London is different – repeat after me – London is different

Some people think the UK is one country. Some people think it is made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Both are wrong.

The UK is made up of the London and the rest. Understanding this is vital when thinking about marketing to the 50-plus or any other age group.

A recent report by the BBC made reinforced this point. Whilst the rest of the UK is in a state of collective economic despair , consumer sales in Central London are going up.

The British Retail Consortium said spending in the heart of the capital was up by 8.7% in June 2008 compared to the same month a year previously. In the same period, the national figure fell by 0.4%.

The mood among central London customers is clearly different from the rest of the UK.

Why is there such a difference? Lots of reasons. London, more correctly parts of London, are extremely wealthy. Also, London is young and it would seem that the young are still spending like there is no tomorrow. When the credit crunch really starts to bite this situation could very quickly change.

If you are not convinced about London’s strange behaviour look at this video. Dick Stroud

A Boomer map

Thanks to Chuck Nyren for sending me this link to a map of my boomer future. Having looked at it I am not sure I want to go there.

I have done enough future gazing in my time and it is great fun. The one thing you are certain of is that your predictions will be wrong.

But, bits of this map will be right. If only we knew which bits.

Certainly this is a good stimulator for a brain storming session about NPD for the boomer generation, or any other generation come to that. Dick Stroud

The curse of private equity and the UK care home industry

Cheap money, a guaranteed demand, ever rising property prices and lots of cheap overseas labour to do the work –what more could any business want?

It is not surprising that shed loads of private equity poured into the care market since it seemed a one-way bet. The result is that some care suppliers have been more intent on financial engineering than their core business of providing care.

The marvellous old saying: “trends go on until they stop” has resulted in some of the UK’s largest care suppliers teetering on the brink of financial disaster.

The article in the Sunday Telegraph details the plight of Four Seasons Healthcare and other highly geared UK care companies. The moral of the story is that once management’s attention is more intent on balance sheet manipulation than running the fundamentals of the business the result can be disastrous. The dreadful thing about this saga is that the poor souls involved in the fall-out from the mess are some of the weakest and most fragile members of society. Dick Stroud

“Giving something back” post work – mixed messages

I would like to thank Tom Troland for sending me this item from the New York Times. Tom has also sent me some fascinating research from McKinsey that I will be covering in the next couple of weeks.

The NYT article is titled: “Geezers Doing Good “and relates to how some people, from the examples in the article, mainly the wealthy and highly educated, are doing a “Bill Gates” and starting a new full-time career of doing “good works".

Things seem to be different in Europe. I have already written about the difficulty in getting boomer aged people to volunteer/give and now Martijn de Haas has sent me a translated item from some Dutch research – thanks Martijn.

This research was done by Movisie, an organisation for social development.

In their factsheet 'Social commitment from the elderly' it shows that the time spent volunteering by 65-plussers has decreased from an average of 2.2 hour per week to 1.8 hour.

Older people have always been the biggest suppliers of unpaid work. One out of three people aged between 55 and the 74 years deliver a voluntary contribution of an average of six hours per week on social and society work. The research concludes that seniors have increasingly become busier with paid work, watching grandchildren, caring for family members, social activities, and hobbies and watching television.

It is to be expected that the baby boomers will spend less and less time on volunteering in the future.

I am not sure if this is a European/US difference or is a difference between the very rich/not so rich. I suspect that later.

Looks like organisations reliant on the contributions (both cash and time) from older people are going to have to come up with some innovative ideas. Maybe one idea is to pursue a wealthy boomer benefactor? Dick Stroud

Packaging dyslexia

It goes without saying that Dove and its pro.age brand is a good thing. Love the ads, admire the guts for its radical product positioning etc etc.

However, from a functionality point of view, they don’t work for me. What I mean, in words of one syllable, is I don’t know the conditioner from the shampoo as I grope around in the shower.

OK, I know I could get glasses to wear in the shower, or increase the lighting, but for heavens sake I am not exactly blind and I cannot read the labeling. It is not surprising when you look at the poor colour contrast of the reversed out text.

Then a member of the Stroud household pointed out that it is easy to tell the difference. The Conditioner opens from the bottom and the Shampoo from the top.

Is this a male thing or just me but I didn’t know that. This packaging masterpiece completely passed me by.

There is a serious point, other than I will no longer smother my balding (bald) pate with conditioner, is that I reckon this packaging stinks. A plea to Dove. For people like me, with packaging dyslexia, please use good old fashioned readable text to say what is inside. Dick Stroud

Who exhibits at a “Retirement Show”

I have already written a few words about the London Retirement Show. I thought it would be interesting to look at the profile of the types of organisations exhibiting. This is Dick Stroud’s “best guess” at the category of each of the 132 exhibitors. Plus or minus a couple of percent I think it is reasonably accurate.

Some observations:

Loads of Charities etc

About what I expect in the way of Finance and Holiday companies

Much lower numbers of property and care providers than I would expect.

Two of my chums were exhibiting and both were delighted at the numbers of people who attended. Both organisations learnt some interesting lessons from the exercise.

Clearly this sort of exhibition is not for all types of organisations targeting the older age group but it clearly works for some. It will be interesting to hear from the exhibitors about the age profile of attendees. My best guess is a median age of close 70 years old. Dick Stroud

Fiftyforward – what the hell is this site all about?

I have given up counting or visiting all of the “fifty something” sites that keep sprouting up. This week I encountered yet another that I thought I should visit - Fiftyforward.co.uk .

Now if you cannot work out what a site is about from its home page there is something really wrong. This site baffled me. Since it looked to be well constructed (technically) and had clearly had money spent on its construction I was intrigued to know who owned it and what they thought was its purpose. Next stop the “About this site” page. Then I discovered this. Wow.

Who the hell is Bfi? All was explained after a quick Google Search. I learned from a BBC report that an investigation by the House of Commons raised concerns about Learndirect's finances - and said Ufi's management and marketing costs, which take up nearly 30% of its budget, were "far too high". Damn easy to spend other people’s money. Looks like Ufi is still pursuing its profligate ways. Dick Stroud

Forrester Research report about US Technographics

Technographics, what a nice word. No idea what it means but it does sound important and something you and I should know about.

It is a survey about the adoption and use of technology by different generations. Since lifestyle (mainly education and income) is a huge determinant of technology use I am always sceptical about these types of studies.

Anyway, this report costs lots of dosh but from the sales blurb it seems to be peddling the same old messages.

Gen Y sets the pace for technology adoption. Nine in 10 Gen Yers own a PC, and 82 percent own a mobile phone. But it is technology use that sets this generation apart: Gen Y spends more time online ' for leisure or work ' than watching TV; 72 percent of Gen Y mobile phone owners send or receive text messages; 42 percent of online Gen Yers watch Internet video at least monthly. Gen Xers use technology when it supports a lifestyle need, while technology is so deeply embedded into everything

Gen Yers do that they are truly the first native online population.'

The fact that Gen Y is, and will increasingly be, under the most intense economic pressure with multiple demands on their disposable income is neither here nor there.

If you want a different take on the generational use technology then have a read of this article from the Sunday Times. It concludes Gen Y is a group of superficial technology users with the attention span of goldfish. Maybe the message for marketers who are targeting this generation is keep the copy short – 6 words max.

Note: You will see a reference to an article by Nicholas Carr (The guy who wrote IT does Matter). I winced as I read (scanned) it since I know exactly what he means about the way the Web changes how we consume content. Dick Stroud

Cross-selling to Baby Boomers

This is a good article about how a company (Footsmart) changed the way its web site cross-sold to its older audience - with startling results.

Unfortunately, the conclusions drawn are not necessarily correct.

Footsmart's problems/issues were :

It was spending at least 20 hours a week manually adjusting their cross-sells system for the shopping cart. It was time-consuming. Solution: Automate their cross-sells while extending them into their product-details pages.

The reason they extended to the product page was a hunch that the cross-sells would help their Baby Boomer demographic find what they were looking for without having to navigate multiple pages. “They were not as savvy as more Web-experienced shoppers”.

Eyetracking research shows that ads served below the fold stand far less chance of being seen, but because of Footsmart's page design problems it was forced to put the cross-sell information below the fold on the product detail pages – would it work?

Read the article and you will see that everything worked well and conclusions were drawn. Here are some alternative thoughts.

Footsmart weren’t that smart in manually adjusting the cross sells in the shopping cart. The automated system was much better.

Had Footsmart used their old system of cross-sell selection on product pages they would have genertated just as good results?

Using cross-selling on the product page works for all ages - not just Boomers. It is a function of Web design not generational preference.

I could go on and on. Still it is well worth the read. Dick Stroud

Ageism is never far below the surface

For all of the soothing words about how ageism was not going to feature in the US Presidential Elections it hasn’t taken long to thrust itself to surface. This is the current cover of Vanity Fair, a magazine that describes itself as:

From entertainment to world affairs, business to style, design to society, Vanity Fair is a cultural catalyst—a magazine that provokes and drives the popular dialogue.

With its unique mix of stunning photography, in-depth reportage, and social commentary, Vanity Fair accelerates ideas and images to centre stage.

Each month, Vanity Fair is an unrivalled media event that reaches millions of modern, sophisticated consumers who create demand for your brand.

This is the photo that the magazine thinks is appropriate for its media page – may as well throw in a dose of sexism for good measure. Dick Stroud

Grumpy old Baby Boomers - official

Today is a good day. Today I know I am not alone. Today I can have a good moan in the safe knowledge that it is all a result of my birth year not an abundance of the misery hormone.

Pew Social & Demographic Trends Project has just published a report that finds US baby boomers are a bunch of miserable old sods. To be honest it doesn’t say it that directly but that is the implication.

Why should this be?

One explanation is that it results from there being so many of them. I guess it is a bit like the way rats get aggressive when you crowd them together.

Have a read of the report and then look at this article from the Washington Post. Mary Furlong was the unlucky one who attempted to explain the results to the reporter. Mary thought it was all to do with the “sandwich generation” effect (i.e. simultaneously dealing with kids and parents). The reporter wasn’t buying that one and came with some research showing boomers have always been miseries, even in their youth.

We all know that any generation, defined by the age range 43 – 62, is next to useless. For part of the research Pew split the boomers into two groups (43 – 52 and 53 – 62) and found that the older group were the real pain in the butts. The younger group were much more like their kids.

So what is it about the 53-62 year olds that makes them miserable? Before jumping to conclusions have a look at the research and you will find the difference between the groups is relatively small. Also, the total sample size, for all the ages was only 2,400.
My bet is that you will find a massive difference in the results by socio-economic group. It would be more interesting (at least to me) to see the similarities/differences across the age groups by lifestyle segment.

So what am I really saying? Any analysis, or press reporting, that tries to derive the “reason why conclusions”, about the mindset of 76 million people, is going to dish out some simplistic generalisations. The report is good fun to read and to speculate about but not much tactical use for marketers. Dick Stroud

Senior concessions (discounts) for the 50-plus

In theory the idea of having a place where I can go and get details of the discounts available to me for having survived until my 50th, 60th , 70th year should be a sure fire winner.

The guys at senior discounts have been trying this business model for a year or so and they are now joined by Oscar. This is what it says about itself.

Oscar is dedicated to people over 50. We think that we deserve a better deal. We also believe that we get a rum deal on information about what's on offer and how to get it.
We, at Oscar, are a group of folk who have a vision that over 50s should get a much fairer distribution of the cake. There are 21 million of us in the UK over 50. So we set out to redress the balance.

The big problem with this business concept is that you have to deliver value from the first visit otherwise you have lost the visitor for life.

I went to Oscar to see what deals it had for Health and Food related products. Very little seems to be available in my geographic area. As a normal punter I would be lost for life.

I am not saying it is easy to pump prime the discount inventory but it is essential if this model is to work. Dick Stroud

Marketing to Women Is So 2007

I came upon this very amusing and well written item by Yvonne DiVita.I just love this style of in “your face” writing.

If you’re keeping your fingers to the keyboard creating great content to appeal to your women customers, and your are eyeballs stuck to your computer monitor devouring all the advice from marketing to women columnists all over the net – let me give you some advice: STOP! Step back! Drop those hands! Blink your eyes and read on…

The truth is: the whole marketing to women focus is over. That’s right, it’s over. We don’t want you to market to us. We never wanted you to market to us. We endured you, but we never accepted you. In 2009, we aren’t even going to do that.

You will see that Ms DiVita has been, and probably remains, one of these “marketing to women columnists.” It is a bit like me saying that 50-plus marketing is dead (which it is). The sectors ‘50-plus’ and ‘women’ are convenient and necessary shorthand terms but we all know it is much more sophisticated than that.

I think I will be adding Ms DiVita to my RSS feeds list. Dick Stroud

Relentlessly Cheerful revisited

I received this comment on the previous blog posting.

Thank you for more insights into a life I only catch glipses of through my parents.
I wonder if you can look back at that goodie bag of Sales Brochures and work out what images would have worked?
What would have turned you off less, but engaged you and interested you?
People in a different mood - serious contemplation perhaps
Pictures of events, a storm, rather than people infront of a house (for home insurance products)
Pictures of experiences? Going on a driving holiday, but not showing people, just the scenary and the vehicle (for motor insurance)
or just text?
What would have worked better than what you have observed?

I have answered this question in the comments section but I think it raises some interesting points that deserve their own posting.

As I was writing this blog entry I was asking myself the same questions.

First things first. It was reading all of this stuff in one go that resulted in my reaction. If I was being drip-fed the brochures I may have been less acerbic in my comments. Secondly, I look at creative and copy, when I am forced to read it, from a different perspective to its target audience (it is my job). Finally, honestly this is the last caveat, my opinions and reactions represent only a small part of the 50-plus market. I am continually aware that you cannot extrapolate your own views to the whole of your age cohort. The joy of this blog is that it enables me to release these professional constraints and say it how I see it.

Let’s say this material was being specifically targeted to Dick Stroud, how could it be improved. Two words – humour and directness. I don’t think I am alone in this view. For example, recently some research was done to look at the language to use when talking to older people about death. The researchers seemed surprised that “kicking the bucket” was seen as a perfectly OK phrase. Didn’t surprise me. Ask yourself why there is such an anti-PC reaction from the over-50s.

If you look at the TV advertising that was around during my 20s and 30s a lot of it was dire but it contained some of the funniest ads ever made (in my view). If you read this blog you will know I hate making generational generalisations, so I will make one. I think there is a cynical (might be termed black humour) that is shared by lots of people in their 60s and 70s. I would suggest that anybody trying to reach the older audience submerge themselves into the TV, both programming and ads, that washed over this generation.

I hope this begins to answer the question. I will start posting some examples of promotional material that I think works well (for me). Dick

Relentlessly Cheerful

On Friday I attended the Retirement Show in London. An ‘interesting’ event that I need to think about a bit more before committing keystrokes to keyboard.

Like all exhibitions I was given the plastic bag of brochures on entering. Normally I dump this as soon as possible but since the days of plastic bags are number, in these environmentally conscious times, I instinctively kept the thing.

On the train home I inspected the contents. What was it about the materials that made me feel a bit queasy? It was nothing to do with the copy since I never read the stuff. It was the creative. It was relentlessly cheerful.

Now I totally understand the brief given to the designers is going to be: “create something that shows older people enjoying (they probably even use the word ‘celebrating’) being 50-plus. It is only when you see a pile of this stuff together that you realise how unrealistic, and more importantly, ineffective it is.

Maybe it is just me, but I suspect I am not alone.

Just think about it - there you are, having just walked past three exhibition stands selling different types of coffins, you then gaze at these old sods beaming with energy and vigour. It doesn't work for me. It is a bit like when you are a kid and your parents tell you to: "enjoy yourself". I hated it then I hate it now. Dick Stroud.

Finerday has caught the Heyday bug

Back in late June I wrote about a new start-up called Finerday. It looked an interesting venture but I was worried that Age Concern was involved. This is the organisation best remembered for the Heyday disaster (search my blog for multiple references).

I warned them but the launch day, Friday, 4th July came and went and it is now the 19th July. As you can see, still not working.

I am sure (seriously hope) that there are lot of people working away trying to get the site launched. I wish them well.

How can Age Concern get is wrong twice? Well it looks like this accident prone outfit is at long last going to merge with Help the Aged, who seem to have got a winner with its InTune venture.

This is a plea from the heart to the guys at Help the Aged. Please take responsibility for all matters IT. You have been warned. Dick Stroud

Engaging with the over-50s: It's about lifestyle not age!

If you are up to reading yet more of my writing then this article in mycustomer.com says it all about the dual importance of demographics and lifestyle. Dick Stroud

Audit Commission report about ageing Britain

And yet another major report is published today. This time from The Audit Commission (Don't stop me now – preparing for an ageing population). For a quick summary read the press release.
This is what the Chairman of the Audit Commission, said:

‘By 2029 nearly 40 per cent of England's population will be over 50. These are active people, anxious to stay independent as long as possible. Despite the stereotypes, only 3 per cent of people aged between 65 and 80 live in residential care.

But it's worrying that the councils in areas with the most over 50s are the least prepared to cope with their long-term needs and interests. Ex-punk rockers and Rolling Stones fans are not going to be happy with a cup of tea and daytime TV. As people live longer, those who can help them stay well and independent, need to be a little more imaginative.

Not surprisingly it found that councils in England, particularly those which have the fastest ageing populations, are not ready to meet the challenges or grasp opportunities as we get older and that although the government's 2005 strategy for older people, Opportunity Age, has the potential to improve the lives of an ageing population, so far it hasn't delivered those benefits to older people across the country. Why am I not shocked.

To get a feel for the scale of the ‘problem’ the video shows the increase in the 50-plus population. Yet more reading (76 pages) but full of useful data. Dick Stroud

Living in the 21st century: older people in England

A major report has just been released about the reality of ageing in England. When I say major I mean major. It is 316 pages long and is comes with a great pedigree.

Here is the press release from the PA. As you would expect the press release is written for headline grabbing – nothing wrong with that.

Nearly a third - or 30% - of men aged between 60 and 64 years old said they expected to carry on working past the age of 65 in 2006/07, compared with 25% questioned in 2002/03.

Life expectancy had increased at an astonishing rate.

The poorest elderly people were more than twice as likely to die as the richest over a given period

Once I have had a read I will comment some more. Dick Stroud

Seniors online

Earlier this month I wrote about research undertaken by The Center for the Digital Future in conjunction with AARP.

Unfortunately I have discovered that the report I referenced costs hard dollars. Over time I am sure that loads of factlets about the findings will emerge.


Here is one that looks at how the behaviour of US older consumer has changed related to their habit of researching a product off-line and then purchasing online. Not much difference now between the ages until you reach 70+. Dick Stroud

iPods and Government

Reform does some interesting research. This is the organisation that coined the term iPod - the generation between 18 and 34 years old who are Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden. In the US they are called Generation Broke.

Reform believes the balance of taxation and public spending has tilted against young people, so that they now face an unfair burden, without being able to expect many of the benefits; and this at a time when their economic profile is already difficult.

They are also faced with increasing levels of debt from higher education, much stronger labour market competition, lower growth in earnings and acute difficulties in getting onto the property ladder. I agree wholeheartedly.

There is a new Reform report about how the iPods react to Government. Since the number of younger people who vote is about half of that of the 65+ it would seem with a large slab of disinterest.

It is not a bad report but it would have made it much better if there was some quantitative comparison of their views against those of an older age group. I found myself agreeing with most of the points that the younger people were making. I don’t think I am alone, which makes me think that the report was more about the mood of the Brits than about a specific age group. Dick Stroud

Reverse mortgage (equity release) doing badly

I am not sure how it is doing in the rest of the world but in Australia the reverse mortgage market is in full-scale retreat. The fourth lender this year announcing that it is pulling back.

ABN Amro is still in the market but has admitted that conditions were tough. A spokesman said – the quote is taken from The Sheet (subscription only):

“Because of rising interest rates the lifestyle borrowers have disappeared. These are the people who don’t need the money to buy a new car or repair the roof but would like some extra money for travel or to improve their quality of life in retirement in other ways.

“What makes this market tough is that the payback on a reverse mortgage is very long term. Figures from the US and Europe show that the average life of a loan is seven or eight years.

“You get no cash flow during those years and you have to cover set-up costs and commissions. Securitisation gives you some cash but that’s not an option now.”

So companies selling these products to the older market are getting hit both by a decline in demand and the inherent long term nature of the business. I guess that high interest rates and lack of wholesale market liquidity doesn’t help.

I still think that this will be a fantastic long term business opportunity, because for a lot of people it will not be a 'lifestyle' choice but a necessity, but looks like success will be delayed for a while. Dick Stroud

Google Ad Planner - I now have access

In late June I wrote about the launch of Google’s Ad Planner. I registered with Google and today my access to the media planning tool arrived. I could spend hours playing with it...what a sad old sod!

Without applying any filters it shows the details of sites that account for 240 million unique visitors (for the US).

Applying the filters to only show me sites that have high numbers of the over-55s it reduces it to 70 million.

If I apply the filter to only show me UK sites reduces the figure to 33k (yes that is 33,000). This will be the subject of another blog posting. Sticking with the US.

The above chart shows the sites sorted by Composition Index. I expect you are going to hear a lot more about this term so this is how Google defines it

The composition index shows how concentrated your audience is on a specific site relative to internet users within the country you have specified. For example, if you've defined your audience as '55+' a site with a composition index of 212 means that you're approximately twice as likely to find a 55+ user on this site relative to the 55+ across the internet within the country you've specified. The composition index is calculated by dividing the site's reach into the audience by the percent reach into the audience on the internet within the country you've specified.

I have marked to sites for special interest - jacquielawson.com is a UK cottage industry (literally) that produces (in my view) the best online greeting cards – famed for the owner’s dog Chudleigh.

The other site is a little US organisation called AARP. Look at the figures for unique users and page views. I am staggered. Anybody from AARP like to explain? Dick Stroud

Decision time for marketers

According to the IPA Bellwether report marketing budgets have been revised down for the third consecutive quarter, and to the greatest extent since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Doom and thrice doom.

All sectors of marketing reported budget cuts with the exception of the online, but even here it's the smallest upward revision since 2002.
Traditional media -- TV, press, outdoor, radio and cinema -- was worst hit, with budgets dropping at the fastest rate since the first quarter of 2006.

This was followed by "all other" marketing, which includes PR, events and research. Downward budget revisions indicated that growth will be the weakest in these areas for at least five years.

OK guys hit the panic button. All of the woolly thinking and half-baked ideas that are OK during times of boom are now up for the chop.

So when you are asked: “we need to follow the money” what’s you answer? Let me give you a hint. It aint the credit strapped 20-34 year olds. Dick Stroud

Sagazone revisited

The last time I had a look at Sagazone was back in April.

Since then I have completed a questionnaire asking for feedback about the site. The ‘thank you’ e-mail listed the things people liked and/or wanted to added:

Interest groups
Space for experts to pass on their knowledge online.
Becoming a focal point for the major issues of today
A 'travel planner' with travel information and news of forthcoming events
A mechanism for trading goods online.

These all seem reasonable requests. Since April the number of registered profiles has increased to 44,000 which means the site is adding a 100+ new profiles a day. I am not sure if that is fast enough to substitute for the rate that profiles become inactive but it is faster than at the begining of the year.

Why the photo? That is what you get when you go to http://www.sagazone.com– maybe a bit more of this would help increases the numbers of older gentlemen. Dick Stroud

Demographics of US broadband users

The headline of the latest Pew Internet report is “Home Broadband 2008: Adoption Stalls for low-income Americans even as many broadband users opt for premium services that give them more speed”. That basically says it all. It is money and education that determines the use of the Internet/Broadband/Web or any other manifestation of online behaviour.

85% of Americans with $100,000 plus income have broadband at home compared with less than a third of those with sub $30,000 income.

If you want to look at the trends in Broadband use by age then here they are. Be careful – if you are targeting affluent 50-plus then you are looking at a broadband usage of well about that indicated by these numbers. I reckon in the 50-64 age group it would be in 75%+. Dick Stroud

Where have all the children gone?

If you are ever want more evidence that organisations should be planning for an older world have a look at this chart. It is taken from a report (The Graying of the Great Powers: Demography and Geopolitics in the 21st Century - the CSIS Global Aging Initiative). Click here to read and listen to a summary of its findings.

This shows the countries in the world where the median (yes median) population will be 50-plus by the year 2050. As you can see this includes large parts of middle and emerging Europe. Needless to say that the population of each of these countries will be (is) in decline.

I know a lot can happen between here and 2050, hopefully children becoming popular is one of thing, but in demographic terms 40ish years is not a long time. Makes you think. Dick Stroud

So long iYomu

I wonder how much money I could have saved the VC industry by telling them that social networking that is age-centric is for the dogs? Well it is not their money they wasted so I guess they don’t really care.

This is a well researched item about the demise of iYomu - who you ask could have come up with that name? Exactly.

I hate seeing businesses fail so the best we can hope is that others will learn from their mistakes. Some hope! Dick Stroud

TV Land's PR research report

According to TV Land (the US channel that targets the older consumer) 40 and 50 year olds are near the peak of their earning. They make the majority of household purchase decisions and not just for themselves.

TV Land’s report (Generation BUY: A Close Look at the Boomer Consumer" Study) says that the older age group spend more on themselves per month than Millennials and Gen Xers but they are also spending twice as much as their younger cohorts on others in their lives. Your Boomer makes decisions about purchases that spans the generations. The report (well the press release) says they (the 40 and 50 year old) are far less brand-loyal than Millennials and Gen Xers.

This all sounds really interesting and confirms what a lot of us have been saying for years.

But, two things disturb me. Firstly, TV Land would say this wouldn’t they. Secondly, for all of the press coverage I couldn’t find any trace of the ‘report’ to be able to make a judgement about the quality of the information.

Like most PR research - be careful in using the conclusions. Dick Stroud

New AARP study about the 50-plus and the Internet

AARP has issued a press release about a study undertaken with The Center For The Digital Futures about the Internet habits of the 50-plus. If you are looking for factlets to prove oldies are not total Web Luddites then you are in luck.

When (if) I receive a copy of the research study I will comment more. Dick Stroud

How daft can marketers be?

Two news items popped up in my inbox that made me question the sanity of my fellow marketers.

Item 1. “Over 50s Hit Hard by Credit Crunch”

This is a “new research says” type of item. The UK's Post Office that has been prodding the 50-plus to see how they react and come up with some astonishing revelations like - 76% of all over 50s surveyed had at least one or more credit cards. Wow

How about this: 64% of the over-70s regularly use credit cards to buy groceries. Wow squared

And then there is: a third of all respondents in the 50 and over category consider savings to be an aspiration rather than an actuality. I wonder how that compares with 24-35 year olds.

Enough of this.

Item 2. Bono TV, the German “thematic channel” (whatever that is) for viewers aged 50 years plus, will launch in autumn, although under a new name

Would you believe it, Bono, lead singer of U2, has opposed the brand as he is concerned about the protection of his own pseudonym? Now doesn’t come as a surprise.

Maybe they chose the daft name so when Bono did complain it generated publicity, or am I being too generous? Dick Stroud

The Changing Face of the U.S. Consumer

Peter Francese is founder of American Demographics magazine and demographic trends analyst at Ogilvy & Mather. A couple of years back I was fortunate enough to hear him speak at a conference in New York about the US’s population trends. This guy really does know what he is talking about.
He has a long article in AdAge that is a must read. It is pointless to try and summarise the article but it makes so many points.

It is such a pity that demographics is perceived as some dusty old technical that is not really much to do with 'real' marketing. I reckon it is the bedrock around which marketing strategies are built. If you have any interest in the US market I suggest you take the time and read it.Dick Stroud

Destroying customer care by the weakest link

In late June I wrote about my trials and tribulations dealing with BT and its lessons for improving customer care.

Here is how the story concluded.

The story so far – my BT broadband connection suddenly dropped to the speed of an arthritic snail – the nightmare of communicating with BT’s technical help desk was something that should be outlawed under the UN’s charter on torture – lots of lessons on how not to provide “customer care”.

New week, new dawn.

I will skip out all of the detail and get straight to the point. I had two visits from BT staff, both of whom would get 5 star marks as brand ambassadors. They were technically good, understood my problem and went the extra mile to sort out the problem. Who could ask for more? Result is I now have a faster broadband connection than before the troubles started.

The moral of this saga is this. A company can only maintain its brand reputation by ensuring the whole of its customer facing service is excellent. Most parts of BT’s customer care infrastructure is first rate but its reputation risks being destroyed by a manifestly weak, but significantly large, part of its support service.

I really hope somebody from BT reads this posting, for the sake of its two, and no doubt thousands of other, top class employees who sorted out my problem. Dick Stroud

The media touchpoints of Brits

The IPA (Institute of Parishioners in Advertising) has published its TouchPoints survey that describes in a week in the life of a “representative sample" of the GB adult population during late 2007/2008.

It’s worth a quick look, although it doesn’t contain any great insights. What did strike me was the way the reporting of the results was polarised by age, rather than income, education, geography, social class or any other metric.

Because it is so easy to search an Adobe document I couldn’t resist seeing the number of references to the two age groups that are used to distinguish ‘young’ and ‘old’ - the 65+ get 13 references the youngesters nearly three times as many (37). I know it is not a competition but it does say something about the advertising industry's mindset.

I think the report says more about the way the advertising industry perceives the market than it does about the market itself. Dick Stroud

Moody (Angry?) Britain

A recently posted an item about research conducted by McCann Erickson’s Pulse division that gave a fascinating insight into how us Brits feel about life. I also did my usual rant about wishing companies would put their research on the Web.

A couple of days back I get an e-mail from one of the report’s authors giving me a link to a site that has just been launched to support the research. It's a good site and has some interesting and disturbing content - do go and have a look.

I was fascinated to understand what the research told us about the 50-plus. Back like flash I get this response.

The quantitative survey revealed some interesting results amongst the older age groups. Those aged 55+ were most likely to describe the current mood of Britain as ‘apathetic’ and ‘angry’ (seemingly contradictory?).

Their mood wasn’t particularly more pessimistic than the rest of the nation but we did find the nation as pretty discontent as a whole (in both the quantitative research and focus groups). Key issues making the over 55s angry were immigration/race relations and the war in Iraq.

Anger regarding the cost of living was in line with the UK average (actually lower than average amongst over 65s), whilst house prices were, unsurprisingly, less of an issue than amongst younger generations.

The area where the older generation stands out, however, is the level of ire directed at Gordon Brown : 47% of over 65s said that Gordon Brown is making them angry about Britain, compared to just 31% of the total population.

Since older people have a much higher propensity to vote this is bad, bad news for Gordo.

This will only mean something to Brits, but the section of the site that looks at the regional differences about what would make Britain a better place are fascinating. I could write a commentary about each of these.

Many thanks to Dean at McCann Erickson for publishing the research and his subsequent insights about the 50-plus. Dick Stroud

China picks up bad habits from Western companies

A fact – in the next decade China will have one of the world’s the fastest ageing populations. An observation – the average age of China’s Communist Party’s top honchos is at least 75 years old.

With these two points in mind, I had to laugh when I read this snippet from the China Daily in an article about the recruitment of senior managers for its elite State enterprises.

Applicants must have at least a bachelor's degree and candidates applying for general manager roles must be under 50, the SASAC said. Only the "exceptionally competent" over-50s will be considered for these positions but even they must be under 53.

Well at least the Chinese are upfront about "employment death" at 50-plus unlike their Western counterparts. Dick Stroud

Toyota is fretting about becoming Honda

In the UK, Honda has the reputation for being an oldies car – guess what car I drive!

It sounds like Toyota is worried that it might be heading in the same direction, according to this article in Newsweek that suggests the carmaker is desperately seeking Gen-Xers. Having just read the horrendous financial results from US car manufacturers I would have thought they would be happy with anybody with a checkbook and a positive account balance!

Toyota has retired Sly and the Family Stone from its ads for the Camry and replaced them with a modified version of Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy" - nothing like thinking outside the box! The company has also established a youth-marketing staff made up entirely of people in the prized 24-to-35 age group. In the UK these would be considered geriatric marketers. All of this is intended to lower the average age of Toyota buyers by a decade, to 35.

The article suggests that Levi and Nike are also struggling to attract a younger audience and shake off an outdated image because:” It's a hard sell for boomer brands to persuade today's kids to drive the cars and walk in the same shoes that Mom and Dad did.”- "The days of boomers setting pop-culture trends are over," says the editor of Trends Journal. "Boomers are over the hill." Madison Avenue is now training its sights on the boomers' babies.

Maybe I have been missing something but this is re-writing of history. The reality is that advertising land has been obsessed with the Boomer’s kids and grandchildren for ages – to the exclusion of their parents. Still it made a good story. Dick Stroud

Medicine and care - how the Web can help

I received a couple of really interesting responses to my last blog posting about the way the Web can assist in the areas of medicine.

The University of California has teamed up with scientists at The University of California, San Francisco to launch an Internet video channel dedicated to improving understanding of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases. See the above video.

The channel is intended to increase awareness among patients, their families -- and physicians about the various forms of dementia. The goal is to promote earlier diagnoses and to get more patients into research studies and clinical trials. The site is also intended to educate caregivers, and provide support through caregiver testimonials.

The UCSF team is also reaching out with two other forms of online communication. They've created a widget, containing links to the YouTube channel and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center web site that will help the viral promotion of the facility.They have also created a Facebook group, "Defeat Dementia."

The second contact was from OnTimeRX, a company that is all about reminding people about their medication. Look at the comment on the previous blog posting. How interesting that Microsoft includes OnTimeRx software in their generation-specific “Senior PC” Vista systems for Assistive Technology.

Isn’t it great we live in the Web era.

My guess is that this is just the start. The amount of VC funding that will flow into resolving issues created by the ageing population has yet to start. Dick Stroud

The future shape of health and care management

My Outlook inbox contained two totally disconnected e-mails containing links that illustrate how care and health management in the future might (will) be managed.

I don’t know what it is like outside the UK but the health and care services provided by the Government, and much of the private sector, use a level of IT that Noah would toss out of the Ark and demand something more modern.

Every shrill article in the media about the ageing population is accompanied by dire predictions of how the health and care services will implode and that people (mainly 50-plus) must take more responsibility for their own health and care. They may be right.

One thing that could make a big difference is the application of the latest concepts of the Web.
Arjan in't Veld told me about a US outfit called Lotsa Helping Hands that is a free online volunteer caregiving coordination tool. Basically it applies social networking functionality to a specific issue of coordinating care for an individual. What a brilliant idea.

So far there are 8,000 Lotsa Helping Hands communities. The company has partnered with organisations like the Alzheimer’s Association, American Lung Association, Lance Armstrong Foundation and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society providing co-branded services they offer to their members.

The other development is the concept of owning your own medical data and using Google or Microsoft tools for its management. This appeared in an article in Technology Review.
Google and Microsoft want to do the same thing for personal health that software such as Quicken has already done for people's personal finances. Google Health (released in May) and Microsoft HealthVault (launched last October) allow consumers to store and manage their personal medical data online. Users will be able to gather information from doctors, hospitals, and testing laboratories and share it with new medical providers, making it easier to coordinate care for complicated conditions and spot potential drug interactions or other problems. Both Google and Microsoft will also offer links to third-party services like medication reminders and programs that track users' blood-­pressure and glucose readings over time.

Are you getting the picture? It looks to me like we will have the providers of care and health services using clapped out IT whilst consumers will be expecting/demanding/needing to use Web 2.0 and Cloud technologies. Dick Stroud