Coca-Cola Canada has given the assignment for its newest target market – mature adults – to Cossette Communication-Marketing of Toronto.

Mature adults, defined as 50-plus, is the fourth lifestage group in Coke’s consumer-driven marketing strategy which began in 1993 with its shift away from brand management to lifestage management.

At that time, the company identified three lifestages and assigned three different agencies to concentrate on those markets and the portfolio of brands relevant to the needs of each group.

Cossette has been working on the adult lifestage, ages 35 to 59, which is split into two subgroups, the user and the principal grocery shopper.

The other Toronto agencies on the business are MacLaren McCann, which has responsibility for the youth group, defined as ages 12 to 19, while the young adult segment, ages 20 to 34, and the Fruitopia brand fruit beverage is with Leo Burnett.

Chris Jordan, director of marketing for Coca-Cola Canada, says, ‘We’ve been doing this [lifestage management] for three years. We regularly reassess its effectiveness and it keeps coming back that this is the best way for us to do business.

‘To make a move like this away from tradition, we’re not doing it just to be different, we’re doing it because it’s working.’

At Cossette, the Coke business is led by Jay Bertram who was recently promoted to vice-president, general manager of the agency.

Bertram says, ‘This is an exciting new way to approach marketing.

‘In a world where everything is driven from the brand out, here’s Coca-Cola who is driving things from the customer out.

‘We’re learning all the time and that’s really going to help everyone in our organization.’

Jordan says the mature market is important because Canada has an aging population, and it’s an affluent population.

Coke’s work on the mature adult segment is still in the early stages and he says there is a lot of ground work to cover before communications enter the picture.

‘You can’t just say `50-plus’ and stop there. You have to really look at what mindset they possess,’ says Jordan.

‘These are people who are well established and at 50 years of age have young attitudes toward life and are very active.

‘They don’t consider themselves to be 50 the same way a generation or two ago might have. They are 50-plus, but attitudinally I would say they are probably the healthiest and most active 50-plus we’ve ever had.’

The first step in the lifestage process which Jordan calls holistic, is to understand the segment’s attitudes, behavior, and then their beverage needs.

For the mature adult, that could include examining where they shop, what products they buy, what Coca-Cola products they consume, whether they have special packaging needs, what activities they’re interested in and whether promotions are relevant.

Jordan expects a wide portfolio of sugared and diet products to be targeted to mature adults including Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, Diet Sprite, Fresca, Minute Maid juices, and Nestea.