives.

The article ends with the warning/prediction: “As housing goes, so go other sectors of the economy, from furniture and home furnishings to appliances and home repair.” You have been warned. Dick Stroud

Advertising photography and the older consumer

Creating Results, a US company, has published what looks to be an interesting survey about advertising photography and the older consumer.

The results are based on a sample of 414 Americans over 40 years old.

I have to be honest, I have only had a quick glance through the results. From what I have seen it appears an interesting study.

My fear with this type of research is that it can come to simplistic conclusions (i.e. everybody in the age range XX-XX prefers a particular type of creative). It looks like the research also takes account of the wealth and education of the individual. I hope so.

The other big caveat about “reported responses” is how the respondent answers a questionnaire can be very different from how they act behave.

When I get the time I will read and comment. Dick Stroud

National Accounts of Wellbeing

What you might ask is ‘Wellbeing’ and how the hell do combine it with “National Accounts”. All is explained by downloading this report. Here is a quick summary

National Accounts of Well-being directly measure people’s subjective well-being: their experiences, feelings and perceptions of how their lives are going. They are needed because the economic indicators tell us little about the relative success or failure of countries in supporting a good life for their citizens.

Sounds reasonable.

The graphic shows the variation of social well-being by age. This is defined as the extent and quality of interactions we have in close relationships with family, friends and our trust of being treated fairly and respectfully by them. You can read a full definition in the report.

Bottom line message. Young Brits have the lowest score of social well being in Europe. Thank heavens the older groups still possess some positive feelings – nearly as much the ever cheerful Scandinavians.

Seriously, this makes grim reading. British young people – even those in their 30s and 40s are a distrusting bunch. I am glad I don’t have to advise companies how to market to them!

Go and have a look at this supporting site for the report. It is one of the best visual ways of delivering information I have seen. Well done. Dick Stroud

The elephant in the room

Another day another Boomer conference.

This morning my inbox contained yet another press release about a “Boomer Summit”. The first few paragraphs contained the usual mandatory stuff demonstrating the importance of the older market.

Business leaders and marketers seeking baby boomer customers will discover new strategies, tactics and markets to reach the 78 million baby boomers at the What's Next Boomer Business Summit.

Baby boomers remain the most important demographic for marketers, according to a survey by the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG). Seventy-eight percent (78%) of the executives rated baby boomers the most important demographic -- up from 72% last year.

With today’s economic problems I wonder if anybody really gives a damn about Boomers. They should, but I doubt if they do.

There is a fine line between becoming obsessed with the economic ills and ignoring them, or playing down, as if it were just a tiny perturbation. As I have already written, it appears that the Brits are the gloomiest bunch about the lasting impact of the downturn. If you compound that with being an instinctive pessimist then it probably explains my negative attitudes (with a capital 'N').

But, from all I have read there is only one thing of two things on the mind of companies. For the vast majority: “how to get through this messy time”. For a very few: “how to take advantage of it.” I don’t think there is much in-between.

How companies react to the older market can be pivotal in both of these strategies. Elephants are delightful creatures until they inadvertently stand on your head. My clients are only concerned with avoiding a headache – I cannot believe they are alone. Dick Stroud

Retirement - what's that?

If the following statements from this week’s Business Week are correct, and I think they are, then there is a traumatic change taking place to the dynamics of the market. None of its ideas are new, but when they all appear in the same place it highlights the magnitude that is unfolding.

The recession is making clear what we've suspected for a long time. The concept of not working and embracing leisure for the last third of one's life isn't practical for most people.

Put it this way: Survey after survey has shown that a majority of aging baby boomers plan on working in retirement. Well, that plan is coming true.

A seismic shift in the economy and workplace is making it easier for an aging population to labour longer. An information- and services-dominated economy will ease the transition to longer working lives.

The day of retirement reckoning is here for less happy reasons, too. For the second time in eight years, savers have watched in horror as their pension savings and other retirement savings were hit with sharp declines. This time around, the household wealth destruction is even greater because of the nationwide fall in home prices.

But wait, there's more: The funding of social security is widely acknowledged to be broken and is a strain on family finances. Even with Medicare coverage (in the UK’s case the NHS) after age 65, the elderly are finding it necessary to pay for a greater percentage of their overall medical bill.

The solution: work longer.

The writer of the article throws in a few crumbs of hope.

More than making ends meet, work is physically and mentally energizing. It keeps the mind active and dementia at bay. For many people, the workplace is a social environment, with birthday celebrations and coffee klatches. To be sure, you may want to say goodbye to your current office mates for the last time. But that doesn't mean you won't want to work.

The next article in Business Week is about why “Hard-pressed companies forced to make layoffs tend to cut younger workers while retaining those over 55.”

This seems to be the reverse from what is happening in the UK.

The article continues…

Companies nationwide are laying off workers by the tens of thousands. But many are trying to spare the post-55 set from the axe, a reversal of the top-down trends in past waves of layoffs. They're being driven by legal concerns—since boomers are in a protected age group—and by a need to keep experienced hands in place to keep the companies running and positioned for an upturn. "Seniority matters," says the director of the Sloan Centre on Aging & Work at Boston College.

What the hell is going on?

Sorry, but don’t look to me for the answers. Right now all I can do is try and gather and understand the data.

But, just think about what all this means for a post-recession world. Yes, I know that seems a long way away but it is a place some of us might see. The scars of this recession will take years, decades to heal. What we marketers must do is to try and understand what the new market vista will look like and then get on with the job of modifying our marketing to take advantage of it. Dick Stroud

Different ways of achieving "life's purpose"

Thanks to Chuck Nyren for telling me about research from MetLife Mature Market Institute (MMI) that investigates the role that ‘purpose’ has in determining the lives of older people. The research was based on interviews with more than 1,000 Americans between the ages of 45 and 74. When you read the next article you might think the main 'purpose' is trying to find a job.

I am a sucker for new segmentation models. MMI deduces that older people’s attitude towards their life ‘purpose’ divides into five segments as follows.

Balanced Givers are the largest segments (33% of the sample) who tend to focus more on those activities which emphasise helping others, as well as doing things that matter to them personally. Some activities include helping to make things better for others and using their abilities to accomplish meaningful goals and activities for themselves.

Meaning-Minded is another large segment that focuses more time on activities such as being with friends and family, enjoying their surroundings, and enjoying personal interests, the core activities defining the Good Life, but also emphasizing spiritual involvement for their minds and souls.

Balanced Individualists tend to allocate more importance to activities that focus on personal interests. For example, taking care of their physical selves and enjoying personal interests. They feel that Meaning-related activities are still important, but less so than the Meaning-Minded and somewhat more so than Balanced Givers.

Financially Focused spend considerable attention and energy on activities like building income, improving their salaries, and increasing their net worth, with much less attention to activities enhancing meaning and purpose in themselves or in their communities.

Hyper-Individualists concentrate primarily on their own needs and activities in comparison to activities with family, their spiritual lives, or their communities.

The report gives a lot of detail about each of these segments. The difference in the attitudes between the groups, especially the Hyper-individualists and the Meaning –Minded, demonstrates the futility of treating older people as a homogenous whole.

The report also provides research about how ‘purpose’ differs by age. Nothing surprising in this analysis although I wonder what effect the recession will have on the responses to questions related to assets and income. Well done MMI, a useful contribution to our understanding of the older consumer. Dick Stroud

A good publication about retirement

I find most publications about retirement depressing. A glimpse into a world where I don’t want to go. When you read the next couple of blog postings you will conclude it is a world that few of us will see!

I have just had a look ‘The Mature Guide to Retirement Living’ and reckon it is really good. The layout, style and imagery make it something that I would want to read.

The author, Tony Watts, who set up the Mature Times in 1991 said: “There’s no one single approach to retirement, because what each individual can do is often heavily determined by their health – physical and financial ….all you can do is provide the information people need and let them make their own decisions. Any other approach would be patronising.”

Definitely worth the £7.95. Phone 01275 331933 and I am sure they will be delighted to take your credit card number. Dick Stroud

All change at Millennium

The Direct Marketing Group, Millennium’s parent, is restructuring its business.

Millennium will become a market research and consultancy service for the mature market and will be headed by Kevin Lavery, one of the original founders.

Managing director Fiona Hought will step down from the role and work on a consultancy basis.

The Direct Marketing Group’s founder and chief executive Martin Smith says: “The restructure will allow Millennium to focus purely on offering bespoke mature marketing consultancy and continue to build the research arm.”

Looks like it is all change at the UK's largest agency specialising in the older market. Dick Stroud

Why so many media sections of web sites fail

This is nothing to do with the 50-plus but about Web sites and blogging. Something that bloggers and journalists have in common is they often need to use the media section of web sites.

Most media sections of web sites could do with improvement.

If you want to read a detailed analysis of why they fail have a look at Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox. I quote.

Most of the PR sections of sites we've studied fail to support journalists in their quest for the facts, information, and contacts they can use to write stories about companies and their products.

Websites must be painfully clear about a company's purpose, products, and services. Websites for high-tech start-ups are particularly notorious for presenting generic, buzzword-filled mission statements that could apply equally well to both their worst competitors and companies producing completely different products.

If journalists can't find what they're looking for on a website, they might not include that company in their story. Journalists repeatedly said that poor website usability could reduce or completely eliminate their press coverage of a company.

I would add two other points.

When press release is issued it should immediately get added to the site. There is nothing more frustrating than reading a snippet of a story in the press and then finding that the press release is not on the site.

Second point. When a release refers to “a research study” – please, please reference where the study can be read or at least say that it is for internal consumption. Dick Stroud

Generation G

In this case, G stands for ‘Generosity’ not ‘Greed’.

I always like reading the Trendwatching newsletter. I don’t always agree with what it says but it makes me think. The latest edition is the best statement I have seen of the idea that the recession is igniting a fundamental change in consumer desires (so far I agree).

Trendwatching then goes on to propose that this change will be about consumers demanding their suppliers ditch greed and embrace generosity – “ giving is the new taking, and sharing is the new giving.” This is the point where I start to feel slightly nauseous.

The article goes on to say

Whereas you (and we) enjoy broad statements like ‘younger generations are more prone to collaboration, sharing and giving’, some of your colleagues and/or superiors will want to see proof of this phenomenon, especially if they themselves are not (yet) part of GENERATION G. Numbers! Facts! Stats! So here are some tidbits—all related to well-known ‘generous’ sites for and by the people—that may help.

Then for some reason we get a table of users of Flickr showing, as we all know, that it is skewed towards younger users.

Come on guys, this is warp like jump of logic to equate uploading images to being ‘generous’ and ‘giving’. Are we saying that the pile of videos, images and content that sits on the web is driven by the desire to help mankind and to be ‘generous’. Were the adoring acolytes of Saint Obama being ‘generous’ uploading years of video about him to YouTube. I don’t think so.

The most important problem facing UK charities is that the young are a tight fisted bunch who give neither their time nor their money (of course I am generalising) but that is what the stats show.

In my view, once we have moved through Generation 'A' (angry) we will witness the birth of Generation 'V'. The ‘V’ standing for Value – a rejection of tat and the desire to acquire services and products with enduring value. Sure it would be nice if they are festooned with eco kitemarks but that will be secondary requirement. We will get flocks of celebrities prattling on about how the recession has changed their life and how they have seen the errors of their ways and want to be more giving people etc etc etc. That's just mood music.

Speculating what scars the recession will leave on the different generations and their sub-sectors is something we should all be doing. Trendwatching eloquently puts one view. It just happens to be one I disagree with - what do you think? Dick Stroud

The power of competitions?

I recently received an e-mail from sixtyplusufers providing data about the cost per enquiry for campaigns that have been run via its web site. The e-mail explained

How do we do it? By means of our Advertorial/Giveaway promotion, where we run a competition with a prize given by the company. And the competition includes an advertorial section to promote the products. It also includes your email address for the responses - an excellent opportunity for data capture, for follow up of leads, and for monitoring the level of interest for your promotion.

These are some examples of current campaigns.

Of course the bottom line is what is value of this type of competition lead? I guess the proof is if the advertisers keep coming back for more.


Any companies out there willing to share their experiences of using this technique? Dick Stroud

You can always rely on bank “mum and dad”

MoneyPlus, the magazine published by Standard Chartered, has an article about the extending period that children are dependant on their parents for money. The article is actually called: “How not to be helicopter parent” – the sort that ‘hover’ over their kids every financial decision. I would think this is easier said than done.

There were a few facts in the article that caught my eye. How true they are I have no idea but I suspect they are in the right ball park.

40% of parents worry that they will be saddled with their kid’s debts

9% of men are still at home when they are in their 30s

23% of graduates are still at home and 53% have delayed buying a home by 6 years.

76% of first time house buyers (under 25) couldn’t afford a property without their parent’s assistance.

All these figures are pre-recession – so the situation now will have got even worse – assuming parents perceive having their adult children living at home and still requiring their financial help, a bad thing.

Bottom line all of this argument is that parents, many of them being 50-plus are important elements of their children’s decision making process for large capital purchases. Marketers should understand that. Dick Stroud

It’s cool to drink McDonald's rather than Starbuck’s coffee

This blog posting title results from reading the “Boomers Caught in Squeeze Play” article in Adweek.

As recession hits the article lists some of the results.

McDonald's taunts Starbucks, in its hometown, with billboards proclaiming: "Large is the new grande" and "Four bucks is dumb."

De Beers positions its diamonds as something to be passed down among generations in a world of "disposable distractions."

Allstate Insurance has its spokesman standing in front of Depression-era photos talking about how in tough times "people start enjoying the small things in life: a home-cooked meal, time with loved ones, appreciating the things we do have..."

The article ends on a chilling note.

The global financial crisis has slowed growth in previously hot, emerging economies like China. Less obvious may be the population drop in large Western European markets like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany. Marketers face not only the possible change toward more conservative boomer behaviour, pre-retirement, they're also going to have fewer customers there in absolute numbers. Marketers are going to have to be relentlessly focused on where value is and on their core customers. It's not going to be like the 1950s where you can throw anything out there and see growth.

Have a nice weekend. Dick Stroud

A sign of the times

Look what just dropped into my inbox. Saga cruises with as much as a 45% discount.

That is one hell of a big discount. Dick Stroud

Gloomy Brits

Maybe you should ignore what I have to say about the recession. This research from Synovate suggests that Brits are the world’s pessimists when it comes to all things credit crunch and recession. The US, Belgium and France are not far behind but us Brits really are a doom laden bunch. The world’s optimists are the Danes, Brazilians and Malaysians.

Do we know something the rest of you don’t? Dick Stroud

Demographics of social network users

What fascinating research. Interested in social networks? Then this is a report from Pew Internet is a must for you to download.

Clearly it shows a close correlation between age and use of “social networking sites”. In future Pew should take a broader view of what constitutes a social networking site. Currently it only counts the generic sites (MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin, Yahoo, Bebo, Classmates.com…) What about company sites that embed social networking? This is the future of social networking.

Leaving that to one side, it is interesting to see that inverse relationship between use and education. It is not an exact match and maybe it reflects the age factor?

The bottom line for marketers is that if you want to target the poorer end of society then social networks are where you should be spending your bucks. Mmmm. Maybe that is not a good selling message? Dick Stroud

The age old argument about the appearance of models

People want to see models “like them” – no they don’t they want to see models like they “would like to be”…no they don’t – yes they do…

If I have heard this argument once I have heard it a zillion times. The trouble is that there is a big difference between what people say and how they react.

A guy at Judge Business School has just published research suggesting that women are of the view that models aren’t realistic and don’t reflect the intended customer. Here are a couple of quotes from the article.

In general, people have a more favourable reaction to brands that show models who represent people's age, size and background.

Quoting 50-plus women who says: “It's a slap in the face to show this young woman because she'd never have the money to shop there whereas I do."

I am not so sure.

The article in WARC quotes a learned professor of marketing at the London Business School who says.

"This kind of research may have some interesting insights, but it's insights into the way consumers talk and think about the adverts when you prompt them … there is a gap between what they say, particularly in the presence of other women, and what they would do actually at the point of sale.

"And that's a big gap, not a small gap."

The thing that worried me was the fact that the researcher seems to have an axe to grind on the subject. It appears he owns a modelling agency and has been a campaigner against size zero models. This may be a worthy objective but to my mind isn’t a recommendation for impartiality.

For what it is worth, a couple of the large UK mail order agencies find that they sell more products when they use classic thin young models rather than people who reflect the intended customer - in the UK that means the slightly obese. Sure Dove did some wonderful stuff with its campaigns but it was the uniqueness of their approach that made it work. You cannot generalise from the particular.

Maybe this is a sad reflection on the consumer but that is way it is. Dick Stroud

Recession take its toll on senior living communities

Like all other parts of the housing industry the UK’s retirement villages must be feeling the heat. I am not sure if it just making them warm of about to catch fire. Kelly Kilpatrick writes about this industry in the US so I thought it would be interesting if she told us how retirement housing (senior communities) are faring in America. This is what Kelly had to say. If you have any questions you can contact Kelly at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com


As the recession continues to affect people of all ages, seniors are being hit hard at the wrong time in life. Many people who had thought they were solidly vested in companies saw millions of dollars slip through their fingers in a few short months. Put that in with the constantly fluctuating gas prices, impending doom on various geopolitical fronts, and you have one scared group of consumers.

People who are still fortunate enough to have the resources to retire comfortably will have some serious decisions to make in the coming months.

Over the last couple of decades, senior communities have grown exponentially across the United States. Many are owned and managed by large, reputable firms that cater to the most discerning of seniors. Many facilities offer onsite golf courses, condos, homes, health care, workout facilities—you name it.

However, with budgets tight and the prospect of moving from the homestead into uncharted waters is likely to leave seniors holding out for evidence of some upcoming respite before getting rid of any more assets. Often, seniors simply sell their homes and move to a new area to enjoy their retirement years.

With the housing market diving way down and the uncertainty of the future becoming more evident as the days pass, it’s looking like senior communities may end up taking a big hit in the coming months. For those seniors who have been fortunate enough to come out fairly unscathed, checking into a community owned by a large corporation may also seem like a bad idea, if recent events are any indicator.

On the other hand, there are many who might think it is a wise move to by into one of these communities while it’s still a buyer’s market. After all, more and more Baby Boomers are retiring each year, so these communities to stand to see some explosive growth in the coming years if the economy can just get turned around.

As it stands, people seem to be staying in their safety zone—at least for the time being. With the changing of the guard coming up and new policies and procedures going into effect, we can really only wait with bated breath to see what comes next.

Age Neutral Web sites

Very rarely do you read an article about Age Neutral web sites. The company involved in the design of the site for Georgetown University’s Alumni Club had to come up with a Web presence that would satisfy a broad range of ages.

The article about how it was achieved is a bit ‘wordy’ but worth a scan. Dick Stroud

Job loss most likely to be among the young

I have talked a lot about the two phase recession. Phase 1, hit the assets of the old. Phase 2, hits jobs – the most keenly felt job losses being amongst the young. This is a gross simplification but bear with me.

Thanks to Rick Hartley for pointing out this analysis from The New York Times that demonstrates this happening. The age group 35-44 lost over a million jobs, the age group 55-64 gained over half a million.

OK, marketers, decision time. You are going to have to start to “picking winners”. One dimension of that is going to be old V young. Of course it is much more complex than it just being an age thing, but this is not a bad place to start.

The days of having the luxury of choice are fast disappearing. Dick Stroud

Puritans versus spendthrifts: recession’s culture war

This is the title of an FT article and poses a simple question.

How should people be persuaded to consume rather than save? How, in a fearful world, where knowing what tomorrow holds has never been more difficult, can you get Jo Public to flash the credit cards and add even more to their unpayable end of month balance. The much quoted Keynes described this as the paradox of thrift – the more people saved, the more demand for goods and services fell, the few people were employed etc etc.

This question is, I am sure, being discussed all over the world and has a special relevance to the 50-plus.

The article argues that the groups most likely to be convinced by government nudging and entreaties are the young and the poor who are already happy living in debt. Those who already have some cash and assets (i.e. the older age groups) are less likely to spend and more likely to save.

The other reason this is likely to be true is that older people have already lived through a couple of recessions and remember how incompetent politicians made the situation worse rather than better and can see the same thing developing.

So what do governments do about this problem of the puritan older person? There are four steps:

Step1. Try appealing to their sense of duty and love of the nation (i.e. spend for Britain / America). When that fails...

Step 2. Cut interest rates so the value of their savings diminishes even faster. When that fails…

Step 3. Spend wads of government debt on “infrastructure projects/investments” that are supposed to stimulate the economy but never do, or at least never do in the right time scale. When that fails…

Step 4. Let the money supply rip and watch the value of debt diminish along with their savings.

Any smart finance company would recognise that this money to be made from this progression. At some day in the next 12 months (my guess) there will be a tipping point when older people realise that their savings are diminishing at an ever increasing pace and at that point will want to lock them into assets. This is a real business opportunity. Dick Stroud

Trends in house building

Remember that time when people were interested in new houses? As the consumer electronics companies pack their bags and leave Las Vagas the Home Building industry arrives for its annual bash. I cannot think that will be a happy event.

BusinessWeek has an article about the main trends in house building. Most of them make sense. It is interesting to see that “Ageing in Place” has now made it into the list of top requirements. Dick Stroud

Tom and I see it the same way

There is a lot being published about consumer electronics in the wake of the show in Las Vegas. Any market analyst worth their salt will have a report about the market.

A couple of the gurus have discovered something that I suspect most people reading this blog have known for years. For example:

Increasingly savvy baby boomers--who are 100 million strong in the U.S. and control billions in disposable income--could be the target for tech marketers during the next few years, according to a joint study by TNS Compete and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). So says MediaPost

According to Forrester Research, U.S. adults 64 and older who bought technology in a recent three-month period spent an average $365 on consumer electronics products and $429 on computer hardware and peripherals. And Forrester points out that Americans 55 to 64 are more active in online finance, shopping and entertainment than those under 55.

This revelation has obviously got under the skin of the great man himself – Tom Peters. This is a quote from his blog

I repeat in this Blog for the Umpteenth Time: The Mother of All Markets for

Approximately Everything for the next quarter-century is the deeply underappreciated, insanely underserved Boomer-Geezer clan of 100 million or so in the U.S. alone. (Then add the Super-silver EU and Super-silver Japan, and the story grows even more important.)

"Silver Summit"?
This market is not about "silver initiatives."
This market is the market—the rest is details.

He is so right. That is just what I have been saying. Cripes, how arrogant. Thanks to Tom Troland for telling me about the Peter’s post. Dick Stroud

Times are bad – back to the old times?

There are a couple of good articles in Saturday’s FT about the impact of the recession on advertising and fashion – in particular the way it will (is) creating a tide of nostalgia and reflecting back to times of supposed certainty. You should be able to access these links without a subscription – you might need to register.

Advertising

Slideshow of old ads

Fashion

An ad that has been running since Sept 2008 shows how Hovis has taken is classical "boy on the bike" ad and extended it into today’s world. It is a simple story but no worse for that and I think works well - not sure if it sells any more bread but I certainly enjoy watching.

So does nostalgia work – is it something that rings the bells of the older consumer – is it an example of age neutral creative? Come you creative types share your views. It must be a question that is being asked by a lot of brand managers right now.

This is the original ad. Dick Stroud

Singapore Retirement Conference

It is fascinating for Europeans to hear about the older market in countries in the Asia Pacific region.

Singapore has just had its first consumer fair for the 50-plus that had 150 businesses hoping to market to the older consumer. You can read about the event on Kim Walker’s blog and on the channelnewsasia.com site.

It is worth downloading the magazine from Singapore’s Council for the Third Age that was published to celebrate the event.

Not surprisingly the fundamentals of the marketing between the regions seems pretty much the same although I am sure it requires very different marketing tactics. Dick Stroud

Re-branding for 2009

It is good to see that our large corporates are trying to reflect the recessionary times in their new branding.

I wish I knew who came up with these designs, rumoured to be a creative working for a large US agency. Brilliant. Dick Stroud

The thinning of Haggar

JWT Boom, as the name suggests, is the part of JWT - the Boom indicates it focuses on the older market. Without doubt, it publishes the most professional looking newsletter (Livewire) about 40+ (yep, 40+ not 50+) marketing. I was looking back over some of the old editions and found an article about Haggar Clothing.

The marketing campaigns of Stephen Croncota (the head of marketing) helped turn the company around. One aspect of this was his advertising campaign that showed a couple of real life Boomers dealing with the day-to-day problems that Boomers face. See the above example of what you do when the service man is 5 hours late arriving.

As you can see both of the guys in the ad are a little wide around the hips!

I was amazed to see the photo used by JWT to accompany the article. They guy looks to be on the road to anorexia!

I suppose this is a good example of using imagery that reflects our desires rather than reality? Dick Stroud

Advertising in recessionary times

Flybe is Europe’s largest and most successful regional airline and the United Kingdom’s premier domestic airline - well that is what it said in its press release.

In today’s Daily Telegraph, the main readership who are 50-plus, is a full page ad based on the premise: “don’t worry about losing your job keep on spending and enjoying your self.” And why not?

I am not so sure if the mix of messages - redundancy and travel - are that appropriate, especially to an older audience, but I commend the marketers for thinking out of the box and coming up with this idea. Dick Stroud

An antidote to cheerfulness

First day back at work and still feeling cheerful. OK, we can do something about that. Have a read of this article from today's Washington Post. This is the most optimistic part of the article.

But if you think that things couldn't get any worse, wait till the 2020s. The economic and geopolitical climate could become even more threatening by then -- and this time the reason will be demographics.

Dick Stroud

ELDR Web site

The PR company that promotes ELDR magazine and Web site has been very organised in contacting me with details of articles they think will generate a blog posting. The reason I have not written anything has been because of work pressure rather than anything to do with the articles, all of which have been very good.

I last wrote about ELDR way back in March 2007.

From a quick look around the Web site appears to be very good. Lots and lots of content wrapped-up in an appealing design.

Just one small gripe, following on from my posting about usability. Who is ELDR? If you go to the About Us section all you find are details about the key staff. But who owns ELDR? A bit more work on this section would be worthwhile plus more use of some Web video. It would also be good if the magazine was available in an electronic format (e.g. Zinio). Dick Stroud

Nielsen and “About Us” and “Site Maps”

First. If you haven’t signed up for Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox then do it now. It is free and you will read a lot of good stuff that is useful for 50-plus web sites.

For instance you can read about ways to improve the “About Us” part of your web site. Would you believe it (yes) that the ease of finding out what an organisation actually does, from the "About Us" part of the site, has got worse.

What about the use of Site Maps? This is an area where things seem to have improved.

I cannot stress how important that “About Us” section is to older people. If you are not a recognised brand then you must be able to tell a good story of why it is worth spending time on your site.

Nielsen looks at those small things that add together to create a big improvement in web site visitor satisfaction. Well worth your time reading. Dick Stroud

Combining two problems doesn’t create a solution

The Royal Bank of Scotland acquired The Priory, the rehabilitation chain well known for treating troubled celebrities, when it took over ABN Amro. The company now has debts topping £800m and its equity is worthless.

The same bank is also lead lender to Four Seasons, the older people care home giant. Not only is it exposed to the debt, it owns about £100m of “piks” (payments in kind), which has no value.

So what do you do in such circumstances? How about combining the two and ending up with an even larger problem. Surely, nobody would be suggesting you do that would they? Yep, that is just what is happening. Dick Stroud

Will Madonna work her magic?

I love the Louis Vuitton celebrity of photos and have written about them a number of times. This is the last posting in November.

Well they have come up with another great set of photos, this time of the dreaded Madonna.

I have questions if celebrity ads will have the same impact during these strange times but maybe the target audience hasn’t even noticed the economic downturn – I doubt if Madonna has. Dick Stroud

Making money out of anger

Well done the guys at Angry Britain who have found a way to make a few quid out of providing angry Brits with a channel for their discontent. I am sure the Web site doesn’t generate much in the way of advertising revenue but it shows that the recession does provide business opportunities.

Over the Xmas I heard and read a lot about life enhancing benefits of being broke and without a job. How the recession will rectify our work life balance problems, how we will all discover our inner-selves, ditch our fascination with buying things and generally become much nicer people. These claims are laced with liberal helpings of physco babble and the musings of people who are all sitting on a nice fat bank accounts and who are insulated from the realities of today’s situation.

I am ashamed to say that a lot of this nonsense comes from the 50-plus who still retain their idealistic notions from the 1960s and having benefited from all the capitalist world has had to offer and who can, from a financially secure position, point at the economic problems and natter on about people being selfish and obsessed with buying things.

Rant over. Now as marketers you have a decision to make about the way the older market is going to adapt to the recession. As they view their diminished pensions statements and the cut-down value of their property, how are they going to react? My bet is on ‘anger’ not spiritual enlightenment. Over time they will adapt and then look at how best to live in the post–recession world, but that will take time.

As you return back to work there is only one issue you as marketers have to deal and that is ensuring you understand how the behaviour of your customers is changing as the economy continues its dive into the abyss.

This is not the place to debate why it is happening but it is the place to understand what it means to the older age group. For that reason you are going to read a large number of postings on that subject. I promise wherever possible to look for the positive side of things and not add to mood of despondency. Happy 2009. Dick Stroud

Chuck Nyren’s looks back at 2008

Well done Chuck for putting together a look-back at 2008. Make yourself a coffee, sit back, turn up the volume and enjoy. Mr Nyren you are far more industrious than me. Dick Stroud

What do we know about “Empty Nesters?”

MediaPost has an interesting article about households where the kids have left home - This Bird Has Flown. I suspect a lot of anxious parents are starting 2009 wondering if their child-free life might be coming to an end as cash-strapped and jobless children decide that their old bedroom with mum's cooking might be a good place to sit out the recession.

References in the article sent me down some interesting avenues of investigation.
A study, reported in the Journal Psychological Science with the daunting title (Contextualizing Change in Marital Satisfaction During Middle Age: An 18-Year Longitudinal Study) followed the same 123 women at ages 43, 52 and 61 through questionnaires and interviews.

The main finding was that marital woman’s satisfaction increased as they aged, although overall life satisfaction did not. Whether it was a first marriage or a re-marriage didn't matter. Secondly, once the kids leave home their level of marital satisfaction improved, not because of the quantity of time they were then able to spend with their partners but the “quality of time” (whatever that is).

Both interesting observations but I am not too sure I know what I can do with the information.

Another study of 6,000 people in their early 40s to late 60s, by ThirdAge found that 35% still had children living at home. Meanwhile, about 8% had never married, and 38% were now single. If my arithmetic is correct, then that means that 19% of their sample were Empty Nesters. Can’t be right?

I haven’t been to the ThirdAge web site since it was re-launched. I reckon they have done a good job. It is appealing and stuffed full of content.

The article referred to yet another Boomer site (Redwood Age). I am continually amazed that new boomer portals/social networking sites are still being launched. I think they are constantly improving but it is a mighty crowed market, all clamouring for a diminishing Boomer advertising budget.


There is reference to Chrysler's launch of the Dodge Journey (April 2008) when its marketers had a counterintuitive inspiration that empty nesters and young couples have a lot in common when selecting a car, even if they're coming from opposite ends of their lives. Empty nesters tend to be downsizing their homes and cars, while young couples are ready to move into a bigger vehicle. It's a pity that neither group bought enough of the product to stave off Chrysler's need for a $4 Billion handout.

Dodge marketers, not surprisingly, struggled with the messaging strategy. Should they deliver one or two messages, depending on the demographic? In the end the approach was to: “Take product messages, serve them against different audiences online, and optimize to see what was working." Sounds like a bit of fudge to me.

The article concludes by saying that the tactics to communicate with empty nesters is like that used to reach their children - build trust and provide information-based advertising, like sponsored content. Sound a bit like Age Neutral marketing to me. Dick Stroud