Dick Stroud is the founder of 20plus30, a marketing strategy consultancy specialising in the 50 plus market. He is the UK’s leading expert on using interactive channels to communicate with the over-50s market.
Skype Name: dickstroud
News, views and opinions about the most powerful group of consumers - the 50-plus market.
If you haven’t subscribed to the Boomer Project newsletter you should.
In the most recent edition it has the results of their research into the spending intentions of Americans for the holiday season.
Not good as you can see (click to enlarge image). As the newsletter says: “We have seen the future and it stinks for retailers, except for the discounters.” Happy Xmas. Dick Stroud
Labels: Consumer-technology, Holidays, Recession
This is a very simplistic eleven minutes of video about online marketing in the Hospitality Industry.
You know the story: “older people are not like they were when you were a kid” and “the Web can be really good for testimonials” etc etc.
I really hope the speaker (university professor) teaches something a bit more sophisticated on her courses. Pity the company that produced the video didn’t enable it to be embedded into other Web sites. Dick Stroud
Elderhostel is a US travel and educational organisation for older adults – you might have guessed the travel part from the name.
The organisation is going through a massive upheaval, caused by falling numbers of customers. As the graphics shows, numbers of people signing up for courses have been falling and the average age of travellers has been rising, It is now 73 years old up from 68 a decade ago.
What has Elderhostel been doing wrong? I have no idea about the quality of its courses and holidays but these would not seem to be the problem since it appears to have a very loyal customer base, which ironically might be part of the problem.
My guess is that problem results from the company pursuing a strategy of age-cohort marketing. What I mean by this is that it retained the basic proposition that appealed to its initial customers and maintained that, pretty much unchanged, as the age cohort aged. Of course the world has changed and the new cohort of customers has very different values and emotional drivers.
The same problem exists in the UK with Saga that was totally appropriate for the 50-plus of two decades ago but finds itself grasping for relevance with today’s older consumer. I suspect it has done a better job than Elderhostel of adapting.
So what is Elderhostel doing?
Changing its name to Exploritas, a word created by brand consultants to combine "explore" and "veritas” - the Latin for truth. No many people know that!
Remove its age restriction. No longer do you have to be at least 60, now anyone 21 or older will be able to participate.
Adopting digital stuff. The group’s Web site will include social networking to help travellers better connect before and after trips.
Elderhostel ended its 2008 fiscal year with a loss of almost $9 million.
What lessons can we learn?
1. Companies always put off making the hard decisions. The longer they put them off the harder they become. I bet the guys at Elderhostel have been talking about this age-cohort issue for years, but never got around to doing anything about it.
2. Crisis forces change at the very worst time to create and adopt a new strategy.
3. Balancing the transition is going to be incredibly difficult. On one hand you have the unknown, of how the new market positioning will work, on the other; you have the known that a lot of your existing customers will be incredibly annoyed.
Will it work? It all comes down to timing. Will the new strategy produce benefits before the results of abandoning the old one takes them down?
My guess, knowing none of the details, is that the chances of success are very slim. Dick Stroud
Labels: Age Neutral, Holidays
Brent Green has an excellent, firsthand experience, of the costs involved in holidaying in Europe. His conclusion – it is expensive!
When you factor in the cost to fly to Europe, suddenly, a “reasonable” European vacation can easily require not $5.00 but $500.00 per day. Brent’s conclusions: “There are many reasons why Europe is so alluring to Boomers.” Dick Stroud
Labels: Holidays
Maybe I am becoming obsessed with the obsession of newspaper photo editors to always select shots of oldies on beaches.
I have recently had another encounter with the hospitality and travel industry.
In a fit of idiocy I was persuaded to do the Three Peaks Challenge.
A word of advice - if anybody suggests you do this walk think of a good excuse. Failing that think of a bad excuse!
Seriously, it was a great experience and I am sure at some stage I will stop hobbling.
I took a train from Glasgow to Fort William, where the walk starts. It is one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world. I couldn’t resist doing a quick survey of the age profile of the passengers. I reckon between 60% - 70% were 50-plus.
Before the walk I stayed at the local Youth Hostel. Here again I reckon the age profile was well into the majority being 50-plus. Makes a bit of a mockery of the name ’Youth’ hostel.
I wonder if either the Scottish Youth Hostels or the local rail company had thought through the implications on their business of ageing population. I doubt it. Dick Stroud
This is the first time I have seen anybody give any thought to the issue of how hotels, in this case the vast hotels in Las Vegas, will need to adapt to an ageing population. Some of the issues it identifies:
The list goes on and on…
- long walks between parking areas and rooms
- long lines at check-in
- rooms too crowded with furniture
- large heavy doors
- loud music in the restaurants
- trouble with round doorknobs
- slick or overly textured flooring
- small or hard-to-find light switches
- poorly lit stairways
Labels: Holidays, Physiological Ageing
Look what just dropped into my inbox. Saga cruises with as much as a 45% discount.
That is one hell of a big discount. Dick Stroud
Labels: Holidays
Labels: Holidays
This item appears on the Harvard Business Review forum web site. The author, Professor John Quelch, is a mighty distinguished academic. I think he is onto something with his contention that a result of the economic gloom will be a change in priorities (for some) from purchasing stuff to seeking and buying experiences.
Luxury household goods manufactures beware!
Quelch reckons that people displaying this lifestyle choice have four characteristics.
• They perceive that they have more stuff than they need.
• They want to collect experiences, not possessions.
• Stuff embarrasses them.
• Their wealth is so assured that it no longer requires conspicuous display.
Against a background of austerity for the masses it might be cool to have a decluttered lifestyle.
This is a quote from the article
I know people like this. I hear these sorts of views from focus groups. I think they have always existed but are increasing in numbers.These are the consumers who are now trading in their sport-utility vehicles. They include the empty-nester baby-boomers, less confident than before, who are tired of heating unused spaces in cavernous mansions, now preferring smaller houses with architectural character and intimate spaces, more charm and less maintenance.
Their families are scattered, unable to share conveniently the family holiday home and often unwilling to inherit the burden of something they will never use. The new economy has made it even easier for consumers to get rid of their stuff. The high-tech equivalents of the yard sale, electronic auction sites, bring Simplifiers together with those who are yet to catch the habit.
Labels: con, Consumer-technology, Holidays
Forbes has an interesting article (s), some might say an idiots guide, to how to make money from Baby Boomers. If you don’t want to read the text, have a look at this slide show.
Can't wait to know what the 8 money winners are?
Labels: 50-plus entrepreneurs, Cosmetics, Fitness, Healthcare, Holidays, Housing
Telegraph Media Group (TMG) is set to launch a dedicated 'Cruise' channel that will provide the latest cruise news, expert travel advice and guides to cruise destinations.
The channel will provide advertisers with a Telegraph-branded platform on which to promote their services and products. Needless to say, the channel is targeted at the AB 45+ market.
TMG reckons that one in three cruise passengers have either read The Daily Telegraph or The Sunday Telegraph or visited Telegraph.co.uk. Sounds like a good reason to drop a cruising holiday from my holiday options. Dick Stroud
Labels: Holidays
If you don’t, you should subscribe to the newsletter from Trendwatching, which is an opinionated consumer trends firm that takes a global view on what is driving consumer behaviour and most importantly consumer spending. I really like its style and the scope of its coverage – like the comment about the photo. Yes, we know these pictures are cheesy.
This month’s edition has the eye catching title of “How to delight women, gays and baby boomers”.
It is has some good examples of what is going on with the boomer consumers and the products that are tempting them in the categories of dating, health, travel, homes and housing plus another half a dozen product groups. Definitely worth a look.
What it doesn’t do – I suspect because of space problems – is to look at the interaction of these three groups. Now that is really interesting and a subject I am going to blog a lot more about. Dick Stroud
Labels: Fitness, Food, Healthcare, Holidays, Housing
A couple of days back I wrote about the difference between age-neutral and age-silo marketing, in relationship to a holiday company.
I now read that the company, Prime Adventures, has a new web site that is specially designed for the 50-plus.
According to design company: close attention was given to aspects of accessibility such as easy text resizing options, icon-based grading system and usability considerations such as flexible paths of navigation and theme and geographic based browsing options.
I reckon it is a pretty good looking web site. There are bits and pieces I would change but overall it looks like it does the job – it would also do the job for people aged 25 – 50.
The one thing I would change is the decision to put the ‘about us’ in the sub-menu. When somebody is going to spend £1,000 + and use a couple of weeks of their precious holiday they want to know who they are dealing with – the site needs to anticipate that visitor need. Dick Stroud