New Age UK advertising

The advertising campaign from Age UK makes me feel uncomfortable. I am sure that is exactly what it is intended to do.

I would love to see research showing the reaction of the different age groups. I would hope it is consistently good, across the age spectrum, but I suspect it has a lot more impact for those people in their 60s and 70s. Brave stuff. What do you think? Dick Stroud

The middle aged brain

Chuck Nyren has a interesting blog posting about a new book by Barbara Strauch called The Surprising Strengths Of The Middle-Aged Brain.

I am not going to repeat what Chuck says about it other than to say I have just ordered a copy. Dick Stroud

Beware of calling them Boomers

The Metlife Boomers in the Middle study examines the Baby Boomer cohort born 1952–1958 (i.e. those who will reach the ripe old age of 52 and 58 years old in 2010).

There are lots of nice charts but this is the one that I found interesting.

It would seem that if you label this bunch as Boomers then you are best going to satisfy a third of group.
The alternatives don’t do too well. The manufactured term “Generation Jones” only reaches noise levels of acceptance. Generation X doesn’t do that much better.

It seems that this bunch don’t want to be called anything in particular. That is the important message to take from this research. Dick Stroud

Adults have fun in their retirement community - but do the viewers?

Sunset Daze is a new reality show set at active-adult retirement communities in Arizona.

I was trying to think where the equivalent place in the UK might be – Penrith - maybe Colchester?

It appears that the reviewers had a wide range of views, ranging from dreadful to OK.

From this short preview of the programme I think I would be more towards the ‘dreadful’ than the ‘OK’.

The thing I don't like about ‘reality’ shows is that the one thing they are is not real. I mean real, for most people, is normally boring most of the time with the occasional dash of excitement.

‘Reality’ for the producers of this programme appears to be showing older people proving that they are still up for romance, active sports and generally having a hell of a good time. I always think that this is something they probably missed out on in the previous 40 years of their life and are trying to pack into the last few years.

Maybe I am being too hard. But the sight of older people trying to prove that how young in body and spirit they are makes me feel queasy. I would be interested to hear from anybody in the US who has seen the first couple of episodes. Dick Stroud

Looking for my wallet and car keys

I love it – well done Tom Rush. Thanks to Gerald Wortman for sending it. Dick Stroud

Lots of boomer presentations

The previous blog posting was about the Boomer Lifestyle Conference in Florida.

Well, if you were unable to get there you can look at some of the presentations on SlideShare.

Reading cold PowerPoint presentations is a pain but one or two of the sessions contains a lot of detail and are well worth a read. Make sure you look at

Trend Report about Emerging Technologies by Laurie M. Orlov
Retirement in Hard Times by Mark Miller (I will be reviewing his new book in the next week)
Transformation in Progress: A Report from the Trenches - Roger Chiocchi

There are a couple of other speakers who I hope will be uploading their slides – I will check back in the next week.

Looks like an interesting way of spending a day. Dick Stroud

My take on the "it is all the boomer's fault" argument

Much has been written about the evils of the boomer generation - most of it is nonsense. When a highly respected politician accuses Boomers of stealing their children’s future, his views deserve attention.

I was asked to write an article for BT about David Willett’s book Pinch and thought that I would publish this amended version. Hope you enjoy – what I really hope is that you will let me know what you think. Dick Stroud

Dumbed down Science

A zillion people in the sample, 67,186 to be exact, came to the astounding conclusion that:

There is no evidence that the benefits of playing brain training games transfers to other brain skills.

So that’s it, dump the games they are not worth the silicon they are running on. Hold on a minute and let’s look in a bit more detail at this BBC research.

1. Only 13,000 of the initial sample group trained three times a week for the full six weeks – so that has cut the sample size by 80%

2. More women signed up to take part than men (57.6%) and they completed an average of 2.2 more training sessions than men. I would have thought this distorts the results - wouldn't you?

3. Participants had generally reached a high level of education, with more than 50% having a university degree or higher qualification. Well that makes it a really representative sample – I don’t think.

The average age was 43 years. There were very few older people taking part. See the graph.

Sorry guys, this is a worthless study that tells us absolutely nothing. I am amazed that Nature thought it worth publishing the results. The sample was self selecting and highly distorted.

I am sure all of this made good TV - it doesn’t make good science. Don't get me wrong. I am not convinced these games do what they claim on the box, but that is just my instinct and not something I would peddle as being the truth.Dick Stroud

The 100 year old consumer – part 2

I nearly forgot. The core thinking for the Marketing Week article comes from Clear – a branding consultancy. I love the promotional video they produced to promote their research and presence in the market. Great to have some young fresh thinking. Dick Stroud

The 100 year old consumer

This is the name of the cover story in today’s Marketing Week. It’s good. Then you might say "You are bound to say that" since your words of wisdom are quoted throughout the article.

But really, it is excellent. Well done Lucy Handley the journalist. So often these type of articles just churn over the same old stuff and don’t move our thinking or knowledge forward. This article doesn’t fall into that trap.

There are lot of interesting examples quoted that I will check-out and comment upon. In the short term – just read it. Dick Stroud

The new AARP ad – why?

You can read about this ad in brandweek that had an interview with the organisation’s head of marketing. This is the response to the question what’s the creative strategy in a nutshell?

This is a campaign that is in essence celebrating the fact that our members and the 50-plus population as a whole are not done having goals and dreams, and they’re still growing and discovering [themselves]. What found in our research is that our members tell us they have a great deal more to do and that they’re not done [living life] yet. One can argue that your best years are still ahead in this campaign. We’re using that emotional connection to launch this year’s brand and story campaign. We will evolve it through the year, and it’ll stay very focused. As you’ve seen in the ads, it’ll revolve around that ultimate question of, “What do I want to do next in today’s environment?”

Let’s de-clutter this explanation and get to the core of the argument: The 50-plus population still have goals and dreams and things to do. Yes. I get that. But so what? What am I supposed to do now?

Maybe I am missing something but I found this ad very pleasant but unsatisfying. Maybe I am missing something? Dick Stroud

New product opportunities as 'health' becomes more important to the 50-plus

I missed this item in AdAge.com about General Mills and how it sees it targeting of US consumers. Back in Feb it announced that the three keys to success were the Hispanics, baby boomers and millennials. The company revealed products and marketing plans designed specifically for those segments at the Consumer Analysts Group meeting in New York.

Boomers seem to like fibre. The highest per-capita cereal consumption is among those aged 55 or older, particularly as these consumers look for ways to add more fibre to their diets. General Mills has products targetted at the fibre consumer as well as an increased desire for soups and yogurt products.

The common requirement, as seen by General Mills, is a need for products with “added health benefits” such as probiotics. The company is also courting empty nesters with single-serving versions of some of its products.
CNN has also covered this subject.

These ideas about products make a lot of sense but I wonder what percentage of US, or UK, boomers are really that conscious about “added health benefits”. My guess is that it is 20-30%. Dick Stroud

Florida Boomers

There is an interesting conference taking place in the US about Boomers. I was tempted to attend but time pressures got in the way. Thank heavens, since I would still be waiting at Heathrow with the other zillions of passengers attempting to get to the US.

Anyway, some of the material from the conference is finding its way onto the web. This article about is research by Schwartz Consulting Services about Florida Boomers. Follow the link and the instructions and you can download the whole presentation.

There were a couple of slides that particularly interested my. First the "word cloud" displaying the things that are important to this group. No surprises, but it is a nice way of presenting the data. I was fascinated by the data about the complex household of the Boomer. We all instinctively know this is the case but it is great to see some numbers put around the complexity.
The presentation goes on to ask the “So what” question about what this “full nest” syndrome mean. A good presentation. Dick Stroud

Fair Use of other people’s intellectual property

I have to say that I have not given the issue of “What is the Fair Use” of other people’s intellectual property much thought even though by writing this blog I ‘borrow’ material from others on a daily basis. Having watched this video I think that most of what I do is within the law. If you are a blogger it is definitely worth 10 mins of your life to hear the arguments.

I am not sure how the logic of the legal arguments applies outside the US. Any ideas? Many thanks to Brent Green for sending me the link. Dick Stroud

My blog has a new RSS feed

The changes to my blog are now complete - I think. I certainly hope they are complete.

If any of you follow my blog via an RSS feed please note that the address has changed and is now:

http://20plus30.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Now to get down to some constructive work. Thanks to Hayden Brown for making the conversion as painless as possible. Dick Stroud

Household spending in the US 2009

This is an interesting tool to compare spending in the US by age and by geography. I have no idea if these numbers are correct but it they are they tell an interesting story.

Definitely worth looking at the way this company (Bundle) presents its data. Needless to say that the higher the number the older the age group. Dick Stroud

Now for the next change to my blog

So far so good. The blog address as changed and as far as I can see everything is still working. Now for the next phase that involves updating the template of the blog to the latest version of Blogger.

If the appearance of the blog is a bit strange you will know what has happened.

After I have been through all of these changes all I have is blog that is about the same as I started with. That's technology for you. Dick Stroud

Depressing reading about the increase in disabilities in the 50-64 year age group

“Trends in Disability and Related Chronic Conditions among People Ages Fifty To Sixty-Four “is a paper published by the RAND Corporation in the current edition of the Health Matters Journal.

This is what the abstract says

Although still below 2%, the proportion of people ages 50–64 who reported needing help with personal care activities increased significantly from 1997 to 2007. The proportions needing help with routine household chores and indicating difficulty with physical functions were stable. These patterns contrast with reported declines in disability among the population age sixty-five and older.

Particularly concerning among those ages 50—64 are significant increases in limitations in specific mobility-related activities, such as getting into and out of bed. Musculoskeletal conditions remained the most commonly cited causes of disability at these ages. There were also substantial increases in the attribution of disability to depression, diabetes, and nervous system conditions for this age group.

We write and talk a lot about the attitudes of the 50-plus but not enough about the physiological ageing issues. Depressing they might be but they are very important. This article gives some more detail. Dick Stroud

My blog URL is changing

Fingers crossed and hoping the Internet Gods are on side then my blog should be changing address to 20plus30.blogspot.com

The reason for this change is that the blessed Google has decided to discontinue providing support for the way my blog was hosted using Blogger. On the 1st of May they are pulling the plug.

So in the next day we will see if Google's migration tool works or if the blog disappears into the outer regions of cyberspace.

So don't forget - www.20plus30.com/blog is about to die (hopefully it will auto direct to the new blog) and 20plus30.blogspot.com will be born.

If you have any problems then e-mail me at dick@20plus30.com. Wish me luck. Dick Stroud

This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://20plus30.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://20plus30.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

Boomer Marketer, Heal Thyself

The writer of this article makes an interesting observation.

Perhaps the problem (the lack of attention given to older consumers) was not the young agency creatives or the media planners but the Boomer experts themselves: perhaps, our own marketing practices contradict the very advice we dole out, serving only to reinforce rather than dispel stereotypes of what it means to market to Boomers.

Perhaps, if we want to convince the youthful decision makers, we should start with ourselves. We should look at our own sites, blogs and advice to see if we are "walking" the talk. Are we following our own advice?

The author then goes on to make three observations about bad practice,

1. Copy and creatives that equate a Boomer with a senior -- even though studies show that Boomers hate being labelled "senior."

OK, I have searched through my web site for the word ‘senior’. Other than where it appears as quote in a blog I don’t think I am guilty of that one.

2. Advice that highlights fear, not aspiration, to motivate Boomers.

I might be a tad guilty of this one, but then us 50-plus in the UK have a lot to be fearful about. If the thought of Gordon Brown being in anyway connected with running the country for the next 5 years isn't enough to make you fearful I don’t know what is!

3. An assumption that aging is a destination, not a journey.

Not guilty of this one. I perhaps wouldn’t use such a sickly phrase “destination not a journey” but I know what the author means.

I have my own views about what is wrong with the way many of ‘us’ talk about marketing to older consumers. Four years ago I wrote and article called “Not another article about marketing to the over 50s” that documented some of my gripes. I would change things a bit if I was writing it again but a lot of the observations are still true. Dick Stroud

Not the designer’s dilemma more the designer’s challenge

Joseph Coughlin, of MIT AgeLab has an interesting posting on his blog about the challenge facing designers when dealing when older people.

He uses the good example of the mobile phone and argues that you can either create a product that is specifically designed for older people. He uses the LG’s Migo VX1000 as an example of this type of product – paradoxically as can be seen it is designed for children rather than older people.I guess that gives substance to the argument that old age is like childhood?

Alternatively, he argues, you can provide the ability to personalise the ‘normal’ phone (i.e. features to enlarge display font size, functionality). He mentions Vodafone, in collaboration with Toshiba, in this context.

I think that Jo has missed out on a third option. It will not come as a surprise to anybody who reads my blog that this option is connected with apps.

His arguments are based on using the existing technology platform. You either use it to create a bespoke simple version or provide it with the functionality to enable it appear less complex than it really is.

The third way is that you abandon the old technology platform and create a new one. This is what has happened with the smartphone and the use of apps. The technology platform is larger in size and the functionality is a step-change easier to use than the old menu driven phones.

Jo raises an important point that he calls the designer’s dilemma.

The older consumer serves as the designer’s acid test of success or failure in resolving the trade-offs of function, form, fun and usability. The explosion of technological capability makes it difficult to resist more function even if the form it takes makes it unusable. If all functions are designed to fit, they must also be designed for ease of use. Greatly reduced function may result in a more usable device, but at the possible risk of not meeting the aspirations of the older consumer and alienating younger buyers. A product obviously designed for the old becomes an ‘old man’s product.’

That’s as far as it goes. What you should add is that the designer’s challenge is to create products where the building block of functionality is easy to use and can be combined with an unlimited number of other building blocks, at the discretion of the user, to create a personalised device (i.e. The foundation of the product is personalisation) . Welcome to the Apple iPhone app. Dick Stroud

Eye candy branding where process trumps empathy

When branding is demoted to becoming a “tick in the box” marketing task you know things are going badly wrong. I have just read a couple of articles that present different of explanations of what’s wrong with today’s branding and brand management.

The “Beyond Mad Men” article in brandchannel proposes the argument that today’s brand management isn’t a million miles away from the world portrayed in the TV series Mad Men. As a great fan of the series I think that the advertising industry is now a secondary to the personal sagas of the employees. Other than the contempt that agencies have for their clients I don’t see too many similarities to today’s agencies.

McKinsey takes a different line of argument. In classical McKinsey style it has lots of nice charts.
The article “A new world for brand managers” argues that CPG companies have created fragmented, overlapping structures that have tied up brand and category managers and others in key coordinating roles, crimping their vitality and value creation potential.
This chart gives an interesting insight (click on the image to see an enlarged version of the chart). Today’s brand managers have lots (maybe too many) technical and functional skills and not enough communicating and direction setting ability. That has a big ring of truth. This is summed up with the: “don’t bother me with the brand strategy argument I need to implement a social networking thingimijig.”

This brings me to the logo of Wiltshire council. I live in Wiltshire which is a really nice English county. Recently I needed to communicate with the council “Where everybody matters” and discovered it employs a “black hole” principle to residents’ communications (i.e. communications go in but nothing comes out). In all honesty, I doubt if Wiltshire is any worse than other public sector organisations where the term “customer service” is a politically incorrect phrase and never discussed – certainly not implemented.

At some point in time, somebody in the council must have gone through the process of ‘branding’ and out popped the pleasant green logo and the meaningless term “where everybody matters”. My fear is that there are more private sector companies than we would like to admit that employ this simplistic/mechanistic approach to branding. Somehow I reckon Don Draper would have come up with something a tad more inventive and meaningful. Dick Stroud

The Aging Chinese Marketplace: Lessons for Marketers

This is a subject that Kim Walker, the Asia Pacific 50-plus business expert, knows a lot about. Kim has contributed a chapter, about the ageing of the countries in Asia Pacific, in particular China, to the new version of my book that is being translated in Chinese for publication at the end of this year.

The numbers are staggering.

These are the main observations on the Nielsen blog.

At its youngest—around 1970—nearly 51% of the population of China was under 20 years of age. Two years from now, the share of the Chinese population under the age of 20 will fall below the same share in the U.S., and will continue to fall for the near future.

Today, the median age for the U.S. is 36.6 and China is 34.2.

Marketers entering China will need to evaluate their portfolios very carefully. A mix of brands, targeted to different demographic groups, or those that work well in India or other less-developed nations may struggle in China. Large families with children—typically the biggest market segment available in the less-developed world—are nonexistent in China.

Very few households have more than two children and those with one greatly outnumber those with two. As the population ages and the gender ratio becomes more imbalanced, household sizes will continue to shrink and the share of households that have children will continue to fall. This means less variance in the buying rate for products that rely on use by multiple family members for volume. Gaining new users and the retention of current users will be far more important strategies than seeking to grow volume within existing users.

Lessons marketers learn in the more-developed world about targeting older consumers should pay dividends in China. By around 2038, there will be as many persons over the age of 65 in China as there are young persons under the age of 20. After 2038, older consumers will outnumber younger ones. Marketers who can tap these older generations could do very well.

An area not covered by Nielsen is the migration of the population from rural to urban areas. This is having the effect of depleting the countryside of young people resulting in extreme concentrations of older people.

Faced with a population ageing at an unprecedented rate, China may grow old before it has a chance of reaching widespread prosperity. This quote (from 2004) says it all: "Today's great powers became affluent before they became ageing societies, China may be the first major country to grow old before it grows rich." Dick Stroud

20plus30 goes Android

Thanks again to the guys at Motherapp for their great app creation service..

For all of you mobile phone users, with Google’s Android operating system (I think software stack is the more accurate term), you can now download a version that will work on your phone – the iPhone version has been available for the past 3 months. Dick Stroud

Saga Zone is the largest social networking site for the over 50s

Well that is what an e-mail that popped up this morning said.

Back in July 2009 it had 63,000 members. Today’s e-mail says the figure is 60,000 members.

The site started around March 2007 when I recorded it had 11,000 members. If my sums are correct that means in 3 years it has added 49,000 members. I wonder how many of these are active - 5% - 10%? Whichever way you cut the figures it is not a ringing endorsement for the power of age specific social media. Dick Stroud

An interesting Boomer blog

It is amazing how you keep coming upon new sources of insights about the older market. This is an interesting well written blog and definitely worth a read.

The description of the company is a little too jargon ridden for my liking: “We’re a collaborative marketing communications venture that employs unique combination of archetypes, stories, and generational insights to help companies position themselves for success in the Boomer market. “ But, the content is written in a much more accessible style. Dick Stroud

If social networking is so great why are there so many disasters?

ITV caught a massive financial cold when it sold Friends Reunited (£150 million loss).

News International’s purchase of MySpace doesn’t look that brilliant (laying off 30% of its workforce in June 2009) and now we learn that AOL is about to throw in the towel (and write-off $850 million) and give up on Bebo, its teen social networking site.

The one thing you can say for certain about social networking is that it is a great way of burning money, unless of course you are the founders and find some corporate mug to buy your company before it hits the buffer. Dick Stroud

This is worth 10 mins of your life

Arjan in't Veld is a good guy who is now “the man” who knows about 50-plus marketing in Holland.

Brent Green has written an excellent blog posting about Arjan’s new magazine. Read Brent’s posting and then have a look at the magazine. The magazine is in Dutch, not surprisingly, but you can still appreciate its excellence. Real ground breaking stuff. Well done Arjan. Dick Stroud

Above and below the fold – left or right

One of the organisations that had an issue with my advice about forums also had a problem my advice about the size of the Web page. In fact they had an issue with anything that was different from their original design. Isn’t it strange how organisations pay good money for your advice and then ignore it. Many years ago it would bother me now I just shrug and take the money.

Anyway, about the above and below the fold thing. Jakob has a couple of great posts that look at the attention of users (measured by fixations) along the vertical and horizontal issue.
The message is pretty clear to me but that will not stop companies dotting ad type imagery along the right and at the bottom of their home page. Dick Stroud

We must have a forum

Over the last year I have been involved in a couple of Web site developments, targeted at the older person, that have forums. During the preliminary discussions about the sites I told the marketing people that they may as well dump the forums since they will not be used. Oh yes they will they said. Oh no they will not I said.

Needless to say the sites were developed and the forums were added. Needless to say they now sit their and decay. After the initial burst of activity of the people on the site, responsible for content, making a vain attempt to generate traffic they now have 2-3 comments a day max.

Unless you have a really intense subject, like computing and health, where people get really worked up about their own knowledge, or the need for advice, the chances that a forum will work is minimal. Of course that will not stop marketers still insisting on adding them to sites.

Just because it is easy to do doesn't mean you should. Dick Stroud

The Sporting Goods Market

What age group buys the most sporting goods? According to the Royal Mail’s Contact Magazine it is 36-50 year olds (36%). The 51+ consumer purchases 10% of items and have the highest unit of spend.

I suspect these numbers underestimate the importance of the older consumer since only 52% of the people questioned for the research gave their age and I would think these are more likely to be older than younger. Maybe that is stereotypical thinking. Dick Stroud

More and more Twiggy

The first magazine I opened having written the post about celebrities and Twiggy has a couple of ads for – you guessed it – Twiggy.

She really is becoming the face of the older UK women. I wonder who is the equivalent in the US? Dick Stroud

Another perspective on marketing to over-50s

This is a thoughtful blog posting on the WARC web site by an older marketer.

Nothing radically new but worth a read. For a long time I have questioned the logic that because the marketing industry is young it focuses on the young. I still do. I will stick with my explanation that the marketing industry is conservative and risk averse so it keeps doing what it did yesterday.

Whist ‘young’ should equal ‘adventurous’ I am afraid it doesn’t. For all of the skills in social networking etc etc etc most young people operate best in their comfort zone, pretty much where they always have. Dick Stroud

Are celebrities are like fine wines and mature with age

Millward Brown’s latest UK research study that analyses celebrity and brand equity to identify appropriate brand partnerships has come up with some interesting results.

The study uses the agency’s new Cebra (celebrity + brand) research tool that includes measures of affinity (how well they are liked) and Buzz (how much they are talked about online and offline).

The study ranks celebrities with the highest Cebra score among UK adults aged between 18 and 65. The top 10 were:
1. Kylie Minogue 42
2. Cheryl Cole 27
3. David Beckham 35
4. Ant & Dec
5. Joanna Lumley 64
6. Terry Wogan 72
7. Jamie Oliver 35
8. George Clooney 49
9. Sean Connery 70
10. Helen Mirren 65

Notice anything? The list is definitely older rather than younger.

At about the same time as this news appeared there was an interesting quote from the marketing people at M&S that said Twiggy (aged 60) is the person who epitomises its core customer.Dick Stroud

The lost generation of marketers

Today’s FT has an article about the inability of today’s older marketers to ‘get’ the use of social media. Sorry, this article might be on subscription only.

The outgoing marketing chief of Unilever has warned of a “lost generation” of brand managers who do not understand the web and social networks.

In his final interview before retiring, Simon Clift said he believed public relations agencies were best placed to profit from the rise of Facebook and Twitter, as traditional advertising agencies struggle to adapt to the digital world.

Mr Cliff’s basic premise is that: “If you are 25 or 20, you know this stuff – you are brought up with Facebook and YouTube - if you are 50 see your kids do it - most of our brands are managed by people who have had to learn it.”

So you get the basis of the argument; the young have digital welded into their DNA, the 50-plus observe its use and the age group in the middle learn, but do not instinctively use it.”

To help out Unilever has encouraged its staff to use sites such as Twitter and acebook themselves, to understand them better and help them “live the space”.

Mr Clift said: “The people who have most needed it are the people aged between 30 and 45, running global brands because they grew up after it and haven’t seen their kids doing it”.

I assume that Mr Clift’s arguments are a tad more sophisticated than represented in this article since he is portrayed as talking in terms of simplistic stereotypes. He is falling into the trap of purely associating digital knowledge and use with age.

Here is something for him to consider during his retirement years. If he is right then the same argument dictates that as a huge chunk of Unilever’s products are purchased by the 50-plus the company should have a few more 50-plus brand managers to “live the space”? Dick Stroud

Well done BT – what a brilliant age-neutral phone

A couple of weeks back I had to buy a home phone system for an elderly relative.

I liked the Panasonic system that I had recently purchased for myself, with its bright screen and illuminated keypad and thought I might as well buy another.

By pure accident I looked at the BT Freestyle 750. What a great design. All the usual sort of functionality, that few people use, but it does the core applications really well and has a really sensible keypad and display.

Somebody at BT seems to have got the message about universal design. Well done. Dick Stroud

Will the baby-boomers bankrupt Britain?

I was just about to start blogging about this article in the Independent with words along the line: “I am bored, bored, bored with this regurgitation of trite comments that masquerade as a logical arguments.” Yet another article about the bad old Boomers.

That would have been very silly. I should have read the final few paragraphs of the article.

What this debate avoids is the realisation that the notion of inter-generational unfairness is essentially a middle-class preoccupation. It may be a fact or for those with big houses and gold-plated pensions but it does not speak much to those we used to call the working-class, most of whom have experienced 30 years of stagnating real wages and yet who now face the longest working-time in Europe.

The bulk of Britain's increased national income in those decades has swollen the bank accounts of the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population.
All the talk about a tax on Baby-Boomer graduates to pay for today's universities ignores the fact that in the old days only 4 per cent of Baby Boomers went to university, by contrast to 40 per cent now. No wonder it is more expensive.

But the hard truth is that – whatever the sujet du jour on the metropolitan middle-class dinner-party circuit – most Baby Boomers were never that wealthy or privileged. Many of the population, including the majority of Baby-Boom pensioners, live on less than £22,000 a year. A recent report on retirement by the insurance giant Aviva showed that more than one in five people aged 55 and over have to survive on less than £750 a month. A good number live off their state pension, which, after 12 years of a Labour government, is the lowest in the advanced world.

A lot find it hard to keep themselves warm. For many Baby Boomers the greatest inequality is not between the generations. It is within the existing one.

OK, I could have a shot at some of these arguments but they are far more accurate than the normal anti-Boomer stuff that the UK’s press keeps publishing. Well done the Independent. Not words I normally write. Dick Stroud

How not to do political marketing

A couple of hilarious things have occurred this week that illustrates that Labour’s grasp of marketing is about as bad as its grasp of running the country. This is nothing to do with the 50-plus and is all to do with the UK. A real Sunday morning type blog posting, something of a rant.

So far Gordos performance on YouTube, answering the questions, posed by Saga, about the concerns of the 50-plus, hasn't exactly been drawing in a flood of viewers. A grand total of 365 views to be exact. Subtract the 100+ or so that will have come from Brown’s PR contingent, Saga and his civil servants then you end up with a couple of hundred.

I just cannot listen to the guy. But that’s a personal thing. I think it is safe to say that Gordon has not gone ‘viral’. So much for the power of social media affecting the voting decisions of the 50-plus or any other age come to that.I expect that this of posting of Brown’s video will probably double the number of viewers. Good grief what am I doing?

In the same week as the video, Labour released its advertising intended to hammer the Tories. Being an inclusive bunch of guys they held a competition that was won by one of the million+ media studies graduates that we have in the UK.

Unfortunately, this character missed out on the lectures to do with advertising. The result is an ad that draws a comparison between David Cameron with Gene Hunt, the star of the TV series, Ashes to Ashes, that is set in the 1980s.

The only problem with the choice of character is that most people think he is just the right sort of guy that is needed to sort our the low-life that infects the streets and his politically incorrect style plays well to great sways of the voters. Not only this, but Labour launched the campaign in Basildon, where Essex man rules and used Tweedledum and Tweedledee - better known as Miliband Brothers,  two of the geekist members of the Labour party. Failure compounded by failure. Amazing.

Somehow I think this campaign will disappear into the sunset just like the attempt to bring Tony “so what is wrong with being orange” Blair back into UK politics.

I promise not to write too many of these parochial type postings. Honest. Dick Stroud

My self-esteem is set to plunge

If you want the easy version of this story then read this article. If you want the paper upon which it is based then make a large pot of coffee, take a deep breadth and click here.

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has a paper with the enthralling title: “Self-Esteem Development from Young Adulthood to Old Age - A Cohort-Sequential Longitudinal Study.”

So here is the bottom line.

Self-esteem follows a quadratic trajectory across the adult life span, increasing during young and middle adulthood, reaching a peak at about age 60 years, and then declining in old age. No cohort differences in the self-esteem trajectory were found.

Women had lower self-esteem than did men in young adulthood, but their trajectories converged in old age. Whites and Blacks had similar trajectories in young and middle adulthood, but the self-esteem of Blacks declined more sharply in old age than did the self-esteem of Whites. More educated individuals had higher self-esteem than did less educated individuals, but their trajectories were similar. Moreover, the results suggested that changes in socioeconomic status and physical health account for the decline in self-esteem that occurs in old age.

The important bit as far as I am concerned is marked in red. The next time somebody tells you that Baby Boomers are somehow from a different planet to their parents you should shove this paper under their nose.

There is a big, big but with this research that this identified in the closing paragraphs.

Ethnicity, education level, socioeconomic status and health were of particular importance in explaining the life-span trajectory of self-esteem. These factors might causally influence self-esteem and, thus, are potential sources of self-esteem. This is a mightily long winded way of saying that we might have a chicken and egg situation. What comes first, a person’s high social economic status or their high self esteem?

Answers on a postcode to the authors of the paper. Dick Stroud

Age UK and its “Our Power is Our Number “campaign.

I thought it only fair that having been nasty to Age UK that I should analyse the content of their press release that launched their new campaign.

So what does Age UK see as its purpose in life – to:

• Deliver information and advice
• Provide practical services to help people stay independent at home
• Tackle isolation and sustain good health
• Operate in the UK and globally
• Campaign for changes in legislation, policy and practice that will bring a better later life
• Challenge attitudes and address market failures with age-friendly products

The Our Power is Our Number campaign is based on the fact that people aged over 55 will cast 4 out out of every 10 votes and that ‘grey’ majorities are likely in 94 marginal seats.
What policy areas will the campaign focus upon, what is the Age UK manifesto? Politicians should:

• Reform the failing social care system
• Improve pensions
• Axe ageism and ending forced retirement
• Make the NHS fit for later life
• Enable older people to play a greater role in society

This is the campaign web site


When formulating this campaign, Age UK would have been forced to ask itself three fundamental questions.  Their answers are very revealing.

Should campaign on a single or multiple issues? Answer = Multiple
Should you campaign for measureable outcomes Answer = No
Are the demands likely to be met in this period of dire economic conditions Answer = No

I think Age UK have “missed a trick” that might have amplified its voice.

The boring way that all sectional groups approach elections is to put a boundary around their own interests and only worry about them. The group that shouts the loudest or who threatens the most gets heard although not necessarily acted upon.

All of the research I have seen suggests that older people are concerned for themselves but they are even more concerned about their kids and grandchildren.

I wonder if there wasn’t the opportunity to step outside the box and say something like this to politicians: “Prove to us that you are fit to manage the NHS”. To Labour you have had 13 years in charge and have made a complete mess of it. To the Conservatives: “Convince us that you are not as bad as Labour.”

Basically, an age-neutral rather than an age-silo campaign. You would need the research and the spokespeople to cut through the usual platitudes that politicans serve up to such qusetions. Yep, I know it is an unusual approach but you know what they say: “Who dares wins.” Dick Stroud

Mum, partner, the kids and gramps

Put another way – the multi-generational family household (in the US) is back in fashion.

More like is back because of necessity. Pew Research Centre’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data comes to the conclusions that social trends appear to be reversing. The key findings:

• In 2008, an estimated 49 million Americans, or 16% of the total U.S. population, lived in a family household that contained at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation. In 1980, this figure was just 28 million, or 12% of the population.

• This 33% increase since 1980 in the share of all Americans living in such households represents a sharp trend reversal. From 1940 to 1980, the share of Americans living in such households had declined by more than half (from 25% in 1940 to 12% in 1980).

• The growth since 1980 in these multi-generational households is partly the result of demographic and cultural shifts, including the rising share of immigrants in the population and the rising median age of first marriage of all adults.

• At a time of high unemployment and a rising foreclosures, the number of households in which multiple generations of the same family double up under the same roof has spiked significantly. Our report finds that from 2007 to 2008, the number of Americans living in a multi-generational family household grew by 2.6 million.

• This trend has affected adults of all ages, especially the elderly and the young. For example, about one in five adults, ages 25 to 34, now live in a multi-generational household. So do one-in-five adults ages 65 and older.

• After rising steeply for nearly a century, the share of adults ages 65 and older who live alone flattened out around 1990 and has since declined a bit. It currently stands at 27%—up from 6% in 1900.

So what does this all mean for marketers when about 20% of the 50-plus are living in a multi-generational household? I am not sure that I know but I am sure it means something, if nothing else that it changes the effectiveness of direct mail. Dick Stroud

Boomers: Smartphone’s Next Mass Audience

The title of this blog posting is the title of an item on the sparxoo web site. It it is nice to know that I am not the only guy that forecasts the huge potential of the iPhone for Boomers.

This article has lots of faclets and quotes. If you don’t have time to read it make sure you watch the video. Dick Stroud