Gen squander?

As a start-up trying to gain traction in a market where the value opportunity is not clear to all, it sometimes helps to draw upon 'soundbites' from leading institutions to help make your point.

So, I'm unashamedly going to reference the Stanford Center on Longevity. Their view is US centric, so the value statistics may not be comparable to the UK market, but the principles are bang on.

The 'older audience' - we will come back to the lingua franca - are according to the Stanford Center on Longevity "often still lumped together by marketers, media and policymakers into a monolith assumed to represent a drain on society rather than an enormous untapped source of human capital." They go on to say that "changing the trajectory and costs associated with ageing will prove many current assumptions outdated".

Now I don't know about you..but my sense is that as marketers we have the collective capabilities to be more fleet of foot than our friends in the media and policymaking. We can identify the trajectory, look at investment versus returns, challenge assumptions, introduce new technologies. What's holding us back? Are we playing all the right notes, but just not in the right order?

Well, according to Humbug proprietary data 49% of the 'older audience' say providers of the products and services they buy /consider buying, irritate them with their marketing/ advertising. So, yeah there is clearly a challenge and it's going to take a little more than window dressing to fix it. A deeper understanding of how key life events influence behaviour (lots to share on that), a re-think of how you engage - from personalised pricing and ads to personalised service. The recognition is more likely to reap the reward.

Now you'll have spotted that I haven't yet referred to the 'grey market' or 'Boomers' etc. as these terms are too broad and not helping the cause. To be open, at Humbug we were guilty of using the term 'Boomers' to support our 'why'. But we've simplified this to 'the affluent generation' (you know the ones with 50% of UK wealth). It's based on tangible facts and we like tangible stuff.

Well, to be fair we've spent 18 months (supported by funding from Innovate UK) building a formidable evidence base on the subject: three proprietary research papers, two unique segmentation tools (Ozzy. The Power of 9 and Cresta Run Key Life Event mapping), plus our whizzo workshop solution the Real Deal.  All focused on how to engage the 61–80 year old more effectively. We see an untapped source of enormous value, we're helping open minded marketers to play all the right notes in the right order.