Mature Market Stat of The Day: Advertising

Boomer / Senior / Mature Market Stat of the Day – I recently attended AARP’s Life @50, National Event and Expo in Washington, DC (Sept. 4-6). As I toured the expo, I was struck by how few marketers actually understand the audience they are trying to reach. Perhaps the funniest example of this was the AARP’s expo brochure and map. The map, which was supposed to identify where the different company booth locations were, was printed so small that not even Superman with his superhuman powers could have read it. Unbelievable. I can’t tell you how many people asked me if I could read it (I couldn’t and I have better than 20/20 vision).

 

“People over the age of 50 account for half of all the discretionary spending in the U.S., and they are voracious cultural consumers. They watch more television, go to more movies, and buy more CDs than young people do. Yet, Americans over 50 are the focus of less than 10% of the advertising. In short, the romanticization of youth persists.”

 

Source: Glenn Ruffenach, Why Gerontologists Should Join Forces with the Business Community, 2005

I suspect most of these errors happen not because people/companies/ad agencies are lazy or stupid, but rather they don’t know what they should be looking for. Also, the larger the company, the more likely it is that implementation is developed further down the line (usually by a 25-year old designer who can’t be expected to think like a 50-year old).

 

People, do your company a favor and make sure that a 50+ year-old is reviewing your marketing materials (or hire an outside consultant who specializes in the mature market to act as your eyes and ears).

Mature Market Experts: Reminder AARP Convention Expo

Mature Market Experts, just a friendly reminder that I hope to see you tomorrow (Thursday). I’ll be at the AARP Convention Expo at the GRAND Magazine booth.

Looking forward to seeing you,

Tom

Managing Partner, TR Mann Consulting

I Hope To See You There . . .

Mature Market Experts,

Two worthwhile events coming up:

1.      AARP’s Life @50, National Event and Expo in Washington, DC (Sept. 4-6)

2.      The North American Mature Publishers Association (NAMPA) Annual Convention in St. Louis (November 8-10)

I will definitely be at the AARP event, where I’ll be helping out one of my clients, GRAND Magazine. I’ll be at GRAND’s expo booth all day Thursday, and then I’ll be at the booth off and on through the rest of the week (the rest of the time I’ll be exploring the conference). Please stop by and see me, I’d love to meet as many of you as possible.

I’m still trying to work in to my schedule the NAMPA conference which I know will be great. NAMPA’s president is Stuart Rosenthal, owner of The Beacon in Washington and Baltimore. Aside from being a great guy, Stuart is one of the smartest newspaper publishers I have ever met. If you are even remotely connected to the senior publishing industry, this is a must attend event.

I hope to see you next week,

Tom