Challenge age-related assumptions about investments

“It is always comforting to read headlines that confirm one’s prejudices”. This is the first line of an article in today’s FT. I am aggrieved – that is my type of statement.

The writer is talking about the assumption that: “Dumping equities in later life does not suit everyone.”

A couple of professors at Cass Business School’s Pension Institute in London, argue that retirees should sell bonds to buy annuities and keep a significant equity holding until much later in life.

The received wisdom is that as you get older and approach the point where you need ‘security’ that you should move your investments out of equities and into ‘safe’ investments - like Greek bonds (sorry my joke).

Of course, “risk free” investments equal low return assets.

I would have thought that as we try and understand the implications of the downgrade of US government debt and the nightmare unfolding in Europe, where Government debt has a worse credit rating than the corner store, that the idea that there are any ‘safe’ investments is a concept that we can pack away into ancient history.

The learned professors don’t use this as their justification but rather that people work longer and so can afford to take extra risk –Mmmmm not sure about that.

Another learned academic is quoted with the highly original observation that “age is a poor predictor of behaviour” and that it is better to think of people as “lifestyle tribes”, based on their attitudes, affiliations and financial state.

Wow this is advanced thinking!

Nice to see that academia is catching up with reality. Sorry, I cannot give you a link to the article since the FT is paywall site. Dick Stroud

Caring for Older Australians - results of the public inquiry

If you want to see what Australia has concluded about it ageing population and how to care for them then there is a 1,000 pages of report for you to consider.

I have to be honest and say that I have yet to start reading it but I just hope it is better than the attempts at answering the question that have been undertaken in the UK. Dick Stroud

Health applications for the Kinect for Xbox 360

The Kinect offers some great functionality that has applications well outside the bounds of the games industry:

Hands-free controls
Advanced motion-sensing
Voice recognition
Facial recognition

MS has a blog that is all about the applications for the product in the Healthcare industry.

There is no doubt that there is a high cross-over between the games and care/health industries.

I really don't think that we have ever lived in more exciting technology times.

Thanks to Laurie Orlov's blog for mentioning this subject.  Dick Stroud

Mismatch between intention and message

I recently received a PR release from a US fundraising web site that explained:

Evidence suggests that seniors are embracing the Internet in a number of ways, and charity fundraising is one of them. Razoo is steadily seeing more seniors taking advantage of the service it offers. Many seniors express comfort knowing that the site is safe and secure and that it is so easy to keep track of their donations throughout the year.

I thought I would have a look and expected to see some mention/imagery that indicated that this site is intended for or used by older people and with a high profile explanation of why the site is safe and secure.

What I found was a nice web site but it gave every impression of being intended for younger people.

I would have thought this was a perfect requirement for mainstream age-neutral imagery. A bit of mismatch between the marketing intention and the delivery. Dick Stroud

eReaders and tablet users are getting older - told you so

The reason I started a blog called apps4boomers was because it was as plain as the nose on the end of my face that smart devices and apps were made for older people. Not intentionally, but the combination of technologies meant that they fulfilled a lot of the needs created by physiological ageing and the temperament of older people.

It has taken a while for the numbers to justify this assertion but it looks to me that we have gone through the early adopter phase and are now well into the steady state model of the market which means we can get a much better idea of the demographic profile of users of these devices.

The latest Nielsen research is interesting - to put it mildly. I don't think you need me to explain the significance of the graphic (click the graphic to enlarge). Dick Stroud

Shoppable videos - new to me - primitive but with lots of potential

The idea of watching a video, seeing something that you would like to purchase and then completing the transaction whilst the video continues playing is an 'interesting' idea. I would think it would make most people scream that it is the last thing on earth they would want to do. But, as a technology it may well have a lot of potential.

The image shows one attempt at providing a link between video and transaction - have a look at the video in action.

There is another implementation of a technology doing the same thing presenting Gucci products.

Neither of them work very well but for a first iteration they aren't bad.

I suspect we are going to be seeing a lot more of this type of technology that was featured in the JWT blog. Dick Stroud

QR or Bar codes - Ocado and Tesco follow different routes

This has absolutely nothing directly to do with 50-plus marketing.

A while back I became interested in QR codes and recently blogged about the way they are being used by the UK's largest supermarket (Tesco) in Korea.

Well now Ocado, the UK's largest home delivery only supermarket service, has started a similar "shopping wall" experiment in London. What is interesting, at least to me, is that instead of using QR codes they are using good old fashioned bar codes.

In the press release about the Ocado experiment it said that 15% of its transactions are now being made by mobile phones. This mobile thing is really happening. Dick Stroud Added in December 2011 - the same idea has moved to Singapore.

Broadband and 3G connection - fact and fiction

I tend to think it is just me that I get such dreadful 3G connection via my Orange phone - but then my friends with O2 don't do much better, neither to those with Vodafone. I am about to give 3 a go to see if they are any better.

I think the truth is that none of them are that good outside the city areas and even in the middle of London the reception can still be dreadful.

Whilst my friends in London have great Broadband speeds and mine is not too bad I know that parts of rural UK the connection speed is slightly slower than an arthritic snail.

With so many care based and tele-medicine products being based on the assumption that everybody has a decent Internet connection it is perhaps time the industry had a reality check. It is one thing if your iTunes song is a bit slow loading but a different thing if a vital healthcare product stops working.

It is reassuring to know that the UK is not alone in this problem. Have a read of Laurie Orlov's views about the availability of Internet connection in the US.

We still have a hell of a long way to go before we have anything like universal coverage. Dick Stroud

Marketing to the 50-plus another perspective

The Institute for Ageing and Health looks to be an interesting organisation. Based in Newcastle University it is an attempt to create an academic centre for ageing studies by pulling together multiple academic disciplines.

This is a video about one of their events. Dick Stroud

Where did all of the jobs go and will they come back

The media reporting of the ‘recession’ its causes and outcomes is, in the main, shallow and biased, depending on the political stance of the news channel.

Marketers need to dig deeper into the causes of our current predicament and how it is likely to play out in the future. The fundamental question for all marketers is: “How does the economy affect the consumers and the quantity and types of goods they purchase.”

A good starting point to finding the answer to this question is to understand the employment environment and how this will change.

I strongly recommend you watch the McKinsey quarterly report that includes a session from Michael Spence, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Economics.

This is the nub of his argument:

In his study of the American economy he looked at employment over an 18- year period coming up to 2008, just before the crisis.

The US economy was divided into its tradable and a nontradable parts.

Tradable goods and services are those that can be produced in one country and consumed in another

Nontradable goods and services, which is the largest part of the economy in most advanced economies, are goods and services that have to be produced domestically, like government, healthcare, construction, legal services ...

The net employment generation in the American economy, over this period, was 27 million jobs. But almost all of it was in the nontradable side. So in the parts of the economy where the US competes with other countries few new jobs were created.

OK, so far? Stick with it because it gets worse.

The overall value added increased in both tradeable and nontradeable jobs.

In the tradable sector, it divides into two parts. In the part including sectors like finance, consulting, computer design the value added increased, employment increased, and value added per person increased. This group we normally refer to as the ‘service’ sector.

The second group, what we call ‘manufacturing’ has long value-added chains that can be decomposed and moved around the world. What happened here is that employment went down, but value added went up, so value added per person went up enormously. The lower value added parts moved outside the US.

What this means is, over the past couple of decades,  US job growth has come from government, health care, and other labor-intensive sectors like construction, retail, hotels, food services, restaurants, etc.

Now for the really scary bit.

What Michael Spence did not go on to say – but I will – is that the primary driver of this employment has been government spending. As we all know this has ended. The US most of Europe and Japan are wrestling with a sovereign debt crisis.

The bottom line for marketers is that for the past decade or two we have been living in an artificial world of consumer demand, where much of is has been created by government spending and the expansion of consumer debt. Both of these sources of employment are going to have to reduce.

Marketers had better be prepared to live in the real world of lower employment and demand. The pattern of demand is going to be skewed to a few people (in the high value add tradeable sector). This is world of ultra-fragmentation.

The only place for marketers to get demand, other than these people in employment, is from those who have accumulated it in the past. See where these leads? The better of sector of the older market. Dick Stroud

Much talk - little action - lots of ego massaging

During my time involved in the “age business” I have attended more conferences than I care to count. Too many of these have been the ‘convinced’ talking to the ‘convinced’ about reasons for understanding and responding to population ageing.

The very worst of these events are when they are involved with domestic or international government agencies. Not only do these events fail to  deliver but waste taxpayer’s money.

I have been on the periphery of the discussions about seeking UN recognition for the rights of older people.

Recently there was the Second Session of the United Nations Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing.

This involved the delegations from Member States, experts, and NGOs, considering whether to proceed  towards a Convention on the Human Rights of Older Persons.

Let’s just say that these people get whatever they want – a convention or whatever. How much difference would that make? Zilch. We have more UN conventions than you have had hot dinners and what good do they do?

The bottom line of this personal gripe is that there is a cadre of people who fly around the world; spend countless hours in talking shops and delivery not one ounce of value to older people. Sure they collect lots of air miles and inflate their self-importance but that’s about it. Dick Stroud

More insights into the rise and rise of smart devices

PepsiCo's global head of digital said: "Every single organisation that is dedicated to digital should be spending the majority of their time, effort and resource optimising for smartphones and various tablets."

He went on to say that the longer term trend (towards tablets) is undermining "traditional PC form factors," even if this process may prove somewhat slower than the most bullish forecasts predict.

Interesting comments, from somebody with so much marketing muscle.

This article from WARC doesn’t add anything new to our knowledge about the rise and rise of smart devices and apps but it provides some useful quotes, should you need to convince any doubters about the way the technology scene has changed.

As my previous blogs posting have said – tablets/smartphones are particularly important for older people. Dick Stroud

I am going to wait until the next release/version/device is available

I wouldn't mind a £/$ every time I have heard this comment. Of course if you follow this approach to its extreme you never buy anything. Right now I am seriously thinking of buying an iPad2 but it now looks like an iPad3 will be released early next year. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

I don't know of any research that proves this statement but I think older people are more likely to catch the "I will wait for the next version" habit.

Maybe it is because they have been around a lot longer and have been caught out more times than their kids in buying a product that immediately halve in prices and gets twice the functionality.

Well now there is a way to improve your decision making. An organisation called Decide.com, that is reviewed in Technology Review, helps you make better decisions about when to buy.

Unfortunately, Decide has not yet launched predictions for the tablet category, but it currently makes recommendations for other consumer products, such as digital cameras.

Prior to starting Decide, the found started Farecast—acquired by Microsoft in 2008—which predicted the optimal time to buy airline tickets.

I reckon this outfit is onto a winner and don't be surprised if many of its users are the 50-plus. Dick Stroud

Where did all of the ladies go?

I know it sad – but – I find the subject of demographics and the determinants of population change a fascinating subject and one that far too few marketers study.

The Economist has a terrific article about the way that women in Asia are deciding to skip or delay getting married.

Marriage ages have risen all over the world, but the increase is particularly marked in Asia. People there now marry even later than they do in the West. The mean age of marriage in the richest places—Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong—has risen sharply in the past few decades, to reach 29-30 for women and 31-33 for men.

There is a lot of speculation about the reasons for this development but the bottom line is that it must be having a massive impact on consumption patterns and the demand for property. Wind forward 40-50 years and tit will have even more impact on the issues of long term care.

So, in the case of Japan, not only is the population ageing but the traditional support network (wife or daughter) is no longer going to be available to look after parents. This creates big opportunities for the care industry. Dick Stroud

Reducing customer frustrations as starting point for product development

This is an interesting article about how P&G is trying to direct its R&D spend by “overcoming shopper frustrations”.
I quote

The company looks for common concerns shared by consumers across its markets and in different segments, in order to drive global scale, he added.
'The bottom line is: Is the consumer willing to buy it?'

The company's chief technology officer said: " statistics and industry analysis must not serve as a substitute for actual customer needs in driving new product development."

I find this an interesting approach because I am becoming increasingly aware of the ‘frustrations’ of older consumers because of the youth-centric design of products and their associated sales, support and marketing processes and infrastructure.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I doubt if companies like P&G are paying enough attention to the design of products;  how they are marketed and delivered to their increasingly old customers (at least in the developed world).

 You can ignore this for only so long. Dick Stroud

TV interview with Kim Walker on Channel News Asia

This is a nice TV interview by Kim Walker about the impact of ageing on older consumers.

You can find more explanation and details on Kim’s blog here. Dick Stroud

Portas the saviour of older women?

Mary Portas – “shopping expert, television personality” – has now added to her CV the role of saviour of the over-40s woman fashion with the launch of her Mary Portas at House of Fraser range of clothes.

I read about the new venture in the Times (paywall) but I am sure that it also available in the other UK media.

I quote:
“When I did research, the two things women said they wanted help with were bingo wings and knees. I am going to rid women of their bingo wings.”

Research by the retail monitor Mintel “has shown” (always a term that worries me) that British women between the ages of 50 and 69 buy more designer fashion and luxury goods than any other group.

An unreferenced survey by Debenhams has found that the over-40s are the fastest growing market for lingerie.

Whatever, older ladies to buy lots of clothes and as I know find it increasingly difficult to find clothes that cater for their needs.

If you were to follow the advice from the ‘guru’ Mark Ritson it would get even harder as he advises Marks and Spencer’s to ditch the older woman consumer.

I am no judge of fashion but I think the photo used to illustrate the Portas range of clothes is dreadful. Dick Stroud

More discussion about the woes of the “sandwich generation”

The UK media has lots of coverage of the financial problems of the UK’s 50-64 year olds. Much of this is based on Saga’s research.

I am delighted that this subject is getting so much coverage because it is a message that needs to be repeated and repeated.

Since the publication of the research the outlook has got even darker – higher inflation forecasts – terrible week on the stock market and much talk of a decade of low growth. Welcome to Europe in 2011.

What worries me is that these financial problems are not being factored into the thinking of policy makers about the funding of longer-term care. If this age group is having problems now and using funds that were earmarked for retirement, just to keep going, then the long-term implications could be dire.

Isn’t nice to know the Mr. Willetts still thinks this age group is having it too good and should be giving some of their hard earned monies away. They are Mr. Willetts, to help their kids survive.

There is more to this blog posting than a moan about hopeless politicians.

Marketers need to understand how the financial forces are having a different impact on the young – medium and old-old. It is going to be harder to extract money from the pockets of the 50-plus but probably easier than getting it from their kids. Dick Stroud

40-50 and 50-60 led the number of current tablet owners

Older US consumers, especially the wealthy type, are getting the tablet (for that read iPad) habit - certainly if you believe this research.

I don’t think you should quote these numbers as representing the universe of older Americans - the research company admits that the sample was "skewed toward a significant higher average income".

What I think is a trend that you can take as being universal is that: "83% of people questioned said they could not do without a computer at present, and only 11% could foresee a time in the future then they were unlikely to require one."

This means that tablets, and in the case of this sample almost all iPads, are purchased in addition to the existing notebook/PC. Certainly, that is the case with me and my friends.

The final quote from the research: "Across the entire panel, 94% of consumers suggested tablets would primarily be used for personal purposes."  Why has it taken the technology pundits so long to understand that the iPad - at least for now - is a fun device.

Being one of a diminishing bunch of people who worked for IBM when it ruled the world but would not accept that the Mini and the PC were going to become the next generation of computing, I see a lot of similarities with MS who seems to have put its head firmly in the sand and hoped the tablet/app world would go away. Sorry guys it is still around and growing stronger by the day. Dick Stroud

I know this is not a laughing matter but..

The Daily Mirror, one of the UK’s Red-Tops, had a short item about the worrying trends of the over-50s and sexually transmitted diseases.

Apparently, the Coop Pharmacy, a very dreary organisation - it is hard for a pharmacy to be a bundle of laughs -  has researched the subject and found the following results - I quote:

One in three of us have had unprotected sex on holiday, with older people the worst offenders.

Almost 20% of those in their 50s do not use condoms, compared to 6% of people aged 22 to 25 and 4% of 26 to 30-year-olds.

The over-50s blamed a lack of condoms and the influence of booze for their carelessness, while women blamed embarrassment.

The reasons I find this amusing is that unfortunately I have had to visit a Coop Pharmacy on far too many occasions and looking around at the their older customers I find it difficult, nay impossible, to believe that they are part of the casual sex older generation.

I will look at my fellow customers with a different eye.

This is not a new subject as can be seen from the much more detailed article from last Sept. I wonder if this is just a British problem or if our older American cousins have the same issue? Dick Stroud

Worrying but not unexpected

The Saga Quality of Life Index declined again this quarter, as standard of living pressures continued to hurt the 50-plus.

As I explained in the previous blog posting – inflation hurts older people more so than the young. If you add this to the other pressures on older people then you end up with a lot of reasons why their quality of life is on the decline.

Of course this doesn’t apply to all older people – my Charmed Generation – will still be feeling pretty chipper but for a lot – probably the majority – things are getting worse. This means times are getting harder for marketers. Note the way that the 65-69 is the group with the least decline. They are old enough not be affected by the recession and young enough not to have the problems of health decline etc.

However, what this index doesn’t show is how these groups are doing compared to other age groups.

Why the results of the recession are worse for the younger-old is that this is a time of maximum financial strain in their lives having costs and demands from both their kids and parents. Secondly, if they don’t amass wealth at this age they very quickly run out of time with all the implications that has for the funding of their retirement.

All in all not good news. Dick Stroud

65-74 year olds face highest rate of inflation - yet again

Alliance Trust publishes a report that shows the rate of UK inflation experienced by different age groups.

The 65-74 year old age group continues to suffer the highest rate of inflation, at 5.1%, above the official headline rate of 4.4%.

Food price inflation slowed from 6.5% to 5.8%, alleviating some pressure on the spending budgets of the elderly households. However, recently announced gas and electricity price hikes could be expected to push inflation rates for the elderly higher in the coming months.

The under 30s continue to face one of the lowest rates of inflation.

I hate saying - I told you so - but I have been bleating on about the way that inflation is a massive tax on older people and especially on the older-old. Where goeth inflation goeth a reduction in consumption. Dick Stroud

Demographics of US QR scanners

comScore has published the first research , I have seen, about the demographics of people who scan QR codes.

As I have previously mentioned, I initially thought that QR (“Quick Response”) codes were a technology looking for an application but have become convinced of their value

The study found that in June 2011, 14 million mobile users in the U.S. (6.2% of the total mobile audience) scanned a QR code on their mobile device.

As you can see from the table the age profile of scanners is about what you would expect. Of course this profile depends totally on the marketing applications of the codes. You have the danger of a self-fulfilling prophecy that the codes are only used for 'yougn' applications that will reinforce the low use by older people.

I am sure in the short term the over 50s can live without knowing about the codes. That might well change in the near future. Dick Stroud

The UK is splitting into two - maybe three - possibly four parts

My clients are bored of me telling them that they must for get about the idea of a single domestic market and start thinking about the ultra-fragmented UK. We are a country that is splitting apart into areas of prosperity and areas of terminal decline.

This has not just happened but the recent economic events have accelerated the process. During the past government the only way the process was slowed was by the massive diversion of public spending from south to north.

Turn-off the tap and you return to the underlying position. Well actually you don't since it has got worse. Instead of a geography finding its natural level of economic activity the distortion means it will be worse once the funds are stopped.

This graph from the FT shows the split in the UK by the levels of households with negative equity (click on the image to see it full sized).

Remember, that you don't exactly feel like being an active consumer when you know that your house is worth less than you paid. Remember, that a disproportional number of householders are 50-plus.

The message is clear to me. I just hope my clients and others are listening. Dick Stroud

M&S is right to put over-60s out to grass

In Marketing Week there was a light-hearted article, well at least I think it was light hearted, from “brand guru” and advisor to the great and good + associate professor of marketing Mr. Mark Ritson. Wow, I bet he needs large business cards.

My immediate thought after reading the headline was .. at least the over-60s normally pay for the their goods unlike a lot of the younger age group, who think payment is an optional extra. I thought better of it is since it was a bit below the belt in the week of youth rioting across the UK.

A couple of quotes from the Ritson article

I think M&S are pretty much playing a perfect game at the moment by not catering to the over-60s. It’s exactly what any self respecting fashion brand should be doing if it wants to continue to thrive on the high street.

Add it all up and it’s pretty clear that M&S has to do everything in its power to stop wonderful women like Ms Roodyn (a 60 year-old lady) buying their clothes. If it doesn’t do that the brand risks getting old with its clients and dying with them too.

Many brands have outlived the original clients that first patronised them. But this presents a very peculiar problem because to survive, every fashion brand must, at some point, detach itself from its original target segment and move backwards to younger, more attractive segments. It has to keep doing this in order to continually stay alive across the centuries. To not regularly rejuvenate one’s target market would be to risk commercial failure. Death by brand loyalty!

This is a useful article since it states, in a rather wordy way, one of the most often quoted reasons for not targeting older consumers. It would be much easier to have said: “targeting the old alienates the young.”

In truth, Mr. Ritson has a point. Of course there is always the inconvenient truth that the older market is growing in size as the younger one declines and that older people, well some of them, are pretty well-off and insulated from the economic trauma that is sweeping Europe. And of course there is always the issue that the longest and most successful advertising campaign that M&S has ever run used Twiggy (aged 61) as its core talent.

The reason why M&S’s campaign was so successful was that it was a beautiful execution of age neutral advertising. Very basic in concept, using multiple generations, but beautiful execution.

Nobody said that running a fashion business that caters for multiple age groups is easy but that is the world of 2011. The idea that you can cast-off a whole generation like yesterday’s fashion is so – how can I put it – so 1990s marketing. Dick Stroud

Inheritance and Wealth Transfer to Baby Boomers

Another excellent report from MetLife on a subject that is of considerable interest to many older people. How much will I inherit – how much will my descendants inherit.

The top line conclusion was that Boomers will inherit $8.4 trillion. Of this amount, $2.4 trillion has already been received, while the remaining $6.0 trillion is anticipated and, therefore, subject to significant uncertainty.

Perhaps if all of the US Boomers donate their inheritance it will make a sizeable hole in the US budget deficit. Perhaps not.

The median inheritance is $64,000 but just look at the distribution. Lots of people will receive mum and dad’s $1000 savings and a very few will be getting zillions. All the more reason to stop talking about this group as a single generation with common characteristics.

I was very interested to read what MetLife thought that Boomers would be leaving as an inheritance for their heirs.

I quote.

Estimating how these offsetting factors will affect Boomer bequest behavior is difficult given the 20- to 50-year remaining life expectancy of the Boomer cohort. In addition, considering that a large number of Boomers have not yet received inheritances themselves, we conclude that their current bequest intentions may provide little information about their future bequest decisions.

Very diplomatic for saying we have no idea. At least they are honest. Dick Stroud

How much is enough to retire?

A while back there was a book published in the US called 'The Number' that discussed the factors affecting how much money a person needs to retire. At one level it is the amount needed to pay the basic bills at another it is the amount needed to continue a lifestyle not that different to pre-retirement.

It is amazing how little decent research has been done on this subject. Recently, in the UK, there was a Government sponsored report that looked at the funding of care (The Dilnot Commission) and I was surprised at the simplistic way the income and expenses of older people were predicted.

I have just been reading (skimming would be more accurate) a report from the US (Economic Preparation For Retirement) published by the National Bureau Of Economic Research. The data source for this analysis is the Health and Retirement Study Consumption and Activities Mail Survey. I have no idea if these sources are good or bad. I had to purchase the report from the here – maybe there is a free copy on a site somewhere.

This is good bit of research but even so still raises some big big questions.

Instead of using the normal metric of ‘adequacy’, which is normally two-thirds pre-retirement income, this study look on the consumption patterns of older people and asks if they can maintain this funded by income and depletion of wealth. So a single person is deemed adequately prepared if he or she dies with positive bequeathable wealth. A married person is adequately prepared if he or she dies with positive wealth where he or she may die as a married person or as a surviving spouse.

So far so good.

I start to get worried about the research when I read statements like

We assume that housing wealth appreciates at a real rate of return of 2.5 percent which is approximately the rate observed from 1985-2006. Mmmm, that doesn’t look like a very good assumption to me.

I could find no mention about the assumed rate of inflation for the coming years or the sensitivity of the findings to different inflation rates

I couldn’t find any assumptions about the impact of next to zero-level interest rates that have just been guaranteed in the US for the next three years.

I could find no assumptions about the impact of older people not being able to supplement their investment income or not working until retirement because of changes in employments patterns.

I could find no assumptions about the practicality of asset depletion (i.e. a house might be worth $XXX but how do you practically turn that into income that is zero at the point of death)

I could find no assumptions about the connection between the overall health of the US economy and the older person. Somehow I think that $14 Trillion budget deficit is going to have an impact on older Americans.

Don’t get me wrong – these are not criticism of the analysis. This is a complex subject and none of us have a crystal ball to predict the future. Maybe I missed the parts of the report that covered these issues – if so - then sorry.

I just wish we had something like this in the UK rather than the simplistic back of an envelope stuff that passes for research. Dick Stroud

Ageing = Bad?

Many thanks for Brent Green for his Tweet about an article that discusses the influence of age on the decision of S&P to downgrade US debt.

I don’t know, nor does anybody else, if S&P took this into account when making its decision. As a very interested viewer of American politics and economics I was amazed to see the debacle about the raising of the borrowing limit. I suspect that probably had more to do with it.

The level of debt in the US and Europe is not the cause for the anxiety that is gripping investors. Banks like their customers to have debt – both consumer and nation state - BUT if looks like it cannot be paid back then panic.

That is the question. Venture Capital companies have a term about companies that will never earn themselves out of their debt burden. They are in the valley of death. Is the US there along with much of Europe?

Is there a fundamental mismatch between the level of state spending and the ability of the countries to fund? Has the gradual West to East migration of economic power accelerated into an avalanche?

Rather than having an honest discussion about the core reason we flay around looking for victims and villains.

Undoubtedly, as populations age it creates economic turbulence and yes it creates demands on the state.

Is the US or Europe in anyway ready to respond to these changes? I don’t think so.

The article quotes Ken Dychtwald (somebody who has been involved in the age business from the beginning) and somebody who is usually upbeat about the corporate world and its potential for serving seniors and profiting from serving senior markets.

He observed: “What I’ve seen in the past couple of years is a multiplication of serious minded people talking about aging in very negative ways. I think that’s because the economists have seized the subject. They’re viewing older people not in terms of their qualities of contribution and wisdom, but seeing them as a burden on the government. And the stories are turning more and more dark.”

I think he is right. Politicians can only think and talk in black and white terms. People are victims or villains.

The UK’s own David Willetts, somebody who should know better, wrote a book with the subtitle “How baby boomers stole their children’s future.” His thinking is flawed but I suspect his motivation was more about selling books providing an accurate portrayal.  Here is a senior politician who had a reputation for his intellectual rigour using inflammatory language about older people - he is a boomer.

Since the book Willett’s standing has been in a southbound direction as he has stumbled from one policy failure to another – that is a different story.

Bottom line – the real issue is that most of Europe and a lot of the US are on a downward economic spiral – some years it will go fast - some years it might improve a little – but downward it goes. State spending will be continually under pressure. Right now older people are the villains. I fear that as the decades pass they will increasingly be seen as the victims. Dick Stroud

Three interesting stories from the US

Once again – thanks to David Weigelt for his excellent SilverTsunami video blog, where I heard about these three stories.

One of David’s colleagues has written a useful article titled: “What Google + means for the 50+.” I am still waiting to get onto the network to try it first hand but clearly a lot of others have joined.

This blog reckons that it took Facebook and Twitter more than two years each to hit the 20 million user mark. Google+ did it in two weeks. I haven’t the time to check these numbers but they sound about right. What is often forgotten is that Twitter was around a long time (in Internet terms) before it went mega. A bit like SMS.

I guess I fall into the category of people who says that there are a finite number of hours in a day and because of the proliferation of networks, unless I start using multi posting tools, I will get nothing else done. I am sure that is not the right attitude.

David also mentions a thing called the Harvard Age ('Young - Old' IAT) that tests the ability to distinguish old from young faces. This test often indicates that Americans have automatic preference for young over old.

If you have the time it is well worth taking. My result (very proud) is that I have “no automatic preference between Young and Old.”

You can see from the graphic that I am in a minority.

Finally, David mentions an article called the “The Death of Ageism” that poses a series of questions to for an organisation or individual to answer to measure the extent that they are ageist.

What seems like an age ago, when I wrote The 50-Plus Market,  I posed a similar set of questions and put forward the hypothesis that whilst marketing is age neutral, marketers are not.

Looks like very little has changed.

Once again – thanks David for three very interesting items. Dick Stroud

Closed captioning technology - transcribe voice to text on YouTube

I now discover that closed-captioning technology, the thing you get when you press the "CC" button on YouTube has been around for at least a year.

What a wonderful aid for older people with hearing problems - like me. Dick Stroud

Joe Coughlin speaking at the TED conference

It is always good to see a presentation by Joe Coughlin along with the good old AGNES age suit in operation.

The one thing that the suit does not seem to be simulating is the girth of the average older person. I think AGNES needs to put on a few pounds to be more realistic.

I am only partly joking. Obesity acts as a multiplier to the normal physiological effects of ageing.

Good presentation. I recommend you free-up the 15 mins and watch. Dick Stroud

Another PC/Mac alternative for “older people”

This product, called The Telikin, is from a US company and costs around the $700 level.
The bottom line from the WSJ reviewer was:

The Telikin is a good idea with a decent design that suffers from flawed execution. If you have a friend or relative who could benefit from such a computer, you might consider the Telikin, but you should think about waiting until the company fixes the flaws.

I have never been convinced about the usefulness of these ‘simple’ computers as a means of bringing the digital excluded into the online fold. The reason most often given why older Brits don’t want to go online is not that it is complicated or that it costs too much but that they don’t see the point.

Sure, this might well be an excuse but the problems of mastering Windows is not the reason they stick to the telephone and the post.

The one thing a device must do if it is to appeal to older people is not go wrong or have glitches – they can get all of that by buying a PC with Windows.

Maybe there is an ultra small niche market for the device but when we get to a sub-£100 iPad that doesn’t need to a PC for set-up or updating then forget your hybrids. Dick Stroud

More stuff about generations and their e-preferences

There seems to be a deluge of this type of research emerging from the US and the UK.

I am never sure what use it is since we know that socio-economic group is such a determinant about consumer electronic and Internet use. Dick Stroud

Are you a creative individual between the ages of 19- 54 years old – Nope

Yesterday I received an e-mail inviting me to take part in some research if I met the basic criteria - which I don’t.

From the other questions being asked it looked as if the company was researching financial services based around mobiles.

I was interested in the research company and found that they are a: “collaboration community for women aged between 25-50” – whatever that is.

It is interesting, and disappointing, to see that age still features so high on some company’s agendas. Dick Stroud

An interesting link-up between RIAS and Yours magazine

Yours has a large 50-plus audience but it is not the sort of magazine I would have thought that RIAS would have selected to partner with.

Likewise it is interesting that in launching ‘Grandparent of the Year’ Award it decided to do it in conjunction with the charity Grandparents Plus.

I would have thought it was much more likely to become involved with Gransnet.

Just goes to show you never can tell. Dick Stroud

A very graphic way of showing how not to use social media

I really liked this video from North Social about how ineffective Social Media can be if handled incorrectly. Some might say it is a good illustration for a lot of what is wrong with the way we communicate full-stop.

Certainly got my attention. Dick Stroud

Over-50s web site launches a mobile version

Castle Cover, is an insurance company that provides financial services for the over-50s and has just launched a mobile site having seen a "sharp increase" in smartphone traffic to its Web site.

Castle Cover said: “We have seen a sharp increase of over-50s traffic opting to search for home insurance via a smart phone device over the last year. Though it may be surprising to some, we understand that many of our over-50s audience are technology savvy and make up a vast majority of earlier adopters due to having more free time to play with ‘gizmos’ and the disposable income to invest in them.

Certainly there is a big improvement to how the Castle site now appears on an iPhone to how it did before (a simulation).

This has made me think that I had better get myself a mobile site created. Good grief, this online stuff is getting even more complicated. Dick Stroud

Older people forced to sell homes to pay for retirement, says survey

A company in the property rental business (HomeLet) has published some data suggesting that more older people are being forced to sell their properties to free up capital, pay off debt and then to move into rental accommodation.

I am not going to go through the numbers because the research has no statistical significance. However, I know from personal experience of a couple of friends who have been forced into this situation.

HomeLet doesn’t know what the numbers are – nor do I – but there is no doubt that a lot of older people will be forced into this radical action because of their lack of preparation for retirement. A combination of having no financial buffer, debt and reduced equity in their property because of previous borrowing compounded by loss of income is a toxic combination.

This is very sad but does highlight the increasing number of poorer older people that will be around. If I ever did have any doubts about the accelerating decent into the ultra-fragmentation of the population into rich and poor then the last week has removed all doubts. Dick Stroud

Google Goggles – how amazing

I guess I have been living away from the tech world for too long but I have only just discovered the power of Google Goggles for the iPhone. How amazing.

I had no idea that Google had developed the power of image and audio search to such a degree.

My first thoughts were how this technology might be used for older people.

Not sure I have the answers but you can see that the combination of this type of technology, micro miniature mechanical devices and the gesture recognition, from the games world, produce a powerful combination of tools to create some fascinating applications. And we have only just begun.

Roll forward 5 years. More computational and network power, reducing costs and new technologies. Fantastic. Dick Stroud

New thinking in care at 'home'

Laurie Orlov’s blog has some interesting examples of new ways of providing care in the home.

The MedCottage concept is new to me. For $2000-$2500/month you can lease the cottage. I quote: “The home is designed with video monitoring at floor level so that a caregiver can check for falls while still allowing the senior resident to have privacy. There is a pressurized ventilation system that can keep airborne pathogens in or keep outdoor air out. It includes a lift, attached to a built-in track in the ceiling that can move a patient from bed to bathroom so the caregiver can avoid heavy lifting. The bathroom is handicapped accessible and safe. Other features include floor and wall lighting to help prevent falls and a system to set up important reminders such as when it is time to take medication."

Clearly, you need to have the room available for such a structure and in the UK you would undoubtedly need to go through the byzantine planning authorities which could literally take years.

However, what this example shows, as do the others in the blog posting, is the range of solutions available other than the traditional care home or domiciliary care. Dick Stroud

How do you design mobile applications for older people? With great care.

The Jakob Nielsen newsletter has a very useful article about the challenges of designing applications for small screens.

His “bottom line” message is that: “Mobile devices require a tight focus in content presentation, with the first screen limited to only the most essential information.”

Nielsen’s research reveals that it's 108% harder to understand information when reading from a mobile screen. Content comprehension suffers when you're looking through a peephole, because there's little visible context. The less you can see, the more you have to remember.

Most older people will grudgingly admit that remembering where they are on web sites gets harder as the years pass. Now do you see the challenge for designing mobile sites for older people?

I think we are probably at the same position with mobile screens as we were 10 years ago with web sites. Not much thought is going into the design. The easiest thing is to replicate the Web experience rather than to design around the constraints (and the benefits) of the technology. This especially applies to ensure the interface works with older people. Dick Stroud

Physiological ageing and the consumer – a coffee shop is a good place to start

The Economist had a fascinating article about how a couple of Japanese stores are adapting to exploit the older customer (Paywall). The chart explains why, even to the dimmest marketer, this might be a good idea.

Next time I visit Japan I must have a look at the Ueshima coffee shops where, according to the Economist, the aisles are wider, the chairs sturdier and the tables lower. The food is mostly mushy rather than crunchy: sandwiches, salads, bananas—nothing too hard to chew. Helpful staff carry items to customers’ tables. The name and menu are written in Japanese kanji rather than Western letters, in a large, easy-to-read font.

Interestingly, in a Ueshima store a medium-sized coffee is ¥380, about 10% more than at Starbucks.

Another example quoted is the Keio department store where there are are chairs for weary shoppers.

Signs are in large fonts and many salespeople are in their 50s and 60s. The food hall promotes old-fashioned Japanese noodles rather than modern Western imported convenience food.

The shelves are lower, so older people can reach them. (Because of wartime food shortages, the elderly are much shorter than today's young Japanese.) Loyalty cards at Keio award points not according to what you buy, but according to how often you visit.

Even today, these examples are companies responding to older consumers are rare, when you consider the enormity of the change in the demographic profile of developed countries.

How companies respond to the physiological ageing of their customers will be as big a challenge as sustainability/climate change. Dick Stroud

Welfare state in chaos as thousands live past 100

Seems to me that The Times was a bit short of something to say, on this wet Friday, and thought up this headline. Sorry but cannot refer to the article - paywall.

We all know that there is going to be a ‘problem’ of ageing and its impact on the health and care budgets, however, I don’t think this idea of extrapolating the past to conclude that we are breeding a generation of centenarians is is of much assistance. This graphic is based on the work done by the ONS.

Remember the old saying: “Trends go on until they stop.”

What is most likely to happen is that there will be even more fragmentation in the country between the alpha and beta people. The alpha, well educated, prosperous, healthy …. will live long and well and buy their own health and care support.

The betas, well the betas are going to have a hard time of it and will clog up the overflowing poorly funded state systems by eating, drinking and drugging themselves to an early death

Marketers should be interested in both groups. Dick Stroud

Latest OFCOM analysis of the UK comms market is published

Even though OFCOM has had its budget cut it is still churning out its free analysis of communications in the UK. God knows how much it costs to produce but for us poor saps on limited research budgets it is a valuable source of data.

Here is the report about online use and here is the launch page for the rest of the studies.

Thank you OFCOM but I am sure I am paying for the data in my income tax!

Interestingly, the organisation lead on the uptake of smartphones ("A nation addicted to smartphones) as the topic for release to general media. Guess it makes sense since it is still a high profile subject. Dick Stroud

Excellent analysis of the new Toyota Venza ad

Matt Thornhill has written an excellent analysis of the new ad from Toyota – not yet launched in Europe.

I agree with his sentiments. You had better be really careful when you attempt to use humour in ads be it aimed at old or young. Dick Stroud

How can companies become more age friendly?

Kim Walker’s article provides a good summary of the subject of age friendliness.

If you ask senior marketing staff about the major global trends affecting their business you will undoubtedly be told that “global warming” and all of its implications is top of the list.

You will be pushed to find many executives that would list the ageing of their customers. This trend is for real – there is no debate – there are no deniers that it is happening – but few companies are building this into their long-term strategy.

A couple of minutes of reading Kim’s article would do them the world of good. Dick Stroud

Another application for QR codes that will appeal to older people?

It was not until I saw the shopping application using QR codes that I really got the idea of their power.

I am not so sure about this application of attaching the codes to grave stones has the same immediate appeal but maybe it will be the start of whole new industry.

Here is my first attempt at a grave stone QR code. Dick Stroud

Get into the poverty business - it is going to be huge

A report has just been published by yet another group of worthies (The Workplace Retirement Income Commission) about the sad state of pension provision in the UK.

These reports are all well and good and do provide a good source of research but of course they do no good since nobody in power has the slightest intention of doing anything about the findings. I guess it keeps the worthies off the streets.

We all know what the findings are going to be. Lots and lots and lots of people will retire, expecting to live a long time, but have ziltch to fund their retirement. It doesn't matter how you cut and dice the numbers you are always going to come to same conclusion.

I think the two tables are self-explanatory. Just in case you want it drummed home. Nearly 40% of people aged 65-74 have no private pension wealth. Now, it has suddenly struck me that this might include public sector workers who get their pensions funded by the state (us poor numbsculls in the private sector)  - I don't think that it does.

Just look at the way that live expectancy has and is increasing.

These destitute older people are still going to need basic services. Companies that understand that there will be a large but poor group of older consumers can still make money.

We have often used terms like old-old and young-old. Start to get used to terms like old-rich and old-poor. Dick Stroud

The Irish really are interested about the older market

On Saturday I took part in a session on Irish Radio.

The host was Orlaith Blaney, the CEO of McCann Erickson and the two other speakers were Laurie Orlov and the guy who runs CASLA (Centre for Affective Solutions for Ambient Living Awareness).

Unfortunately, I had to do the interview from home and spent my time gyrating between the back and front of the house to avoid the traffic and the neighbour who was cutting his lawn. If you hear a strange noise in the background you know what it is.

You can download the podcast here - the session about the older market starts 30.40.

I have said this before but the Irish are really beginning to focus upon the business potential of the older market unlike the British Government that just pays it lip service. Indeed, ministers like Willetts seem to have a personal vendetta against his peer group. Dick Stroud

All about Tablets from JWT

I am not sure I learnt a great deal from this paper about Tablets and their use - now and in the future - but I certainly found some interesting new apps.

I have to say that I was amused by the panel of experts who contributed to the report - good to see there was a wide spectrum of age represented (joke). Dick Stroud

A couple of nice graphics for your collection

Following on from the previous blog posting. There are couple of nice graphics that might come in useful for presentations that are are taken from this Nielsen blog. I think they are self-explanatory. Dick Stroud

Wait long enough and the truth will out

This article is worth reading. If you buy-in to my ideas about age-neutrality (it is called ageless in the US) then you will feel good to see that your ideas are at last becoming mainstream.

Reading the article reinforced my belief that we are always looking for some absolute truths - be it about marketing or any other discipline – when the truth always comes in multiple shades of grey (nothing to do with being old!).

Is age important or is it a burnt out old proxy that we should trash? The answer is that “it all depends”. This is something that journalists hate to hear, as do most marketers who want a subject summarized in a single PowerPoint slide.

Right now I am working in the area of physiological ageing and its impact on all of the areas of marketing. Is age important in this context – you better believe it. But, you cannot then take this conclusion and apply that to the subject of creative or channel use.

This article has some lovely quotes.

I particularly like what Matt Thornhill says:

"No traditional consumer companies have decided they want to actively market to older consumers," argues Matt Thornhill, founder of The Boomer Project, a market research company. "Most have attempted to focus on all the bad things that happen -- insurance companies, financial services... A big mistake that a lot of marketers make is that everyone over 50 is only concerned about aging. All they want to sell them are solutions to problems, but nobody aspires to that."

He is absolutely right. I have called the activity of targeting products by age and by marketing technique as “age-silo” and indeed most of the products in this category are problem solving. Maybe I should re-christen the term as “aches and pains” – be it financial, physical or mental.

I am personally very please to see that Apple is quoted as a company that has “got it”. It is not just about the company’s advertising but it is a covers almost all of the customer touchpoints. I would like to think that this was a conscious decision in the Apple boardroom but I suspect it is a bye-product of the Apple culture of extreme attention to detail and usability.

Enough of reading my blog – just read the article. Dick Stroud