| Page 2: Advertising To Seniors |
| Does the attitudinal gap between today's working generation and these older people matter? A firm called Donnelly Marketing talked to professional marketing people. These "marketing experts", they found, underestimated the spending of Over-50s, and underestimated, by half, brand switching and interest in new products and technologies. Are Seniors dimwitted? Dr. Fergus Craik, head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, described these mature folk thusly: "They do not forget the knowledge they have accumulated and they have bigger vocabularies." Remember, you're talking to really sophisticated buyers. Most of today's Seniors have probably bought about ten cars, a couple of houses, two refrigerators and several tons of meat and potatoes. Ford Motor Company researchers predicted several years ago that "mature buyers will purchase nearly one third of all cars". Another estimate: "...over half the luxury cars are bought by over-55's". Attention copywriters: the Seniors' favourite words are FREE, HALF PRICE, and GUARANTEED. Seniors are the reading generation. No need to talk basic English to them. Seniors have seen it all. They're researchers of advertising. All the soap weasels, knock-offs of old movies, special effects -- they don't cut much ice with mature consumers. They are not amused. If they are amused -- they are not persuaded. The most important characteristic in advertising to Seniors is credibility. One way to be credible -- stick to product facts. This is the information age. Listen to your research. Seniors love facts. Facts sell. The product makes the advertising. This is critical: Seniors are impatient with all the stuff that makes advertising LOOK like advertising -- cluttered, exaggerated, weird-looking type; unbelievable situations. How do you find sales arguments that are believable to those sceptical Seniors? How about talking to them? How about research? Using such research, Straiton and others discovered such ideas as : "Coffee Crisp makes a nice, light snack" "Campbell's makes 31 different kinds of soup" Each of these approaches produced measurable improvements in sales. None of them was what you might call creative. No slogans. No jokes. And the people they were tested on were the 25 to 45 year age market. These same people are now the Seniors market. They're the same people. Maybe a little more wary, but essentially the same people. |
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