Thursday, July 07, 2016

Too old for market researchers but still able to spend a lot of money

A good mate of mine lives in Malaysia. In his last e-mail he was telling me about his amazement that after completing an online survey, for a travel company, he got to the point where he stated his age and the response came back :  "this survey is confined to 18-64 age group". He is 67 years old.

In the last 12 months he has traveled backward and forward to the UK (five times and always business or first), to Australia (two times - same choice of class), to the US (once) and has been on 4 very expensive cruises. Get the picture, he travels a lot. I dare to think how much he spends

This dimwit travel company had decided that if your are 64 then it has no more interest in your business. How absolutely crazy.

Thank heavens that this type of behaviour is becoming less common  but what still happens is that market research companies have their upper age band as 65+. They are bundling the views of the person in the care home with the marathon running 65 year old.

No wonder the market research industry is in such a mess when it comes to understanding behaviours of older people. Dick Stroud

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