The importance of intergenerational wealth transfer

A new generation of professionals, aged between 35 and 45, are relying on inheriting money from their parents to survive. According to a study, by Elizabeth Finn Care, over a half of individuals are banking on inheriting their parents’ estates, however, only a quarter of those parents will be able to leave all their wealth to their children. Don't bother looking for the report on the organisation's web site - it ain't there. Here are couple of factlet from the press release:

• 51% of those surveyed said they depend on parental support to bail them out of tight financial situations.
• Half of the older people surveyed said they assume all home care costs will be covered by the government – dream on!

My usual advice, I would take the absolute research results with a pinch of salt, but I am sure the overall picture painted is accurate.

On a not dissimilar subject, this research was covered in the FT. The insurance company (RIAS) has also been researching the financial position of the over-50s. A couple of factlets from this research.

• It is estimated that the older generation is contributing a cumulative £5 billion each year in childcare costs, but they are also putting money to one side for their grandchildren.
• Some 25 per cent of grandmas and grandpas put money in a Child Trust Fund or saving account.

The "who pays for what" question in the generations of families is getting more complex. This has an impact on those involved in purchasing decisions, something that should interest marketers. Dick Stroud

Inaccessible Sky accessible remote control

I recently attended an event where Sky was presented with an award for producing an accessible remote control for its satellite TV service. It was great to see a company that sells to a multi-age market taking accessibility so seriously.

Yesterday I was recounting this story to a neighbour who thought the control sounded just what they needed.

OK, here is your mental exercise for the day. Have a look at the Sky web site and tell me where you can find any details about the device and how it can be ordered.

You have got 5 mins. Clock ticking.

Maybe it was staring me in the face but I couldn’t find any reference to the device. It’s not good enough for a company to tackle one part of the accessibility problem without following it through to all parts of the sales and support channel. Dick Stroud

The Wisdom Book

I am not really sure how to describe the Wisdom Book or how to justify why you should give a few minutes of your life to look at the video - just do it. Either watch the video above (from YouTube) or for a better quality go to the site. Very moving. Dick Stroud

Challenging generational stereotypes

I hate the use of stereotypes. It is a lazy way defining large groups of people. The trouble is stereotypes have a horrible habit of becoming embedded into the way marketers think, with disastrous results.

It is always refreshing to read research that forces us to rethink how we perceive the mindset of the young and older generations.

Here are a couple of examples.

All over the EU, it's the young who are sceptics

This suggests that the young are far less enamoured with the EU than the old.
In every recent referendum - France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, even Luxembourg - "Yes" votes (in favour of the EU) came disproportionately from the over-50s. To people brought up with broadband and cheap flights, the idea that political structures should be dictated by geographical proximity seems bizarre.

Generation Y aren't as adaptable or efficient as older workers

Employees in their 20s - often known as ‘Generation Y' - have been found to be less adaptable to variety and change, less likely to be good decision-makers and less likely to cope with a fast pace of work.

They were also found to be less organised, less keen on planning their workload and less efficient than other generations.

I am not for an instant saying that there is much validity in either of these research conclusions.

Their value is in making us reappraise the “well known fact” assumptions that determine so many of our decisions. Dick Stroud

Marketing to women – old and young

Saatchi & Saatchi has research showing that consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers are annually missing out on £600m of sales because they are failing to connect with women

Thirty-five per cent of female internet users polled said they would increase their spending on consumer electronics if marketers and retailers thought harder about how they approach them and offered more guidance in stores and on e-commerce sites.

A staggering one in two women said they walk out of shops and leave websites without buying anything because they’re unable to find what they want. A third of women do not feel confident enough to ask questions in stores with one respondent describing electronics retailers as reeking of a “strong scent of man”.

And so the sorry tale goes on. This story reminded me that one of the biggest gripes that older people have about the mobile phone industry - the intimidating retail experience of the high street mobile phone store. In this case it is a strong scent of young men.

On the same subject of marketing women (especially of the older variety) there is an excellent article by Dori Molitor that talks about the failure of companies like Gap and American Airlines to turn their good intentions to improve their attractiveness to women shoppers into a reality.

It seems that marketers have a lot to learn about marketing to women – old and young. Dick Stroud

Don’t confuse me with the facts

What are Baby Boomers all about – what have they done – what do they want to do in the future? A big question.

Unfortunately, the commentators (in the UK) who proffer their insights and opinions are doing a bad job of answering it. Ha it is Sunday, I can be a bit more direct; they are making an abysmal pathetic mess of it.

Some smart character wrote that the ‘environmental debate’ is like a Christmas tree – you can hang upon it all of your personal or corporate prejudices and come to any answer you want. The same is true of the “Baby Boomer question”.

Let’s look at the media’s attempts. A few days back I posted an item about the BBC’s rather puny attempt to answer the question. Around the same time I noticed an article in the New Statesman by Faisal Islam entitled: “The great generational robbery”. Its naivety had a certain quaintness about it and I assumed Mr Islam was a recovering ASBO (recipient of an Anti Social Behaviour Orders) who was being given a second chance by the magazine. To see the article’s silliness read this analysis in the humanists for labour blog.

Much to my amazement I find that Mr Islam won the award of Young Journalist of the Year at the Royal Society of Television awards. The mind boggles about the other candidates!

Mr Islam, like so many of his generation, maunder on about having to pay for their university education and how the Boomers had their higher educated paid for by the state. What is never mentioned is that at the start of 1960s only one in sixteen kids participated in higher education. By 2010 the figure is planned to grow to 1 in 2.

I appreciate that many journalists are numerically-challenged but surly it is obvious that only a tiny number of the 1960s generation were recipients of college grants – the great majority of them were paying taxes for a few of their peers. This was the era when kids leaving school had the ‘gap-week’ – not the gap-year that today’s generation perceive as their God given right.

Academia doesn’t do much better. This week I sat through what can only be described as mind boggling boring and simplistic set of presentations by a group of academics who have spent my taxes producing ill-founded motherhood conclusions. The culprits will remain nameless.

Another example of the dubious quality of academic research is the simplistic study about Boomers’ size 12 carbon foot prints. I posted about this study a few weeks back.

Naively I have always thought that academia applies rigour and structure to its research. Not so.

Finally, we come to the corporate world. There are numerous examples of companies spending a few bob on research to generate some cheap headlines. The most recent example is Scottish Widows: “Baby Boomer generation of retire-easies”. Notice the mandatory silly name (retire-easies) intended to make the release more likely to be picked up by the media. The conclusions of the research don’t stack up with the reality.

Fact: 20% of the age group 55-70 own 80% of the wealth of that age group and contains most of the high income earners. There are a lot, the majority, who are not in this Retire Easy position.

Fact: See the diagram and read this quote from the CCCS.

Last year debt problems of the over 60s accelerated faster than for any other age group while contrary to popular perception, the debts of young people declined. CCCS predicts that by the end of 2007 its counsellors will be helping more people over 60 than under 25.

So what does all of this mean? Facts are better than prejudices. Facts always trump simplistic generalisations. And, facts require a bit of hard work that it seems the media, academia and the corporate world are not prepared, or capable, of doing. Dick Stroud

Multigenerational toys for grandparents

The importance of grandparents was evident at this year’s Toy Fair in New York.

Head honcho of marketing at Sababa Toys said: "Marketing to grandparents is huge .. Grandparents are young - they have a lot of money - a lot of time - they are online and want to spoil their grandkids”.

What better way of appealing to this group than re-launching toys that will be familiar and engender sentimental memories with the grandparents and appeal to the nippers.

So you have toys like the

Chatter Telephone: Introduced in 1962, the Chatter Telephone was designed with a rotary dial to teach children how to dial a phone. Today's Chatter Telephone makes children smile just the same with eyes that roll up and down, and a dial that rings. This friendly phone is being re-introduced for a whole new generation of children to enjoy!

For the older grandparent there is

Snoop 'n Sniff that was introduced in 1938 as "Snoopy Sniffer," this charming pull-along pup found a home with over five million families. Now the long black and white hound is being re-introduced for a whole new generation of children to enjoy!

There is Dr. Duck (Introduced in 1931) and Bouncy Bee (Introduced in 1950) and so on and so on.

I suspect that little Jonny and Jill would much prefer to have Samsung’s latest Black Carbon mobile rather than a weird looking phone from pre-history but who can tell? Since the grandparents are buying the thing for themselves, as much for the kid, does it matter? Dick Stroud