The mysterious senior

January 26, 2004 by Strategy Staff

An oft-cited reason for the dearth of consumer advertising targeting the 50+ demographic is that advertising agencies are too young to understand a target market over 30. No wonder: The market research just isn’t available.

‘Everybody’s been talking about baby boomers and the aging of the markets and the population bubble and the egg moving through the anaconda, but the reality is that not many are dealing with the psyche of that age group,’ says Rick Padulo, chairman and CEO of Toronto’s Padulo Integrated and its specialist arm, Boom Communications.

But that could change. John Tabone, president of the Professional Marketing Research Society, has already seen ‘increased activity’ in this demographic, which he sees as a growth area for the industry.

As manager of innovation for the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Tabone has also been on the buying end of the research business. He recently commissioned Toronto’s Research Dimensions to do custom focus groups that would determine the best way to position accountants to wealthy seniors through a new product called Prime Plus.

Maureen Maclachlan, president of Vancouver-based Age Matters Communications, says that marketers in areas that are most active in the seniors market – including the housing, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and travel sectors – are already doing a good deal of custom studies.

‘They’re very savvy about going in and doing focus groups, talking to family influencers, looking at the demographics, looking at what the competition is. Industry research is going in; it tends not to be available in the public domain.’

Michael Caine, president of Toronto-based AM740, the largest Canadian radio station targeting the 50+ demographic, has had his share of difficulties finding research to convince advertisers to buy into his station, in spite of the fact that the station leaped to fifth place in the market in its very first ratings period in spring 2001 and continues to reach 534,200 people a week (says BBM Canada) with its ‘all-time favourites’ format.

‘There isn’t a lot of demographic or psychographic information,’ Caine says. ‘What I’ve had to do is rely on my own research ability in terms of collecting data and articles. [Boom Communications] had been doing the same thing. Now we’re starting to work together.’

Researching this market presents its own unique challenge. Lindsay Meredith, marketing professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., says senior citizens (65+), ‘are a tough animal to study.’

‘No, you aren’t going to give them a 25-page questionnaire. What you have to have is a real nice, real friendly woman sit down and ask them questions and above all, it has to be somebody they can talk to. I’m not saying you have to dumb this down. If you do this right, you can have lots of seniors who are happy to pick up computers.’

Maclachlan agrees that this can be tricky. ‘Folks in their 60s and 70s and even some into the early 80s are out there shopping, they’re travelling, they’re good consumers, they’re involved in recreation, they’re involved in fitness.

‘As people age, they get harder to access. They may have caregivers that are protective of them because there’s this whole idea of scamming seniors and it eliminates market researchers’ ability to reach older adults to find out what they could really use and what they want in consumer products and design.’

Another issue is reluctance from seniors. ‘You can get just about any teenager to come to a focus group. Adults are more discerning. They have experience, they have wisdom, and they may be wondering, ‘what’s the catch?”

On the other hand, Meredith has observed the growth of gerontology departments at universities across the country. ‘They have sociology and psychology classes. And marketing comes from sociology and psychology classes. The information is going to increase and that will provide a background.’

As an illustration of the type of listener who’s tuning in to AM740, Caine describes a telephone call he received from a friend of his on the day the station launched. ‘He had retired, he was 58 years old, he had moved to Collingwood, and he was calling me from the ski slopes on his cellphone after skiing all morning listening to us on his walkman. That’s who I’m appealing to. He’s an active, financially secure, happy, healthy, trendy guy.’

That seems to be the pattern, says David Cravit, VP for Boom.

‘The biggest factor is that we recognize that for the first time in history the boomers are redefining what it means to age,’ he says, noting that this trend is already having the effect on older generations that it will inevitably have on aging generations to follow. In other words, people are behaving younger, older. That presents a challenge for marketers used to targeting people younger and less experienced than themselves.

‘The real psychographic is the disconnect. [For example] I’m 57 but I’m acting like I’m 42. If you put me in a room full of 42-year-olds, even though I’m wearing the same fashions and think that I’m the same age, I’ve got 15 more years experience than them, and that’s 15 more years of buying and selling and credit card using. I’ve got a foot in both camps and that’s never happened before. I’m psychologically young for my age, but I am my age. That’s what makes it difficult: 15 more years of savviness in the marketplace.’