Greenbee – a really smart idea

You can design products and services to be overtly or covertly appealing to the 50-plus. You had better be sure of yourself if you take the overt approach since you can just as easily alienate your customers who don’t want to be associated with an ‘old’ product.

The John Lewis Partnership has taken the covert approach and designed a Web site (Greenbee) and associated services that are custom made for the 50-plus and most other ages as well. After a couple of iterations I think their web site is one of the best examples of a 50-plus friendly site that I know.

When you look at the articles for download you get a feel of the target audience (Fabulous at 47 The age when Hollywood tends to drop female stars, Emma Thompson is at the height of her powers...)

Companies like Saga and Heyday could learn a lot of lessons from Greenbee. Dick Stroud