Never too old to rock and roll

This is the title of a great article in today’s Financial Times - unfortunately it is not available online, unless you are a FT subscriber.

Jo Rigby, head of research at OMD, shares my distain for meaningless titles like ‘grey market’. "It's a negative, dull lump of a term," she says. "It makes out the over 50s are one big group of grey-haired old bags." I couln’t say it better myself.

This blog has already highlighted that the radio and record industry is being forced to decide if the older consumer is just one of life’s unavoidable nuisances or a potential saviour to their commercial problems (especially the music industry).

Ron Coles, director at Saga Radio says that advertisers understand the data about the commercial importance of the older consumer "Now they know all the facts but there's a reluctance to take the next step". See yesterday's post (54 is an important number)

There are signs that record companies have woken up to opportunity as music sales plummet in the face of young consumers downloading free music online or being distracted by a raft of other interests. Labels have realised that one of the passions of the 50+ is music. (How surprising!) and are starting to do something about it. The FT article says it better than I ever could ‘A multitude of labels are creating acts specifically designed for the over 50s market: jazz performer Jamie Cullum was signed by Universal Classics and Jazz UK; the BMG signing Amici, dubbed the "Fleetwood Mac of Opera" and Warner's Tony Henry, a black opera singer who grew up on a council estate and has been dubbed the 'classical P Diddy', to name just a few.’

Rick Blaskey, who runs his own 35+ marketing agency, The Music & Media Partnership, says the amount of music aimed at the older consumer is at unprecedented levels. He believes this is due to the shift by record companies in employing older staff, who have a better understanding of this market and a couple of daring signings in the last few years. One of these being Charlotte Church signed by Sony, the other Russell Watson signed by Decca. He says, "These were the first signings that unashamedly went for an older audience. Russell Watson came out at the same time as Elton John, Sting and Michael Jackson two years ago at Christmas, but his album stayed in the charts longer and sold more".

Decca’s president Costa Pilavachi says "They're adults (older consumers) who are not interested in new pop music, nor are they classical specialists or collectors, but when they hear an artist or recording they like, they buy”. That must be music to the record industry’s ears.

I think the broader lesson that can be learnt from the developments is that there will be no 'big bang’ change in attitudes to the older consumer but rather it will be a series of piecemeal changes, like the record and music industry, and then reach a ‘Tipping Point’. It will then become an universally accepted reality. In the next couple of weeks I will analyse the much abused theory of ‘Tipping Points’ to see how it applies to 50+ marketing.