Marketing to the Over 50s

The UK’s population is ageing. The over 50s are an economically powerful group of consumers. They own 80% of all financial assets and control half of consumers’ discretionary spending. This workshop provides the knowledge, tools and experience to enable marketers to engage with this most important group of consumers.

'Ten years ago it was the Sixties generation which attracted the attentions of brands. Sales of Harley-Davidsons soared as middle-aged Easy Riders whose kids had left home finally found they had the time and money to live out their fantasies.
Today, popstar Madonna is the poster girl for the new cohort of 50-somethings. Madge enters her fifth decade this August and looks as well toned as when she launched her career in 1982.
So reaching 50 does not have to mean slipping on furry slippers and curling up on the sofa with a cup of warm cocoa. There is life in the 50-pluses yet, and where there is desire and aspiration, you can bet a marketer will be lurking close at hand offering a path to salvation through consumerism.' [http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/home/marketing-to-the-over-50s/2060579.article]


Products with a particular affinity amongst the 50+ age group [example]

FOOD

1. Ice Cream
2. Sweet Biscuits
3. Bread
4. Cakes
5. Frozen Fish
6. Soups
7. Crakers

DRINKS

1. Tea
2. Milk
3. Fresh Coffee
   

FINANCE

1. Life assurance
2. Premium Bonds
3. Unit Trust

HEALTH

1. Vitamins
2. Tends to be overweight

HOLIDAYS

1. Take more holidays
2. Coach trip

Top Media [example]

TV

1. BBC News
2. Heartbeat
3. Natural World
4. Miss Marple
   

PRESS

1. Daily Mail
2. Daily Telegraph
3. You
4. Saga Magazine
5. Birds Magazine
   

RADIO

1. Classical
2. Music from 1950s-60s
3. Folk
4. Easy listening

Top Brands [example]

























There is five groups of people over 50s:

• Home is where the hears it - 3.9m
• You can't take it with you - 5.1m
• It's time to enjoy - 3.2m
• Mind, Body and Soul - 3.8m
• Secure and Sophisticated - 4m

I will describe one of them:

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS: 3.9 m People

• 'Respect for and trust in institutions, including brands'

• 'Security and reliability are important to them'

• 'Limited finances, matched with conversative outlook, mean a sedentary life'

• 'They are driven by a set of rules and principles so follow very structured way of life'

• 64% Female
• 79 retired
• Average age: 71
• 51% are married
• 33% are widowed
• Median household income: £11,500
• They more likely: play bingo, watching television
• They less likely: use the internet, eat at restuarants

Favourite Brands :

1. Today's Over 50s are a larger, more affluent and more dynamic group than any previous generation.
2. Over 50s aren't all the same.

With more than 50% of the UK predicted to be over 50 years old by the year 2020, the growth of the mature market appears to be unrelenting and poses serious questions to us as a nation. [http://www.brandrepublic.com/InDepth/Analysis/636970/Marketing-over-50s---segmentation-key/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH]

A market research says that:

• The over 50s hold 80% of the nation’s wealth
• The 55 to 64s have the highest disposable income of any age group
• The over 50s make up over one third of the population

Memory and Nostalgia

MEMORY

1. The ability to recover information about past events or knowledge
2. The process of recovering information about past events or knowledge.
3. Cognitive reconstruction. The brain engages in a remarkable reshuffling process in an attempt to extract what is general and what is particular about each passing moment.

Memory Process:





RETRIEVAL is a process whereby informations is accessed from long term memory.


NOSTALGIA























Nostalgia has been described as a bitter-sweet emotion, where the past is viewed with both sadness and longing [Solomon, 2000].


What does make me nostalgic?

• Main thing which makes me nostalgic is when I miss someone. :( Here an example is that my family live far away from me and everyday I miss them and I am thinking when I see them.

• Another reason is feeling the sadness when someone who you care about leave you and you still miss him a lot ... :(

When people feel nostalgic their mood change. They are feeling sad all the time. They do not smile, laugh, they avoid contacts with people because they prefer be alone and not to talk about this what makes them feel nostalgic. I think it is important to talk with someone about our problems, to not keep it inside because it won't make feel us better. The same is when people want stay alone. That's wrong! They need someone around and they will feel better for sure. However, they don't believe that. For example me, when I feel sad I want be alone in loud place, even if I know that I should talk with someone and not stay alone but I am so stubborn that I don't want talk with anyone.
People who are nostalgic do not want do anything. If they are doing something, they do it slow. Them tone voice is sad, sounds like they would like to cry. Some people try to hide this because they do not want anyone ask them about their problems, reasons why they are feeling not well.


Using nostalgic music in adverts has some effectivenes at people. 'For marketers, the key is finding the right music and images, which do not even need to directly relate to their products, as long as warm feelings are stirred up. It is the emotion generated from that good feeling that influences people's evaluation of the advertised offer. Recollection provides context and context impacts on how we evaluate things.

Moreover, nostalgia can make us feel that not so much time has passed between then and now, making us feel young(er) again and that we still have a long ways to go and have the time to make it "there." Nostalgia telescopes time and brings it more under our emotional orchestration.' [http://www.warc.com/Blogs/FullBlog.asp?BlogID=1034]

'Nostalgia is becoming the marketing tool of the day - or one of them, at least. Nostalgic adverts can play upon that. Often, we'll be convinced a product we loved as a child was better than it really was. You may not think you are taking much notice, but a successful advertising campaign will have lodged a brand name in your mind, so that at some level it becomes familiar. Then, when you scan rows of products on the supermarket shelves, you are more likely to buy one you recognise. For all these reasons, nostalgia can be a powerful advertising technique.' [http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/1748729.0/#].

Generational Marketing

The method of marketing to a specific generation is affecting the way that we promote and sell products and services. We are all a product of our generation. Each generation have their own characterestics, because of this as a marketing target we can usually categorize by generations by the way that we act and speak as well as our belief systems.

There are four popular generational categories that most marketers tend to focus on.

They include:

1. Millenials or Generation 2001ers, born after 1980
2. Baby Busters or Generation Xers born between 1965 and 1980
3. Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964
4. Mature Citizens born between 1909 and 1945

After this all we had an activity in groups. We had to do presentations about all generations. Here is description of all the generation groups:















Favourite Brands:

- Disney/Hannah Montana
- Harry Potter
- McDonald's
- Nintendo
- Nike
- Cheetos
- M&M
- H&M



Sub-culture:

• 5 to 8 years old
• They start to learn about their feelings
• They start like the opposite sex

Social Trends:

• High interest in stuff with Hannah Montana
• The coolest birthday parties

Favourite Brands:

• Harry Potter
• Twilight
• Bratz Dollz
• Crocs
  

Values:

• Optimistic
• Loyalty to friends
• Emotionally stronger

Sub-culture:

• Creation of slang
  

Self Conception:

• Aspire to be older than they are

Favourite Brands:
Teens have a lot of favourite brands, here are some examples:

• D&G
• Adidas
• Puma
• Vans
• Nivea
• L'Oreal

Value System:
All teenegers girls are unhappy with themselves. They find something in them what they don't like e.g that they are too fat/too skinny. Girls which have straight hair mostly want have curly hair and girls who have curly hair want straight hair...the same is about the colour.






















Favourites Brands:

• McDonalds
• TopShop
• Apple
• Adidas
• Nike
• H&M
• Vauxhall
• Subway
  

Values:

• Education
• Materialistic
• Conforming
• Careers

Personality:

• Alcohol
• Holidays
• Future employment

Favourite brands:

• Sainsbury's
• Marks & Spencer
• Waitrose
• BHS's
  

Value System:

• Single parent
• Equality for women at work

Personality:

• Self-reliant
• Independent
• More women are working
• Better educated than Baby Boomer

Sub-cultures:

• Punk
• Hippies
• Rock and Roll

They’ll remain employed longer, to keep sharp, earn money, and give back. Due to the changing landscape of economics, labor markets, and what’s important to them, we’ll see them right next to Generation X and the Millennials in the workplace for quite some time.

The Baby Boomers generation is the one that feels the most concerned about price. The brand matters much less. The environment, on the contrary, is very important.

Favourite Brands:

• Adidas
• H&M
• Apple
• Volkswagen
• Levi's
• Diesel
  

Favourite Brand:

• Vigor
• Giorgio Armani
• Chilis

To succeed in generation marketing you must understand how the motivation of your consumers correlate with the underlying values of their generation. When you know this you are able to customize your message to cater to the generation when it comes to your products and services. You can then present the message with your products, services, and communication to their needs and desires.

Values

VALUES
- the ideas, customs, institutions, etc. of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard;

- the values may be positive, as cleanliness, freedom or education or negative as cruelty, crime or blasphemy;
(dictionary.com)
- values are our ideas about what is desirable;
(Wilkie)

GOOD:

• Caring
• Loving
• Loyality

WRONG:

• Steal
• Lie
• Cheat
  

KAHLE'S LIST OF VALUES:

1. Self Respect
2. Excitement
3. Being Well Respected
4. Self-fulfilment
5. Sense of accomplishment
6. Warm relationship with others
7. Security
8. Fun & enjoyment
9. Sense of belonging


The activity which we did in our classes was to see how we think other people see us and also who we would like to be perceived.
We had four photos of: lion, parrot, dog and elephant. Each of them had some features.
We had to put the animal in a sequence. I did put them in this way:




Friendly, faithful, loyal, supportive, protective, dependable, reliable, trustful, trusting, solid, keen, hard-working, loving.
[My doggy :P x]











Lively, fun, free-spirited, sociable, amenable, popular, attractive, cheerful, passionate,
spontaneous.










Dominant, fearsome, independent, decisive, proactive, isolated, aloof, leading, critical, objective, detached, focused, fearless.














Tolerant, passive, co-operative, respected, big, strong, controlled, calm, indomitable, revered, wise.



















The animal on first place refers this how we want others to perceive us.
I hope others perceive me like this :P I think it's the way how I am.


The animal on second place refers this how we believe we are actually perceived today by others.
This one completely disagree with me. I don't think so that others perceived me as a sociable, popular, attractive, cheerful, passionate or spontaneous. :P


The animal on third place refers how we would like to be perceived by others in the future.
This one is quite right. :P


The last animal refers how we actually truly want to be.
Yes. This is completely true. However, some of those features match to me right now, e.g calm, tolerant. :)



There're a Time Lines which shows different events which happened while my and my mom life:

My Mom :).
1968 - Polish political crisis
1970 - the first American satellite and Explorer program spacecraft
1997 - Princess Diana dies
2001 - Attack at World Trade Center

Me.
1997 - Princess Diana dies
2001 - Attack at World Trade Center
2004 - Accession of Poland to the European Union


It shows how all those things happened with society, how everything changed and looked quite different than now.

Laddering Techniques:

- Laddering is a method that helps you elicit the higher or lower level abstractions of the concepts that people use to organize thei world;
- Products become a means to achieving these end states;
- People have specific terminal values and choose among alternative actions to achieve these end states;
















Here is my example:

VALS test:
- The purpose of the VALS survey is to identify the VALS type of the person taking the survey


here are my results:
Stiver/Believer



















Stiver:


Strivers are trendy and fun loving. Because they are motivated by achievement, Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for Strivers, who don't have enough of it to meet their desires. They favor stylish products that emulate the purchases of people with greater material wealth. Many Strivers see themselves as having a job rather than a career, and a lack of skills and focus often prevents them from moving ahead.
Strivers are active consumers because shopping is both a social activity and an opportunity to demonstrate to peers their ability to buy. As consumers, they are as impulsive as their financial circumstance will allow.

Believers:
Like Thinkers, Believers are motivated by ideals. They are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional, established codes: family, religion, community, and the nation. Many Believers express moral codes that have deep roots and literal interpretation. They follow established routines, organized in large part around home, family, community, and social or religious organizations to which they belong.
As consumers, Believers are predictable; they choose familiar products and established brands. They favor U.S. products and are generally loyal customers.





Ahhh....Why when i publish blog..it makes me empty spaceee =(

Group Behaviour

What does 'group' mean?

A group is two or more people who:

-> e.g. they have to co-operate, there we can see how people behave being/working in a team

-> they share a set of norms

-> they have role relationships

-> they have experience interdependent behaviours

* Groups are often capable of producing higher quality work and better decisions than can an individual working alone.
* Group can be more willing to take on large project than an individual.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Need

Maslow's Hierarchy of Need mostly is presented as a pyramid. Levels on the bottom are considered as basic needs while the needs which are on top of the pyramid are more complex needs.

* Physiological Needs:

This stage include the most basic needs like:

-> food

-> water

-> warm

-> sleeping

-> clothing

-> breathing








Maslow believed that these needs are the mosst basic in the hierarchy.

* Safety Needs:

These include needs for security and safety like:


-> health

-> employment

-> property

-> family

-> social stability







* Belongingness & Love Needs

These include needs for love and affection:







-> family

-> sense of connection

-> intimacy

-> friendship









* Esteem Needs

These include the need for thing that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth and social recognition:





-> respect of others

-> the need to be a unique individual

-> achievement

-> confidence












* Self - Actualization

This is the highest level on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There are needs like:


-> morality

-> creativity

-> acceptance

-> experience purpose

-> spontaneity

Marketers and advertisers use 'belonging' as a pivotal message in ad campaigns.
Here are an example of that kind of ad:

GROUP TYPES:
There are 8 different types of group

SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY
- this is a theory initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger, in 1954;

- this theory explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and desires by comparing themselves to others;

- consumers are selective about whom they use for benchmarks;


Group behaviour depends on your perceptions.

- perceptions influence human behaviour in a variety of ways;
- different people will have different perceptions;

Solomon Asch became famous in the 1950s, following experiments which showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect. Here is presented the experiment:

"This experiment was conducted using 123 male participants. Each participant was put into a group with 5 to 7 “confederates” (People who knew the true aims of the experiment, but were introduced as participants to the naive “real” participant). The participants were shown a card with a line on it, followed by another card with 3 lines on it labeled a, b, and c. The participants were then asked to say which line matched the line on the first card in length. Each line question was called a “trial”. The “real” participant answered last or penultimately. For the first two trials, the subject would feel at ease in the experiment, as he and the other “participants” gave the obvious, correct answer. On the third trial, the confederates would start all giving the same wrong answer. There were 18 trials in total and the confederates answered incorrectly for 12 of them, these 12 were known as the “critical trials”. The aim was to see whether the real participant would change his answer and respond in the same way as the confederates, despite it being the wrong answer.

Solomon Asch thought that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong, but the results showed that participants conformed to the majority on 37% of the critical trials. However, 25% of the participants did not conform on any trial. 75% conformed at least once, and 5% conformed every time. "