Tuesday, June 08, 2010

The 50-plus needs marketing advice

This has nothing to do with 50-plus marketing. Just a Dick Stroud personal gripe.

In case you haven’t noticed we have entered an era of austerity. Six months ago it was all about the Governments flushing borrowed money through their parched economies. Now it is all about getting it back, to pay-off the ginormous bills they have racked-up.

Yesterday, the UK Government started it softening-up exercise to get the British public ready for the expenditure cuts and tax rises to be announced in June. At the same time there has been a cacophony of bleats from special interest groups, claiming why they are different and shouldn’t have their budgets cut or their taxes increased.

All of this provides a good opportunity for the media to parade their particular gripes about groups they think should be given a good tax kicking.

Philip Stevens is a particularly obnoxious journalist that writes for the FT. He is of the breed of journalist that continually makes the wrong call on economic issues, never apologises for his mistakes and seamlessly changes his opinions to align with his perception of what he thinks the liberal left want to hear. You kind of get the feeling that he is not on my Xmas card list?

Today he has an article entitled: “Bus pass test for Cameron’s mettle.” He bemoans
Why, more specifically, are wealthy pensioners to be guaranteed free bus passes and winter fuel allowances?
Enough of my griping about Mr Stevens. I should offer him a word of thanks for crystallising my thinking about the need for the older people to adopt some hard headed marketing techniques.

We need to start thinking about the different age groups as brands and government expenditure as the market. At the moment Brand OLD is in danger of being swamped by the brand YOOF, that has done a great job in pleading for special attention. Brand CHILD is rumoured to be launching a new campaign. A relatively new entrant to the market, Brand OVERSEAS AID. reckons it has an unassailable market position. Looks to me like it could be a market wipe-out.


Come on guys, playing the nice guy is not going to get you very far.

Of course I jest, or do I? Dick Stroud

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