Growth in ‘ethnic minorities’ an effect of ageing

An article in Adage - A Primer on the New America for CMOs – contains a fascinating factlet.

80% of people age 65-plus is white non-Hispanics. But just 54% of children under age 18 will be white non-Hispanics. It looks almost certain that White non-Hispanics will account for fewer than half of births by 2015. In 2010, Hispanics are the US’s fastest-growing and largest minority (50 million people).

Only two in three babies born in England and Wales are white British.

If you add geodemographics to the mix you find that England, and I am sure the US, is a patchwork of high density ethnic minority/younger and white/older geographic areas.

The bottom line of this is that when marketers think about the differences in their approach to marketing to older and younger people they should also include the ethnicity factor. It means that older age group is more homogenous then the young. Now that is a sentence I never thought I would be writing. Dick Stroud

Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in

The ‘they’ in this case is the recession. Data from Pew Research shows the impact of the recession on the young people and especially where they live (back home).

Just get your head around this fact: “13% of parents with grown children say one of their adult sons or daughters has moved back home in the past year.” That is a big change in the dynamics of the household and they way it operates and purchases.

Overall, the proportion of adults ages 18 to 29 who live alone declined from 7.9% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2009. Similar drops in the proportion of young people who live by themselves occurred during or immediately after the recessions of 1982 and 2001.

The current decline has been particularly steep among young women; the proportion who live by themselves fell by a full percentage point to 6.1%. Among young men, the share living on their own fell 0.2 percentage points to 8.4%, a statistically insignificant change.

While the recession has touched Americans of all ages, it has been particularly hard on young adults. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a smaller share of 16- to 24-year-olds are currently employed—46.1%—than at any time since the government began collecting such data in 1948.

That’s terrible, but putting the social implications to one side, marketers must understand the implications on the priorities they give to the generations. Yoof seems to me to be going down the list. Dick Stroud

Where do the 65+ go online

The secret is out. Most of them go nowhere and the rest go to just about the same place as you and me.

According to the NielsenWire Online, in the US the 65+ still make up less than 10% of the active Internet universe, although in the last five years their number has increased by more than 55%. Interestingly, the increase of women online has outpaced the growth of men by 6%.


Time spent on the Internet by increased 11% and now stands at over 58 hours per week in 2009.

The research director, at Nielsen's online notes that: "The over 65 crowd represents about 13% of the total population and... they're engaged in many of the same activities that dominate other age segments - e-mail, sharing photos, social networking, checking out the latest news and weather... (in addition) a good percentage of them are spending time with age-appropriate pursuits such as leisure travel, personal health care and financial concerns."

The next time somebody asks you the question you have the answer. Dick Stroud

The reality of the ageing population

Drinking a cup of coffee (well that is what I ordered) I gazed around me and thought - crikey this is what the ageing population is all about. When I am speaking about the implications of the old outnumbering the young people it easy to forget the mundane like this scene where your fellow coffee drinkers are all 60-plus except of a single child and its mother. Welcome to ageing Britain. Dick Stroud

ContinuumCrew Webinar

Lori Bitter is the President/CEO at ContinuumCrew, an agency that was born from the closure of JWT BOOM. Prior to running JWT’s specialist agency, she was in charge of client services at Age Wave Impact. As you can see, Lori knows a thing or two about marketing to older consumers. If you visit her blog you can download a Webinar that was presented last week as part of IMMN’s series of marketing events.

It is a while since I visited IMMN’s Web site and was amused to see that it has adopted aquatic imagery. Anybody who regularly reads this blog will know I am fascinated why organisations involed with older people are obsessed with water and it looks like IMMN is no exception.

I digress from the main point of this posting. Lori’s Webinar contains some terrific research. There are so many interesting themes that it far best if you read the results yourself. One item that stood out for me was how the multiple sources of stress vary by age. Look how high the fear of “losing my job” is for all but the oldest age group.

Well done ContinuumCrew in adding to our understanding of the American older person. Dick Stroud

Predicting the economic health of geographic areas

Marketers spend a lot of their time trying to be smarter than their competitors by being better at predicting the future. My experience has been that there are lots of small crumbs of information about and if you spend the time looking you can add them together to increase your odds of guessing right.

Here is an example of what I mean. The graphic shows the contribution to local economic growth between 1997-2006 (%) of public, rather than private sector expenditure. The one thing we know for absolute certainty is that in the next decade public sector spend will be slashed.

The geographic areas that owe their economic existence to the public purse are going to be really badly hit. If I was looking at the map of the UK for places to make my marketing bets it would be those with the least threat from spending cuts. Of course there are lots of other factors to take into account, like population density, but in the eye of the blind the one eyed man is king. Better one, hazy eye, than none at all. Dick Stroud

Japan’s “parasite singles” flat line spend is causing problems

I am glad it is not just the older consumers who are given strange and in the case of Japan's “parasite singles”, a most unpleasant name.

Today’s FT has an article about this group who are defined as being unmarried women and men in their 20s and early 30s living with their parents with, up until now, lots of dosh to spend on themselves.

Nearly half of Japan's single men and women between the age of 20 and 34 live at home.

Not only are the demographics conspiring to reduce the spend of this group, their absolute numbers declined 5% in the past year, but also they are losing the yen to spend as a result of Japan’s endless period of economic stagnation.

The result of this that sales of those highly priced European-made handbags, shoes and watches are tumbling. Of course none of this should come as a shock for those Japanese marketers who understand basic economics and demographics. Dick Stroud

Revenge of disco dad

An amusing article in today’s Marketing about the search for authenticity meaning that parents, rather than celebrities, have become the heroes of Generation Y.

The “Damn right your Dad drank it” ad campaign for Canadian Club whisky is quoted as supporting this hypothesis.

I don’t know if I buy this argument about a new found affinity and respect between the generations. In support of the argument, the author quotes research from the World Values Survey that is said to show changes in personal values within generations with today’s parents being far more flexible in the way their value system changes.

I think a more convincing argument is that the values of youth (i.e. fun, creativity, individuality, etc) are shared with the wider adult culture.

There is a profound set of implications if these arguments are correct. It means that Gen Y is attracted to brands and products that have a strong sense of ‘realness’ or authenticity which means that old things, original things, or things that just have a very well defined sense of self.

In many ways authenticity has become the new cool and parents are proving to be about as authentic as it gets. Does this mean the generation gap has narrowed or indeed closed?
I don’t think so, however, it is food for thought. Dick Stroud

H1N1 Vaccine: A Generation Gap?

Being vaccinated against Swine Flu is a good idea? Your answer to the question appears to be governed by when you were born.

A fascinating article in Media Post suggests that in the US there is a distinct generational divide with older people getting the jab whilst their kids rejecting the offer. Another article appeared in the New York Times.

The argument put forward for this age divide is that older people were brought up with having their arms pricked against all sorts of nasties (e.g. polio, diphtheria) whilst for the younger generation it is a new thing. The other explanation proposed is that older people have first hand experience of the results of epidemics whilst younger people have only read about them, or more likely, listened to a podcast.

I would add another reason for the difference. Younger people have been brought up in an era when the story of a person suffering side effects, or worse dying, following a jab, is national news in a matter of hours. This situated occurred in the UK, with most of the population unaware that within a week the real explanation for the death was revealed as having nothing to do with the jab – the damage was done.

Why on earth is this of any interest to marketers, other than on a personal basis?

This is what the author of the article says:

But, this generational divide has also exposed a marketing misstep that has broader implications for all marketers. Public health officials neglected to take these different generational experiences into consideration when developing their marketing communication efforts. Had they done so, they might have been more effective in encouraging younger parents to inoculate their children.

It's a lesson all marketers should heed -- whether they are marketing health care, financial services or consumer products. Generational first-hand experiences drive attitudes, beliefs and purchase decisions.

Beware, don’t take this generation differences stuff too far, but in this case I think it is a pretty good explanation. It would be fascinating to know what the situation is in the UK. Anybody out there with an answer? Dick Stroud

Kim Walker on CNBC Asia

You have got 3-5 mins interview on CNBC Asia to talk about the importance of older consumers.

Where do you start? This morning I was talking with Kim Walker about his recent appearance on the show.

The one place he didn’t think the interview was going to start was the question: “So what are your top tips.” It is a bit like having somebody talking about the implications of the worldwide recession and asking them: “what are you top tips.”

Once Kim got over his shock at the question I reckon he did really well and communicated a lot of good messages at breakneck speed. Dick Stroud

A brilliant interactive age map of the UK

Just look at how the age of the UK will change in the coming couple of decades.

The map shows the change in distribution of people aged 65+. The tool enables you to look at different timeframes, age groups and types of statistics.

You must go and have a look at this tool. Thanks to Dean Crow for telling me about it. Dick Stroud

And so say all of us

The FT has an article about the blindingly obvious – lifestyle and lifestage trumps age.

Hopefully, when this statement of fact appears in the FT more people will take notice.

Commercially, businesses need to get much smarter about how demand within age groups will vary according to the life stages people have reached. Treating all 18-34-year-olds, or all over-50s, as the same makes little sense. The downturn has exposed this sort of lazy thinking.

There are big prizes to be won by companies that lose the fixation on date of birth and instead focus on what people want and need now.

If you have an FT subscription you can read it here. Dick Stroud

US politics breaks along demographics lines

Views about how members of Congress should vote on the forthcoming Healthcare Reform Bill provide a fascinating insight into how the attitudes of Americans divide along demographic lines.

This research from Gallup shows a big division by gender, income and age.

I wonder how the marketers in the Obama’s team are going to tackle this one. If they are not careful they are going to be left with their support only coming from young poor females.

It is difficult to know if these results are specific to healthcare or show a more generalised trend in the American electorate. Dick Stroud

Research about age and the US auto industry

The future of Detroit's automakers, even if they survive the current recession, looks grim.

Cohort analysis of 24 years of US consumer household data suggests that the younger the head of the household, the more likely it is that the household automotive fleet includes foreign automakers' vehicles. Furthermore, preferences for foreign vehicles increase slightly as heads of households age.

The demographic threat to Detroit's automakers is a serious piece of research by a group of guys with a wealth of understanding of the US auto industry. A really impressive academic paper., Dick Stroud

Tech advice for living to 100 and enjoying life when you get there

A good item in the Aging in Place Technology Watch blog. This posting references the Evercare 100@100 Survey that takes an anecdotal look at today’s centenarians and provides a snapshot of the lives and lifestyles of those who achieve and surpass the100-year-old milestone.

I must register the domain 50plus50. Dick Stroud

Teens Don't Tweet... Or Do They?

danah boyd is a very smart lady. This is her excellent blog about the dodgy statistics that are used to support the statement that “Teens don’t Tweet”.

It is worth reading because it illustrates what happens when somebody with a highly logical and bright mind dissects the statistics that are churned out by the research agencies.

What really amused me was one of the faults she found in the use of age ranges that don’t relate to the target group. In this case, conclusions are made about the uptake of Twitter in the age range 0-24. As she points out, this age range doesn’t equate to ‘teens’. It is exactly the same as when companies draw some conclusion about Internet use by people in the age range 55-70. A totally meaningless age range that just happens to be convenient for their research process.

A really well written blog. Dick Stroud

Where goeth Japan - the UK is likely to follow

Japan has a “respect for the aged” day (not something you are likely to find in the UK). To mark this occasion the government gives each citizen, who turned 100 in the previous year, a silver sake cup – that’s about 200,000 people.

This year things have changed and instead of the sake cup having 94g of silver it has been reduced to 63g. Japan is experiencing hard times and the old are not immune.

I guess the equivalent in the UK is sending the centenarian a postcard from Gordon Brown when they were expecting a letter from the queen.

The article goes on to detail the issues facing Japan as its population ages, combined with the country’s enormous budget deficit. A situation that is exactly the same as the UK faces in the coming years.

I am not sure if you can still access the article (the FT is a subscription service) but it is well written and gives you a real feel of life will be like in the UK in the coming decade.

This is the first of a series of FT insights into Japan’s ageing population and how the country is reacting. Dick Stroud

Deprivation makes a big difference

This is a great example of the fallacy of talking about ‘averages’.

In the UK the disability-free life expectancy, for a man aged 65, in the least deprived living conditions, is just under twice that of his peer living in the most deprived conditions. The difference for women is slightly smaller.

The healthy life expectancy for a man in the most deprived conditions is 35% less than for one in most affluent. Significant differences.

This data is for 2001. From what I can see the gap has not narrowed, if anything it is wider.

If this sort of stuff interests you then go to the ONS web site and download this document
Dick Stroud

All you ever wanted to know (and more) about population ageing

This is a monster of a report (200 pages plus – 12 Mb) called An Aging World: 2008 from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Definitely a reference guide you should download to your online library.

The above chart shows how Japan is leading the way as the world’s oldest country. Dick Stroud

Get out of marketing before 2021

If you believe Nielsen’s analysis, and I do, the combination of the ageing population, slowing birth rate and increasing ethnic diversity will change the face and buying patterns of consumers in the US.

2020 is a long way away and a lot can happen, between now and then, but these three developments are already occurring.

I wonder how many marketers, especially those involved in making decisions about long term capital spending projects (like hotels) are ensuring that they are future proofed for this coming tsunami? Not many I would think. This is a good article. Definitely worth reading and doing something about. Dick Stroud

Generation Jones – revisited

Back in 2006 I wrote an article about a Generation Jones – people born between 1954 and 1965.

I thought it was about time I had a look to see what, if anything has changed and what more, if anything, we know about this bunch.

Like all of the other groupings, the dates are arbitrarily specified.

For those of you who have mislaid your calculator, that makes them aged between 44 and 55.

If you want to annoy a GenJoneser then refer to them as a Boomer (now aged 45-63). It has the same effect as mistaking a Canadian for an American. They get really grumpy.

They get even grumpier if you think they are called Jones after Tom Jones or Zeta Jones or Indiana Jones. Apparently, it is because they feel they are the anonymous generation and wanted a matching nondescript name.

They may feel anonymous but they make a lot of noise. There are multiple web sites telling their story – this is probably the best.

In writing this article I stumbled upon the research study, that has been undertaken in the US, since the 1960s, that looks at the attitudes of freshman entering college. It reveals some fascinating insights into generational differences. Have I whetted your appetite? Come on; download the article, it is free, what have you got to lose? Dick Stroud

Wealthy elderly turn backs on seaside havens

Richard Webber wrote the section of my book that dealt with geodemographics. He was the man behind the development of Experian’s Mosaic segmentation database. Want to know anything about geodemographics then ask Richard.

This Sunday he is quoted in an article in the Observer about the development of new segmentation categories for the older age groups.

For decades, many of Britain's coastal towns have been synonymous with retirement. But according to an analysis of demographic data, many of today's wealthier pensioners are turning their backs on traditional retirement destinations and moving into upmarket towns and cities in some of the UK's most sought-after inland locations - such as in the Cotswolds, and parts of Hampshire and Kent.

As a result, Experian has identified five new types of retiree.

Beachcombers
This group reflects the growing trend for the middle-class retired to select smaller communities, many on the coast or a river, rather than larger resorts. Popular destinations: Barnstaple, Newport (Isle of Wight), Carmarthen, Inverness, Kendal, Newton Abbot.

Balcony downsizers
Higher-status retired people in their 70s and 80s, who live in privately owned or leasehold apartments in purpose-built blocks of flats suitable for those too fragile to cope with the upkeep of houses and gardens. Popular destinations: Worthing, Boscombe, Edinburgh, Southend-on-Sea, Barnet, Kingston upon Thames.

Golden retirement
People with accumulated assets, who pick prestigious retirement communities. They lead busy social lives, drive and garden. Popular destinations: Exeter, Southampton, Poole, Chichester, Norwich, Canterbury and Ipswich.

Bungalow quietude
Retirees with modest pensions, living in older-style bungalows, often in less well-off areas unattractive to younger families. Popular destinations: Blackpool, Rhyl, Scarborough, Plymouth, Nottingham, Peterborough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Lincoln, Leicester.

Country-loving elders
People on comfortable incomes living in former farms or older-style properties in quiet villages and market towns. Popular destinations: Truro, King's Lynn, Hereford, Carlisle, Shrewsbury.

Interesting stuff. Dick Stroud

Differences in the income distribution between men and women of different ages

These charts are taken from 2006/2007 data published by the UK’s Inland Revenue.

A few observations (some blindingly obvious):

• How much lower the mean and median of women’s income is to that of men
• For the age range 30 – 54, women’s income is almost constant
• The substantial differences between mean and median, especially for men, that illustrates there are a hell of a lot of lower paid people that brings down the average.
• The median income of men aged 65+ is about half of that of those aged 45-49. Note there is nothing like the same fall in the level of women’s income.

Fascinating stuff. I will next publish some musings about the distribution of wealth. Dick Stroud

New Mosaic classifications

Experian has rebuilt and updated its consumer classification Mosaic UK with a range of additional data sources.

This is what Experian says about its changes for the 50-plus.

The new version of Mosaic improves understanding of older people by making a distinction between the increasingly active nature of early retirement years (with the commercial opportunities this presents) and the latter years requiring more health and social care.

It identifies a move away from the traditional south coast retirement towns with many more affluent retirees (dubbed County Loving Elders) moving inland to historical and cultural towns and others (Beachcombers) seeking exclusive seaside villages and expensive holiday destinations.

I want to get more details about these changes but navigating the Experian web site is like playing Level 99 on some devious Nintendo mind trainer. Maybe Experian thinks that it is providing a public service by making its web site as difficult as possible to use. Dick Stroud

Ageing China an opportunity and a potential disaster

All good marketers should understand global demographics. I am sure it is not something that is taught but it should be.

Here is a factlet that everybody should know - by 2030 China will have a higher proportion of its population who are 60+ than the US.

This weekend two excellent articles about this subject were published. You should read them both. If you only have a few minutes make sure it is the one from the LA Times. Here is the other one.

I love this quote: “China may be the first major country to grow old before it grows rich.”

"So what" I hear you ask. Well China has only a couple of decades to find a solution to its ageing problem. I suspect it will be far more fleet of foot about it than Europe and the US.

For Western companies that understand something about ageing and the associated services and products this is a terrific opportunity. But, just imagine that China puts its industrial muscle to work? Just imagine the flow of cheap ageing products into Western markets. Watch out Stannah Stairlifts! Dick Stroud

Don’t forget older men in your marketing plans

The arguments/examples in this article are from the US but I reckon the argument holds true for the UK.

I am as guilty as anybody in telling my clients that it is all about targeting the older woman not men. Maybe I have been overdoing things a bit.

According to this article 40% of men over the age of 50 said they are not feeling increased stress because of the economy, compared with 30% of women in the same age group. In addition, Baby Boomer men are taking on more family shopping roles and are more likely to buy brand-name products.

The survey found that about one-third of Baby Boomer males are the main household grocery shopper, up from 20% ten years ago. While in the store, about half (46%) of these men are willing to purchase brand names over store brands, compared with about 26% of women.

I am a sure this change in behaviour has a big divide between the young-old and the old-old and also by socio economic group so the results need to be read with caution. Dick Stroud

The biggest Ponzi scheme of all time

There’s lots of stuff being published about Madoff and how his Ponzi scheme was the biggest of all time. He might have burnt through 20 Billion, some say 50 Billion, whatever, it's a big number.

Compared with the UK Government, Madoff hadn’t got past page one of the Idiots Guide to Ponzi schemes. He was an amateur, not even worth a footnote in the history of Ponzis.

The article in the Sunday Times by Dominic Lawson spells out the unbelievable mess the UK is in because of the ageing population and the unwillingness of the Government to have done anything about its consequences other than make matters a hell of lot worse.

Mr Lawson quotes a European Commission report, about The Sustainability of Public Finances, dated 2006 (yes 2006) that said:

The United Kingdom has been placed in excessive deficit procedure and the European Council has recommended that the United Kingdom bring the deficit below 3 % of GDP by the financial year 2006/07 at the latest.

As a result of the weak fiscal position in recent years, the debt/GDP ratio has risen by around 5 % of GDP in three years, to 42.8 % of GDP in 2005 (42 % for the financial year 2005/06).

Do you know what the debt/GDP ratio is now? Come on have a guess. You won’t believe it? Trust me it is a big, big number. OK, double the figure in 2005 and add a bit (87%).

Lawson goes on to say that the IMF says that the

Fiscal headache of the credit crunch is as nothing to the migraine which, absent a change in policies, is about to pulverise us: it states that in the period between now (yes, that is 2009) and the middle of the century, the fiscal impact of the credit crunch will be about a tenth of that caused by the demographic crunch.

Let me spell this out for you. The Ponzi scheme we have been living through over the past couple of decades, but especially since the mid 1990s, has been paying Jo Public a ridiculously large amount compared with the money contributed.

Everybody has been living in Alice in Wonderland. The Government was able to position itself as the wise investor and manager of the nation’s wealth and Jo Public has done pretty well with zillions of new jobs created in the Public Sector and a continuous stream of initiatives, interventions, and policies to make everybody feel happy.

It was all a sham. Just as the credit crunch caused Madoff's scheme to collapsed so it has with UK New Labour Ltd. The scheme is collapsing in front of our eyes and guess who is going to pick up the tab. Jo Public, Jo Public’s kids and their kids. What a mess.

Marketers need to start preparing for how the will exist and thrive in a low growth, austere economy. Better start today. Dick Stroud

The Economist survey on ageing.

I reckon The Economist is fantastic value for money.

Each week, in one publication, you get a distilled summary and interpretation of the important things that are happening in the world – all for the princely sum of £100/year.

OK, advert over.

This week’s edition has a special survey on the ageing of the world’s population. I have had a quick scan at the online version and it looks great. Definitely worth purchasing.

In its section about selling to the older demographic it perfectly summed up the situation.

The hardest thing about selling to older people is that they are such a heterogeneous group. Someone in his 70s may be in frail health and living in an old folks’ home; or he may be running for president of the United States, as John McCain did last year. There are many shades of grey.

You can say that again. Isn’t it a terrific photo on the cover? Dick Stroud

50-plus less likely to lose their job during the recession

Thanks to Rick Hartley for telling me about this factlet. A few days back I wrote about the: “Resilience of employment amongst the 50-plus.”

In the UK it appears that the young are having a worse time of things, as far as remaining employed during the recession, than the 50-plus. Getting employed again, having lost a job, might be a very different issue.

The US appears to be following the same course as is demonstrated by this fact

The only segment of the population that is gaining jobs is the 55+ age category. This group gained 224,000 net new jobs in May while the rest of the population lost 661,000. In fact, over the last year, those folks 55 and up garnered 630,000 jobs whereas the other age categories collectively lost over six million positions.

"Moreover, the number of 55 year olds and up who have two jobs or more has risen 1.1% in the last year, the only age cohort to have managed to gain any multiple jobs at all.

I have no idea why this is happening but it is a very important issue for marketers who are trying to understand the result of the recession on their customer base.

It would seem that we can add to the usual list of reasons why the 50-plus are an important group the fact that they are more likely to remain employed. Dick Stroud

The Bookends Generations

Marketers instinctively look for the unique characteristics of individual consumer groups/segments to be able to tailor an offering and the communications to resonate with their special needs/requirements.

Many of the questions I get asked about the 50-plus focus on how they differ from other age groups. When I say: “in many ways they have similar attitudes to other age groups” I can see the look of disappointment and then the suspicion that guy doesn’t know what he is talking about.

A few marketing and Internet gurus have made it their life work to research and (dare I say) emphasise the difference between Generation Y and their parents and grandparents. A lot of the arguments are built upon Gen Y's supposed instinctive understanding of ‘technology’ that has somehow become part of their DNA. Like all of these arguments it is based on a grain of truth – the question is: “how significant of these differences.” More importantly, what is the magnitude of the differences compared to other factors like race, wealth and education.

There are a couple of studies that conclude that the Boomers and Gen Y have a lot more in common than is generally believed.

The Bookend Generations published this week by the US-based Center for Work-Life Policy and is about the US.

The Reflexive Generation is a report from the London Business School's Centre for Women in Business and is about the UK.

The LBS study is free. The Bookend Generations is $40.

Once I have read them both I will write again on this subject in detail.

An article that summaries and merges the two sets of findings appeared in Friday's FT.

It is nice to know that there are few other people who also question the extent of the generational differences. Dick Stroud

Who is having the best recession – the young or the old?

OK, the recession is a nasty thing, we are all agreed upon that fact.
Who's having it the worst - the old or the young?

It is the job of pressure/campaigning groups to paint their members as the people suffering the most pain, but what are the facts?

Look no further and download this brilliant document from the ONS. The answer seems to be that young are the ones who are really suffering. A few factlets.

• Employment rates for people over state pension age continued to rise, driven by increasing employment rates for women: over the year to March 2009, rates for women aged 60 and increased by 0.5%.
• Young people have experienced the largest percentage point increase in unemployment rates compared with other age groups: in the year to March 2009, unemployment rates for 18-24 year olds increased by just under 4% to 16.1%.
• Claimant proportions have increased for all age groups but young people were still the most likely to be claiming Jobseekers Allowance: in March 2009 (7.6%).
• Redundancy rates for young people have increased more than for older age groups: in the three months to March 2009, the rate for 16-24 year olds was 12.7% higher than the previous year compared to a rise of 7.6% for 25-34 year olds.

Looks like life might be getting tougher for brand managers relying on the Yoof Market . Dick Stroud

Recession and ageing population debt

The vast bulk of marketers are not taught (or incentivised) to think strategically. Strategy is the time when this year’s marketing comms budget finishes.

For those marketers who are still employed, which is the large majority, the recession is feeling a bit like a bad hangover that went on longer than normal but is beginning to feel like history. Ahhh

The lead article in this week’s Economist is all about the world of tomorrow that is dominated by debt. I will not do the magazine a disservice by attempting to summarise its arguments. Here are the first 200 words of the editorial.

Marketers had better start thinking about the implications of working in Debtland. Dick Stroud.

The worst global economic storm since the 1930s may be beginning to clear, but another cloud already looms on the financial horizon: massive public debt. Across the rich world governments are borrowing vast amounts as the recession reduces tax revenue and spending mounts—on bail-outs, unemployment benefits and stimulus plans.

New figures from economists at the IMF suggest that the public debt of the ten leading rich countries will rise from 78% of GDP in 2007 to 114% by 2014. These governments will then owe around $50,000 for every one of their citizens.

Not since the second world war have so many governments borrowed so much so quickly or, collectively, been so heavily in hock. And today’s debt surge, unlike the wartime one, will not be temporary. Even after the recession ends few rich countries will be running budgets tight enough to stop their debt from rising further. Worse, today’s borrowing binge is taking place just before a slow-motion budget-bust caused by the pension and health-care costs of a greying population.

By 2050 a third of the rich world’s population will be over 60. The demographic bill is likely to be ten times bigger than the fiscal cost of the financial crisis.

The Economist June 13th 2009.

How the Australians use digital channels

Many thanks to Gill Walker for sending me details of two reports about the use of the Internet in Australia.

If there are any questions you ever had about how Australians use digital channels then you will find the answers here. Loads of stuff about the age demographics of digital uptake. Dick Stroud

Retirement at the Tipping Point

This report has been produced by Age Wave with research from Harris Interactive.

Well worth reading since it provides interesting contrasts as to how the recession has affected different generations - as shown in this example.

So there you are Mr & Mrs or Ms Boomer and you find that it will take 6.3 years to replace you net wealth because of losses on the stock market. How do you feel about that?

OK, it will take your Millennial friends and relations a bit longer but then they have time on their side.

I guess you can take some comfort that you are not one of the Silent Generation (dreadful name) who have even less time than you. You can argue with the report’s methodology but it does provide a lot of interesting ideas about the recessionary effects on the US consumer. Dick Stroud

Twitter demographics

This is a good summary of Twitter demographics amongst older age groups. Also, you might want to have a look at this presentation that includes a session from the guy at Twitter who is responsible for business applications.Dick Stroud

Winners and losers from the recession

Sometime in the future, when the recession seems like a bad dream, which countries do you reckon will be the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ from these uncertain times?

The latest poll of senior executives, published by McKinsey, doesn’t leave much room to doubt. Looks like the soon to be fastest ageing country on the planet, China, will be where it is at - India not being far behind. Looks like bad news for the US. Dick Stroud

Baby Boomer is not a universal term

This is a very interesting blog posting by Des Walsh about the usefulness of the term “Baby Boomer” or any of the other generational definitions (e.g. Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Jones ..) when talking about the demographics of China. He concludes that the term doesn’t have much relevance. Do have a look at his presentation about PR 2.0 that was given to a Chinese audience.

The above graph shows the birth rate in the UK and US normalised to 1940. As you can see the UK tracked the US birth rate for a few years after the war, then declined and didn’t start increasing again until 1956. The term Baby Boomer is about as much use in the UK context as it is in China (i.e. none at all). Of course that doesn’t stop marketers bandying it about, without any real understanding if its meaning.

Also, I wish we would ditch the terms Gen X and Gen Y, neither of which are based on any real behavioural evidence. We marketers just love this meaningless jargon.

It appears from the blog that Forrester has realised the lack of relevance of the term to the Chinese market. I wish they would do the same for the UK. Dick Stroud

The effects of the recession are tiny compared with population ageing

The International Monetary Fund estimates that the G 20 nations will, as a result of the recession, have increased their national debts by an average equivalent to nearly 25% of gross domestic product between 2007 and 2014. That is a lot of money.

BUT, to 2050, the cost of the economic crisis will be no more less than 5% of the financial impact created by the ageing of their populations. As the IMF says, “in spite of the large fiscal costs of the crisis, the major threat to long-term fiscal solvency is still represented, at least in advanced countries, by unfavourable demographic trends”.

This factlet is taken from a long and detailed article in today’s FT. It is hard to come to grips with the enormity of the effects of ageing on the world’s major economies.Dick Stroud

The hogwash of generational differences

Black people behave like XX, White people like YY, Latinos like ZZ and the Chinese like a combination of XX+YY+ZZ. Rubbish you say and you would be right.

How about Muslims behave like AA, Christians like BB and Jews like CC and Taoists like a bit of this and a bit of that. Rubbish you say and you would be right.

So why do people keep trying to make massive generations about how Xers, Gen Yers, Millennials and Boomers behave?

Crude stereotypes about race and religion often chime with out prejudices but sensible people dismiss them as simplistic and more dangerous than helpful.

So when you see a table, like the one above, breaking down the behaviour of the US workforce into a few snappy sentences then your warning bells should start ringing.

Have I heard some old guy whining on about how in his day things were done like XYZ – of course I have. Maybe there are few more of them around then there should be, but please don’t apply this conclusion to 76 million Americans.

Funnily enough the crude stereotype that I hear mostly applied to the young, by people I encounter, is that they are so conservative, risk averse and unwilling to think outside the box.

However, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to apply that to all young people. Pity the author of this article didn’t have a bit more sense. Dick Stroud

Differences between the Asia Pacific countries

Kim Walker’s company has conducted, what must be the largest online poll of the 50-plus in the six key countries of Asia Pacific. The research was done between late December and the first week in Jan 2009. We are talking big numbers – a poll of over 170,000 people.

The above chart shows how the respondents in different countries vary to question about rewarding themselves for the years of hard work providing for others.

The older age groups in all of the countries intend to reward themselves (code for spending money) but just look at the country differences. Not surprising the 50-plus in Australia are way out in the lead in their intentions to reap the rewards of their hard work.

It is definitely worth downloading Kim’s research report. Dick Stroud

China’s ageing (rapidly) population

If you are interested in the opportunities and threats of China’s ageing population then this is a must read from Wharton University. The numbers are staggering.

The challenge is huge: More than a fifth of the city’s permanent residents were older than 60 at the end of 2007. And according to the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, that figure will grow about 1% per year, which means by 2020 more than 30% of the population will be over 60, while the average lifespan of a Shanghai resident is 81. Based on data released by the local government, nearly 20% of Shanghai’s senior citizens, about 500,000 people, would like to live in a senior housing facility. However, senior housing in Shanghai is full, except for in the luxury segment.

Dick Stroud

Bookend Boomers

The Mature Market Institute (MMI) has published a study titled: Boomer Bookends: Insights into the Oldest and Youngest Boomers.

The research, conducted in October 2008, looks at the differences between those Boomers born in 1946 and those born in 1964.

Isn’t it weird that so much research has been done about a group of people that is defined by the ups and downs of birth rate?

I found the data about expected inheritances interesting. As much as anything about the absolute amounts (smaller than I would have expected). I reckon you can reduce these figures by 20% to take account of what has happened since the research was conducted. Dick Stroud

Ruppies are not the same as Rupees or Boomers

I have to say I have never heard of the term Ruppies, maybe I should, but I haven’t. Apparently it describes: “retired urban people who are active mature adults and predominantly affluent empty nesters.”

This paper makes out an interesting case for how your Ruppie differs from a bog standard Boomer. A lot of the argument is around their preference for urban rather than rural living and their desire to keep working and working. Methinks that the last 18 months have probably changed a lot of the thinking of Ruppies and Boomers alike. Dick Stroud

National Accounts of Wellbeing

What you might ask is ‘Wellbeing’ and how the hell do combine it with “National Accounts”. All is explained by downloading this report. Here is a quick summary

National Accounts of Well-being directly measure people’s subjective well-being: their experiences, feelings and perceptions of how their lives are going. They are needed because the economic indicators tell us little about the relative success or failure of countries in supporting a good life for their citizens.

Sounds reasonable.

The graphic shows the variation of social well-being by age. This is defined as the extent and quality of interactions we have in close relationships with family, friends and our trust of being treated fairly and respectfully by them. You can read a full definition in the report.

Bottom line message. Young Brits have the lowest score of social well being in Europe. Thank heavens the older groups still possess some positive feelings – nearly as much the ever cheerful Scandinavians.

Seriously, this makes grim reading. British young people – even those in their 30s and 40s are a distrusting bunch. I am glad I don’t have to advise companies how to market to them!

Go and have a look at this supporting site for the report. It is one of the best visual ways of delivering information I have seen. Well done. Dick Stroud

It’s cool to drink McDonald's rather than Starbuck’s coffee

This blog posting title results from reading the “Boomers Caught in Squeeze Play” article in Adweek.

As recession hits the article lists some of the results.

McDonald's taunts Starbucks, in its hometown, with billboards proclaiming: "Large is the new grande" and "Four bucks is dumb."

De Beers positions its diamonds as something to be passed down among generations in a world of "disposable distractions."

Allstate Insurance has its spokesman standing in front of Depression-era photos talking about how in tough times "people start enjoying the small things in life: a home-cooked meal, time with loved ones, appreciating the things we do have..."

The article ends on a chilling note.

The global financial crisis has slowed growth in previously hot, emerging economies like China. Less obvious may be the population drop in large Western European markets like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany. Marketers face not only the possible change toward more conservative boomer behaviour, pre-retirement, they're also going to have fewer customers there in absolute numbers. Marketers are going to have to be relentlessly focused on where value is and on their core customers. It's not going to be like the 1950s where you can throw anything out there and see growth.

Have a nice weekend. Dick Stroud

Job loss most likely to be among the young

I have talked a lot about the two phase recession. Phase 1, hit the assets of the old. Phase 2, hits jobs – the most keenly felt job losses being amongst the young. This is a gross simplification but bear with me.

Thanks to Rick Hartley for pointing out this analysis from The New York Times that demonstrates this happening. The age group 35-44 lost over a million jobs, the age group 55-64 gained over half a million.

OK, marketers, decision time. You are going to have to start to “picking winners”. One dimension of that is going to be old V young. Of course it is much more complex than it just being an age thing, but this is not a bad place to start.

The days of having the luxury of choice are fast disappearing. Dick Stroud

An antidote to cheerfulness

First day back at work and still feeling cheerful. OK, we can do something about that. Have a read of this article from today's Washington Post. This is the most optimistic part of the article.

But if you think that things couldn't get any worse, wait till the 2020s. The economic and geopolitical climate could become even more threatening by then -- and this time the reason will be demographics.

Dick Stroud

What do we know about “Empty Nesters?”

MediaPost has an interesting article about households where the kids have left home - This Bird Has Flown. I suspect a lot of anxious parents are starting 2009 wondering if their child-free life might be coming to an end as cash-strapped and jobless children decide that their old bedroom with mum's cooking might be a good place to sit out the recession.

References in the article sent me down some interesting avenues of investigation.
A study, reported in the Journal Psychological Science with the daunting title (Contextualizing Change in Marital Satisfaction During Middle Age: An 18-Year Longitudinal Study) followed the same 123 women at ages 43, 52 and 61 through questionnaires and interviews.

The main finding was that marital woman’s satisfaction increased as they aged, although overall life satisfaction did not. Whether it was a first marriage or a re-marriage didn't matter. Secondly, once the kids leave home their level of marital satisfaction improved, not because of the quantity of time they were then able to spend with their partners but the “quality of time” (whatever that is).

Both interesting observations but I am not too sure I know what I can do with the information.

Another study of 6,000 people in their early 40s to late 60s, by ThirdAge found that 35% still had children living at home. Meanwhile, about 8% had never married, and 38% were now single. If my arithmetic is correct, then that means that 19% of their sample were Empty Nesters. Can’t be right?

I haven’t been to the ThirdAge web site since it was re-launched. I reckon they have done a good job. It is appealing and stuffed full of content.

The article referred to yet another Boomer site (Redwood Age). I am continually amazed that new boomer portals/social networking sites are still being launched. I think they are constantly improving but it is a mighty crowed market, all clamouring for a diminishing Boomer advertising budget.


There is reference to Chrysler's launch of the Dodge Journey (April 2008) when its marketers had a counterintuitive inspiration that empty nesters and young couples have a lot in common when selecting a car, even if they're coming from opposite ends of their lives. Empty nesters tend to be downsizing their homes and cars, while young couples are ready to move into a bigger vehicle. It's a pity that neither group bought enough of the product to stave off Chrysler's need for a $4 Billion handout.

Dodge marketers, not surprisingly, struggled with the messaging strategy. Should they deliver one or two messages, depending on the demographic? In the end the approach was to: “Take product messages, serve them against different audiences online, and optimize to see what was working." Sounds like a bit of fudge to me.

The article concludes by saying that the tactics to communicate with empty nesters is like that used to reach their children - build trust and provide information-based advertising, like sponsored content. Sound a bit like Age Neutral marketing to me. Dick Stroud

Silver - a source of knowledge about the Asia Pacific market

Kim Walker has launched a new agency (Silver) providing marketing knowledge about 50-plus consumers in the Asia Pacific market.

Silver’s first phase of services include county reports, a database about the behaviours, attitudes, product consumption and media habits for all of the Asia Pacific markets and access to a concept/issue testing research base of older consumers.

I have been in contact with Kim for most of 2008 whilst he launched the company and at the end of the year met-up with him in Japan. I am certain Silver will make a big contribution to the world of 50-plus marketing. It goes without saying that for UK companies, understanding the dynamics of the Asian Pacific markets is vital.

Along with its business importance I have a real interest in the area and so I was delighted to become a member of Silver’s advisory board.

Like all good 50-plus marketing site, Silver has a blog. The first item is about Expat retirement to Malaysia.

Several Asian governments (particularly Malaysia and Thailand) have schemes designed to attract older people to spend some or all of their retirement (and retirement dollars) in their countries.

As older people, especially in the US and Europe, come to terms with their decimated retirement assets they will look to where in the world they can a better quality of life for their fixed incomes.

One of my friends has already purchased a property in Malaysia and is forever telling me what a great country it is and so inexpensive compared to the UK.

I am certain that one result of the recession will be a reassessment of where older Brits spend their retirement. Right now living in Euroland is nightmare. Sterling has lost over a quarter of its value against the Euro in the past 6 months - what the exchange rate position will be at this time in 2009 is anybody’s guess and I mean anybody.

Kim, welcome to 50-plus marketing land. It will be great to be able to add insights from the Asia Pacific market to our knowledge of the older market. Dick Stroud

Ireland gives the over-50s a health subsidy

The bye-line to this article was: “Younger customers to foot insurance bill”.

It looks as if the Irish Government is planning to introduce new measures to protect older people from the scheduled hikes in private health insurance premiums that could see them paying an extra €600 a year from January.

Irish insurers traditionally charged everyone the same price for the same products, which meant the young always were subsidising older people, who make more claims on the system. All that has changed is that the extent of the subsidy is made public.

I have never agreed with the intergenerational conflict scenario but there will undoubtedly be a lot more headlines like this one. During times of plenty, nobody cared too much, but as the dark clouds of recession gather I suspect it will generate a lot more youthful angst. Dick Stroud

During recessionary times do you aim young or old?

Government employment statistics, published yesterday, suggest the answer is that both old and young are being badly hit by the recession that is only just beginning.

The figures showed a 53,000 increase in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds out of work, to 579,000, in the three months to September. This means that unemployment among the younger age group is increasing faster than for the general population - up by 12.8% for those out of work for up to six months.

More than half a million people under the age of 25 are not in education, employment or training. Forget the human tragedy of this; just think of their empty wallets!

But, there had been a 29.7% increase in the number of people over 50 unemployed for between six and 12 months. So oldies are also getting pushed out of the workforce.

So as a hotshot marketer - what do you do with this information? Simple. Ignore the numbers.
There will be nuggets of demographic gold, with protected wealth, in both age groups. You are going to have to be smarter at finding it.

Another interesting statistic from the research was about average earnings for the three month period until September 2008.

The group with highest increase in earnings was the public sector (Government workers) 3.9%. All other parts of the UK economy experienced average earnings remaining static or decreasing. Link this to the fact that public sector workers receive a pension that is unaffected by the financial maelstrom that is enveloping the rest of the population and you can see why they are a prime market segment to attack. Dick Stroud

Will the IPOD generation ever trust financial services?

Answer – No.

Will the 50-plus ever trust financial services? Answer – No.

OK, never is a long time. Let’s be realistic and say for the lifetime of the average bank or insurance company marketing director and their three successors.

I doubt if the Financial Services really, really understands the mess it is in - not just financial – something that can be fixed quickly. The bigger mess is the total destruction of consumer’s confidence in its Industry Brand.

Have a read on this excellent report from Reform about the way the younger generation view the finance industry. This is a taste of what it has to say.

The industry is still mentally domiciled in the suburbs of the 1950s relating to a vanishing generation of people who are interested in lifetime savings backed with job-for-life security.

Inflexible products are presented in a complex way, yet often failing to disclose basic important information.

It is not surprising that IPODs place greater trust in friends and family rather than relying on price comparison sites or independent financial advisers, whom a third of IPODs think are out of touch with younger generations.

Am I over stating the issue? Will the banks, insurance and investment companies quickly regain a place in our hearts? I think not.

I have included an interesting bit of analysis from the report. Something that marketing managers who target the IPODs might like to ponder upon. Dick Stroud

More analysis less emotion

Sorry if I keep moaning on about the way the media keeps reporting the recession in terms of age cohorts. It was disappointing to read this article in the Wall Street Journal since it has fallen into the same trap.

Many of the arguments it makes have a large element of truth, but they are a one-sided and 'emotional' stating of the case. Take the opening sentence for instance.

Baby Boomers have pumped up the global economy with their profligate ways for nearly two decades. It's been a great party. Now the music's over.

Are we really saying that a whole generation was squandering, excessively extravagant; wanton, licentious; promiscuous or depraved (using the US dictionary definition of profligate).

Of all professions, I am amazed that the media has suddenly developed this puritan attitude to consumer spending.

A couple of sentences further on it says

What Baby Boomers of all persuasions have done, without dispute and to an unprecedented degree, is spend money instead of saving it. During the 1990s, Baby Boomers accounted for about half of all consumer spending in the U.S., according to a recent McKinsey Global Institute study.

Yep, that is true. Isn't it strange how most marketers didn’t recognise the fact at the time and pay them more attention. But all generations, with the exception of the 70+, have spent more than they saved.

And so the article goes on. In so much of the writing these days I detect a large dose of Schadenfreude.

Marketers need a well reasoned analysis of how the recession will (is) impacting their markets. So let’s cut out the emotional stuff and concentrate more on hard analysis.

If you are going to read the article I would do it soon since the WSJ will probably move it into the paid content section. Dick Stroud

Insight into older Americans

According to this research, half of US Boomers think 'Government' is doing too much to solve the Wall Street crisis. Since 94% of them plan to go vote, it might be wise for politicians to take their views seriously.


Like all research sponsored for PR purposes (by TV Land) you need to read with care, but it is an interesting insight into the mood of older America. From what I can see, not that much different from the mood of older Britain. Dick Stroud

Beware the percentage trick

The papers proclaim: “Record number of over 60s getting divorced”.

The number of pensioners separating has increased by more than a third in a decade, as members of today's more adventurous "Saga generation" are no longer content to sit out their retirement in unhappy marriages.

Experts believe so-called "empty nest syndrome" also plays a role, with many couples staying together for the sake of their children then getting divorced once they leave home.

Wow you think – the UK must be is awash with pensioners enrolling in dating refresher courses.

Hold on a minute. In 2007, 13,678 people over the age of 60 got divorced. That is 0.1263% of the population aged 60-80 years old. This number was up around 1000 people on the previous year.

We are talking about incredibly small percent of the population but when you state as a year on year percentage it works its intended magic and captures the headlines.

Juvenile journalism at its worst. Dick Stroud

I.O.U.S.A - a larger version of I.O.U.K

A new film, in the Al Gore format, is causing something of a stir in the US. This snippet from the web site (and the video) gives you a flavour for what it is about.

Wake up, America! We're on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.

What you don’t get from this is the emphasis that the film places upon the costs of ‘entitlements’ (i.e. social security and medical care) and how they contribute to the financial problem.

It is not a great leap to go from here to “generational warfare” argument that we (the boomer generation) are leaving it to the young to pick up the tab (literally) for the care of parents and grandparents.

This has got my American friend Brent Green rather upset (understatement) and has inspired him to create a web site challenging the film’s arguments.America fiscal and balance of payment imbalance is massive. There is no room for Brits to get too smug about this - we are not far behind.The reasons why, and what to do about it, have similarities with the banal arguments that rage about the environment. I call it the "Xmas tree" phenomenon, where the tree represents the problem that can be dressed in many ways and with many guises, depending on your viewpoint.

Let me give you an example. The UK has a huge financial deficit. The supporters of the I.O.U.K argument will dress the problem in: “it is all the fault of the rich boomers, expecting the younger generation to keep working so that the oldies can live a fun filled 24/7 lifestyle”. The anti-war brigade will use a different set of arguments: “it is all the fault of Iraq, Afghanistan and the UK’s colonialist past that translates into mega defence weaponry systems costing a fortune. I have a different set of arguments: “it’s all the fault of the bloated, incredibly expensive and diabolically incompetent public sector”.

In truth, the tree is dressed with elements of all of these arguments, but as marketers we know that nobody listens to a diffused and complicated message. Dick Stroud

11.58 million is a big number

This is a picture that all UK marketing staff should have on their desks. For the arithmetically challenged it means that the number of pensioners in the UK is now more than the population of under-16s. Dick Stroud

Prisons are no different to other ‘markets’

The number of pensioners in UK prisons has increased by a third in just three years. The number of male prisoners 60+ jumped by 34% between June 2004 and August last year.

Numbers of older women prisoners are growing even faster – over-50s up by 40% during the same period. England and Wales can now boast the oldest male and female prisoner as 92 and 78 respectively.

As in most things the UK appears to be following the same trend as in the US.

So what? I guess this provides yet another factlet demonstrating that no nook or cranny of UK society is immune to the impact of the ageing population. Dick Stroud

Economic downturn creates asymmetric generational shock

What a great sounding title? Maybe it’s a tad pompous? What it means is that as the sky falls in and the economic and financial structure of the West disintegrates, the old and the young will be affected in very different ways. This is the first of my muses about this subject. To begin with I thought I would amass some factlets about Europe’s stressed-out 18-34 year olds.

France

The French talk a lot about "Génération Précaire"—the Precarious Generation. A less elegant name is ‘babylosers’. For the first time in recent history a generation of French citizens, aged between 20 and 40, will experience lower standards of living than their parents.

Consider this, a 30-year-old Frenchman (I assume Frenchwoman as well) earned 15% less than a 50-year-old in 1975, today they earn 40% less. Over the same period, the number of graduates, still unemployed two years after leaving college, has risen from 6% to 25%.

The proportion of 24-year-olds now living with their parents has almost doubled since 1975, to 65%.

Not surprising a recent poll showed that only 5% believed young people had a better chance of succeeding than their parents.

Germany

Germans now talk of "Generation Intern". These are well-educated graduates forced to accept unpaid jobs in the quest for full9time and pensioned posts.

Italy

According to the Italian Institute of Social Medicine, 45% of the country's 30-34 year-olds have yet to leave their parent’s home. This may be due to the atrocious cooking skills of young Italian woman but I guess it's more like due to prohibitive cost of going-it-alone.

Spain

Mileuristas are defined as Spanish people aged 23- 43, with incomes less than 60% of the full time average. There are lots of them.

Even during the boom years, when growth outstripped the rest of the European Union, the 'mileuristas' found themselves unable to afford their own homes. But now with the implosion of the housing market their prospects are grim. In the first three months of 2008, Spanish unemployment hit 9.6%, the highest for three years.

UK

The term applied to 18-34 year-olds is the iPoD generation. Not the normal reference to their technical prowess but the fact they are Insecure, Pressurised, Overtaxed and Debt-ridden.

Since 1999 the median annual full time earnings of the iPoD generation has increased by 28%. During this time the price of the average first-time buyers’ property has shot-up 104%. Property prices now 9 times higher than the median earnings of the ordinary twentysomething.

Not surprisingly the age at which people acquire their first home has climbed from 26, in 1976, to 34 today.

The high levels of debt that young people service (with increasing real interest rates) is graphically illustrated by the fact that graduates' post-university debt has risen 300% in the past 7 years.

Time are tough and getting tougher for young people. Unfortunately, the hard times are only just beginning. The costs of health and care, resulting from the aging population, are only just becoming visible.

Older people are not immune from the downturn. The oldest and poorest group are being hit hard, especially by the rising costs of oil and food. More of this in a later blog posting.

Surely Europe’s marketers must see what is happening to the purchasing power of their beloved 18-34 year olds. At an aggregate level it is going to fall. The balance of power between young and old is changing, much faster then most people realise. Dick Stroud

Demographic mapping tool

mature@eu is a EU funded organisation to help employers introduce age-diverse recruitment policies and practices. As the home page of the site says

The hiring policy of enterprises is predominantly youth oriented. Mature jobseekers are being excluded from the recruitment process because they are stereotyped as being ‘too old’ to do certain jobs. If this waste of the skills, experiences and competencies of elderly professionals is counter-productive today, it will become an even bigger problem in the future as Europe’s demographic profile is changing and the proportion of younger applicants is declining.

This site contains a fantastic tool (the demographic risk map) that visually shows the scale of change in Europe’s population. Here is a description of the tool.

The above shows a simple plot of the change in the mean age of Europe’s population. The site even has a PDF tool that enables you to create a document of the analysis.

You can drill down into any European country and look at the regional changes. If demographics is your thing then this is brilliant. Well done mature@eu. Dick Stroud

London is different – repeat after me – London is different

Some people think the UK is one country. Some people think it is made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Both are wrong.

The UK is made up of the London and the rest. Understanding this is vital when thinking about marketing to the 50-plus or any other age group.

A recent report by the BBC made reinforced this point. Whilst the rest of the UK is in a state of collective economic despair , consumer sales in Central London are going up.

The British Retail Consortium said spending in the heart of the capital was up by 8.7% in June 2008 compared to the same month a year previously. In the same period, the national figure fell by 0.4%.

The mood among central London customers is clearly different from the rest of the UK.

Why is there such a difference? Lots of reasons. London, more correctly parts of London, are extremely wealthy. Also, London is young and it would seem that the young are still spending like there is no tomorrow. When the credit crunch really starts to bite this situation could very quickly change.

If you are not convinced about London’s strange behaviour look at this video. Dick Stroud

Marketing to Women Is So 2007

I came upon this very amusing and well written item by Yvonne DiVita.I just love this style of in “your face” writing.

If you’re keeping your fingers to the keyboard creating great content to appeal to your women customers, and your are eyeballs stuck to your computer monitor devouring all the advice from marketing to women columnists all over the net – let me give you some advice: STOP! Step back! Drop those hands! Blink your eyes and read on…

The truth is: the whole marketing to women focus is over. That’s right, it’s over. We don’t want you to market to us. We never wanted you to market to us. We endured you, but we never accepted you. In 2009, we aren’t even going to do that.

You will see that Ms DiVita has been, and probably remains, one of these “marketing to women columnists.” It is a bit like me saying that 50-plus marketing is dead (which it is). The sectors ‘50-plus’ and ‘women’ are convenient and necessary shorthand terms but we all know it is much more sophisticated than that.

I think I will be adding Ms DiVita to my RSS feeds list. Dick Stroud

Audit Commission report about ageing Britain

And yet another major report is published today. This time from The Audit Commission (Don't stop me now – preparing for an ageing population). For a quick summary read the press release.
This is what the Chairman of the Audit Commission, said:

‘By 2029 nearly 40 per cent of England's population will be over 50. These are active people, anxious to stay independent as long as possible. Despite the stereotypes, only 3 per cent of people aged between 65 and 80 live in residential care.

But it's worrying that the councils in areas with the most over 50s are the least prepared to cope with their long-term needs and interests. Ex-punk rockers and Rolling Stones fans are not going to be happy with a cup of tea and daytime TV. As people live longer, those who can help them stay well and independent, need to be a little more imaginative.

Not surprisingly it found that councils in England, particularly those which have the fastest ageing populations, are not ready to meet the challenges or grasp opportunities as we get older and that although the government's 2005 strategy for older people, Opportunity Age, has the potential to improve the lives of an ageing population, so far it hasn't delivered those benefits to older people across the country. Why am I not shocked.

To get a feel for the scale of the ‘problem’ the video shows the increase in the 50-plus population. Yet more reading (76 pages) but full of useful data. Dick Stroud

Living in the 21st century: older people in England

A major report has just been released about the reality of ageing in England. When I say major I mean major. It is 316 pages long and is comes with a great pedigree.

Here is the press release from the PA. As you would expect the press release is written for headline grabbing – nothing wrong with that.

Nearly a third - or 30% - of men aged between 60 and 64 years old said they expected to carry on working past the age of 65 in 2006/07, compared with 25% questioned in 2002/03.

Life expectancy had increased at an astonishing rate.

The poorest elderly people were more than twice as likely to die as the richest over a given period

Once I have had a read I will comment some more. Dick Stroud

iPods and Government

Reform does some interesting research. This is the organisation that coined the term iPod - the generation between 18 and 34 years old who are Insecure, Pressurised, Over-taxed and Debt-ridden. In the US they are called Generation Broke.

Reform believes the balance of taxation and public spending has tilted against young people, so that they now face an unfair burden, without being able to expect many of the benefits; and this at a time when their economic profile is already difficult.

They are also faced with increasing levels of debt from higher education, much stronger labour market competition, lower growth in earnings and acute difficulties in getting onto the property ladder. I agree wholeheartedly.

There is a new Reform report about how the iPods react to Government. Since the number of younger people who vote is about half of that of the 65+ it would seem with a large slab of disinterest.

It is not a bad report but it would have made it much better if there was some quantitative comparison of their views against those of an older age group. I found myself agreeing with most of the points that the younger people were making. I don’t think I am alone, which makes me think that the report was more about the mood of the Brits than about a specific age group. Dick Stroud

Where have all the children gone?

If you are ever want more evidence that organisations should be planning for an older world have a look at this chart. It is taken from a report (The Graying of the Great Powers: Demography and Geopolitics in the 21st Century - the CSIS Global Aging Initiative). Click here to read and listen to a summary of its findings.

This shows the countries in the world where the median (yes median) population will be 50-plus by the year 2050. As you can see this includes large parts of middle and emerging Europe. Needless to say that the population of each of these countries will be (is) in decline.

I know a lot can happen between here and 2050, hopefully children becoming popular is one of thing, but in demographic terms 40ish years is not a long time. Makes you think. Dick Stroud

The Changing Face of the U.S. Consumer

Peter Francese is founder of American Demographics magazine and demographic trends analyst at Ogilvy & Mather. A couple of years back I was fortunate enough to hear him speak at a conference in New York about the US’s population trends. This guy really does know what he is talking about.
He has a long article in AdAge that is a must read. It is pointless to try and summarise the article but it makes so many points.

It is such a pity that demographics is perceived as some dusty old technical that is not really much to do with 'real' marketing. I reckon it is the bedrock around which marketing strategies are built. If you have any interest in the US market I suggest you take the time and read it.Dick Stroud