The 50-Plus Market

The 50-Plus Market demonstrates why marketers can no longer ignore the inevitable consequences of demographic and economic change. It further challenges marketing’s core assumptions about the effects of aging on consumer behavior. Author Dick Stroud poses these critical questions:

• Do the same marketing rules apply to the over-50s?
• How does the willingness to try new brands change with age?
• What is the most effective way to segment the 50-plus market?
• What’s the best way to adapt interactive media for use in marketing to this group?
• What are the strategic and tactical options for embracing the older market?

The 50-Plus Market is written as a story with a beginning and an end. The first chapter establishes the context by relating leading marketers’ views about the 50-plus market. The final chapter examines the broader issues of the aging population and its effect on business. The remainder of the book attempts to separate facts from myths and offers insight related to segmenting the 50-plus market and the corresponding implications for media planning, creative, and interactive channels.

Stroud’s exploration serves as a resource on each of the chapter topics as they comprehensively explain the facts and implications of the aging population on each respective aspect of marketing.

There is also an accompanying website with a Blog from the author which is pretty interesting.

Recommended Readers (who should read it (titles) and why):

Business people and marketers wanting to succeed in an environment geared towards the 50-plus market.

Top Takeaways:

• Compared to over-50, the 18-35 segment is growing at a slower rate and is relatively poorer. Despite this, marketers retain their fascination with the young.
• How aging affects consumers’ attitudes and behavior is less well understood than its physical effects. Marketers would improve effectiveness if they paid more attention to the physical effects of aging and less to the “emotional” ones. Most importantly, they would radically improve how they relate to and satisfy their customers.
• The great attraction of using age as a means of segmenting the over-50 market is that it is simple. The trouble is that it is also simplistic. Some of the problems of basing marketing decisions on a consumer’s age are that there are:
• Differences between actual and perceived age – older people make decisions based on the age they feel rather than the age on their birth certificates.
• Doubts that it has value in predicting peoples’ behavior as consumers.
• Distortions created by the different age profiles of ethnic minorities.
• Defining different kinds of behavior might result from referencing academic models, such as generational segmentation (e.g., baby boomers, etc.) or relating age with a major event in the older person’s life (e.g., retirement).
• A person’s 50th or 70th birthday does not mean that they suddenly adopt a different set of responses to creative. The challenge for the advertising industry is to understand this simple fact and then identify the emotions and behavior that are as close as possible to be ageless.

About the Author:

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