Older consumers and their buying power - its all about pensions

Marketers wanting to understand what will happen to the spending power of older people should get a grasp of what is happening to their pensions - they might also learn something about their own plight when they  hit retirement age - if that even exists in the future.


The INSEAD web site has a very fact filed and informative video interview with Monika Quiesser, Head of Social Policy Division at the OECD. In six mins she gives a very good overview of what is happening in Europe.


I do wish INSEAD would wake up and smell the coffee and allow their videos to be embeded. It would drive much more traffic to their web site.


The interesting take for me from what she said was the the old fear of pensions sustainability (i.e. can the state afford to pay them) is receding only to be replaced with the fear that their levels will not be sufficient to keep body and sole together. Of course this ignores public sector pensions that exist in an Alice in Wonderland where you can keep paying them irrespective of what happens (it is called printing money). Dick Stroud