OldGringo said:
Whether 55+ buy things or not is immaterial. Agencies have client dictates to not buy 55+, so this is a hard fact.
The reason there are no-55+ dictates is that most agency clients have done studies and find that the ROI on selling an older consumer produces a loss on every sale made.
Sellers and sales managers have ZERO control over the demographics a client asks an agency to go after.
Marketers who do go after 55+ do not use radio, as there are better media than radio for targeting them by specific interest groups... magazines, direct mail, etc.
That may be changing. I attended the "Extreme Thinkers" session at the NAB Radio Show on Friday. Among the panelists was Marian Salzman who is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer from J. Walter Thompson. She said that she thought the new "Hot Demo" is the 50-70 group. She described these people as "going through their second adolescence." I thought that was a very astute observation. They are buying Harleys, RV’s HDTV’s, boats, second homes, cruises and a lot of other stuff they couldn’t afford when they were raising a house full of kids. I know lots of people who fit that description, me included. She also mentioned all the other obvious things about that demo that people on this group have pointed out for a long time.
My hat is of to her for recognizing this. Maybe it will be a growing trend. There also seemed to be very little disagreement among the panelists that most kids have abandoned radio, or more likely have never really discovered it. There are too many other media distractions in their lives.
It seems obvious to me that if radio wants to prosper, at least for now, it behooves them to market their formats to people who already include radio in their lives. Obviously, they will need to crack the younger demo as well if radio is to sustain itself, but the quick fix is to go after the aging boomers.
