Marketing to the Older ConsumerTechniques to target the fastest growing population demographic

There are 20 million people in the UK aged over 50 years old. That’s over 7 million more than in the marketer’s favourite 18-34 age group. In ten years time the 50-plus will outnumber this group by 10 million. When this fact is combined with their huge levels of wealth... read more(over £5 trillion) they become, without question, the most important group of consumers that marketers must understand. The situation is the same in other European countries, the US and Japan.

Because the 50-plus is such a large and diverse group, it is impossible to make generalised comments about their responsiveness to modern marketing techniques. The 50-plus includes people searching for care homes and those for holiday villas. It contains the frail and ill and those with a passion for physical fitness. A fifty year old living and working in a prosperous urban area is very different to somebody of similar age, unemployed and living in a poor rural village.

The aim of this series is to provide marketers with a deep understanding of this group and the latest thinking in the marketing techniques to engage with them as consumers.