UK newspaper (The Telegraph) launches a cruise site

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

How to delight women, gays and baby boomers

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

Age Silo or Neutral – Part 2

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