Sure, go ahead and write a :30 PSA on the topic for us.A point-to-mass communications system (sometimes called "radio") [might not be that well known though- has only been around ~100 years]
Kirk Bayne
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Older Audiences & Advertiser Appeal (For All Markets)
- Thread starter Kelly A
- Start date
I think I'm getting this now---you're trying to solve the older buyer loyalty issue that makes these people not cost-effective for advertisers, right?A point-to-mass communications system (sometimes called "radio") [might not be that well known though- has only been around ~100 years]
Kirk Bayne
But I'd make 2 comments here:
1) What percentage of Consumer Electronics (CE) are actually being purchased by older adults who still actually care about brand loyalty in that sector? In my experience, most people buying that stuff are either young people or younger folks with families, who really don't give a squat about brand loyalty and in some cases may actually steer away from the same brands their parents or grandparents may have owned. The last TV my grandma had was actually purchased with my parents in tow so they could help select a suitable model.. The most recent TV my parents got (a Samsung 42" LED) was actually purchased for them by my brother and sister in law as a gift. In those cases, it wasn't the older generation of people going to the store, doing the research and picking out the model on their own.
2) How do you create marketing or a PSA or whatever to explain that at least some parts of many Consumer Electronics are pretty common these days and may actually come from just one or two manufacturers, vs. also explaining that, again, if they go with name brand electronics vs. a generic store brand, they may get more options, much better sound or general build quality, etc.
Aren't there already sites like Consumer Reports and other Consumer Electronics product review sites and apps available to help guide people through this very kind of thing?
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There are segments to the senior market, just as there are to any other definable group.
In the acquisition of electronics, some are Luddites and some are very aware. In my family, there is a range from my household with 4 nearly new LG OLED screens, a variety of streaming services, all the latest WiFi technology and 2tb Internet service to a person my own age who just recently learned to text but still can't figure out how to take and send photos.
Project those extreme differences into the general population, add in situations where affordability influence the speed of technology adoption, and you just can't stereotype "older adults".
That reminds me of my grandmother, who, back in the mid-60's, had always been very frugal. She drove a Chevrolet and had driven them for many, many years. One day my mother stopped by to see her new car... it was a Caddy! It seems her long-time salesperson at the Chevy dealer was out when she went to see a new model, so she went next door to the Cadillac dealer and ended up with one. Her comment was, "Really, Mary Louise, when you drive one there is no comparison".
My grandmother had seen no reason to buy a different make of car. Until she actually tried one. It was not, in this case, about "knowing the difference" but about actually witnessing it.
How many people buy, subscribe or review those publications? There are so many different sources of information; recently we have developed a whole class of "influencers" who may really not be knowledgeable about anything but whose image propels product usage.
Point taken, but you're also the very rare exception to the rule for your age. Few people can say they built a radio station in Quitar 60 years ago at the age of 19 (sorry if some facts are off - I'm winging it) and have assembled and operate lightning fast scanners and multiple TB of memory to support a website they alone designed and maintain, to archive history about an industry they quite obviously love and are passionate about?
Also, again, my question is, how many older adults who really have a great concern about brand loyalty like consumers did maybe decades ago, are making consumer electronics purchases like LED TVs, compared to every other segment of the population, which are probably the ones making the overwhelming majority or CE purchases?
Probably about as many as would listen to Kirk Bayne's PSA or read the collateral he'd print, telling them LED TVs have all the same core components, regardless of brand, and they don't need a Magnavox, Curtis Mathes, Westinghouse, GE, Emerson, RCA, Motorola or other brand to ensure quality, brand standards and a company 'backing" their product like they did 40 or more years ago.
Close... it was Quito, Ecuador at age 18. But I know plenty of people my age who are just as aware of technology. Of course, "birds of a feather flock together" so it is rather natural that I would know people similarly inclined and not have a lot of friends who have trouble with a Jitterbug!
Again, I think the market is segregated. For example, many in my family who are from Mexico are very brand-consicious as when they were growing up outside the US brands, particularly European and some US ones, indicated quality. Because of that conditioning, they are prime prospects for all those extinguished brands now made by an anonymous Chinese factory.
Keep in mind that we have s significant immigrant and immigrant heritage population that may not even know the heritage of those ancient brands, many of which were not distributed widely outside the US. To them, those brands are "new" or represent the nation that they or their family adopted more recently.
When my wife bought the first HDTV we had for a present in 2009 it was a 32 inch Insignia (Best Buy's brand) and it was the biggest screen size we had ever had. Now a 32 inch set is one of the smallest sizes available (There are still 24 inch sets) compared to the 50 inch and larger sets that are now available.Yep....the "bigger than life" .....17 inch (RECTANGULAR screen!!) Muntz TV....(most sets at that time were still 12" round screen)....
Joe Niagara at "99 WIBG" (Philadelphia) plugged this product......!!
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And I'm guessing that 32" HDTV back in 2009 didn't come cheap. The company I was with at the time was still sending 42" screens out for repair until about 2008 or 2009 because they were still so expensive back then, that they considered it more economical to have them fixed and components replaced. Now, a 42" is so cheap that it's more or less considered a "disposable" item.
Similar situation in my family---which, for decades, back to the 1920s, only bought Fords. Although our change was based on perceived quality.
I was the first defector. I had four cars from the Ford Motor Company and then bolted for Toyota at age 23. Five years later, I traded that for a Honda Civic, and four years after that, my mom---at age 66---bought a new Accord, which she drove for the remaining 17 years of her life.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, she switched from Zenith to Sony in televisions in 1984...which was age 62.
But when the Sony 32-inch tube TV my wife had since 1993 finally conked out four years ago (when I was 62), Sony wasn't on my short list (in a major coincidence, her TV was the same model as the one I bought the same year during my first marriage). When I replaced the one she'd bought, I bought a Samsung.
My first cellphone was a Motorola StarTac. I loved that phone. Had it for years. But at 56, I switched to Apple and haven't looked back. My experience with the iPhone prompted, as I could afford them, upgrades of my Dell laptop and HP desktop to Mac replacements.
What NONE of these decisions were based on is advertising. I don't think advertising has been persuasive to me regarding any significant purchase since I was 30. Risk 11 bucks on a movie ticket? Sure. Try some restaurant’s new sandwich? Okay. But appliances, furniture, devices, services? Nope. I need to know way more than advertising can or wants to tell me.
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I follow events in the CE market more closely than others (hence my examples), but issue of "what does a brand name really mean" remains.
Since the USA is an open market, new brands appear, in the late 1950s/early1960s, the Japanese CE brands began to appear, decades later, Korean CE brands appeared, more recently, Chinese CE brands appeared (not using an older, licensed USA brand name).
Sears was a great brand, but Walmart and Target blew them away, Sears branded items were considered to be high quality, I consider the Walmart (new) ONN brand to be fairly good quality (of course, there's no factory operated by ONN making all ONN products, they just contract them out).
The value of a brand is something for marketing people to ponder and exploit (sounds like a job for focus groups, once they are informed about the fluidity of brand names, what would encourage them to try a new brand).
Kirk Bayne
Since the USA is an open market, new brands appear, in the late 1950s/early1960s, the Japanese CE brands began to appear, decades later, Korean CE brands appeared, more recently, Chinese CE brands appeared (not using an older, licensed USA brand name).
Sears was a great brand, but Walmart and Target blew them away, Sears branded items were considered to be high quality, I consider the Walmart (new) ONN brand to be fairly good quality (of course, there's no factory operated by ONN making all ONN products, they just contract them out).
The value of a brand is something for marketing people to ponder and exploit (sounds like a job for focus groups, once they are informed about the fluidity of brand names, what would encourage them to try a new brand).
Kirk Bayne
My introduction to Mac was at a workplace that outfitted the whole place with Macs, both desktop and laptop. I either learned how to use a Mac or didn't have that job. After I left, I bought a Macbook Pro and have had it ever since. I certainly knew about Apple, but didn't know I wanted one until I had one. I had iPhones through that same workplace, and both my wife and I had Samsung phones for 3 years until we upgraded and I got an iPhone 12 plus (I'm old and need the bigger screen.).
My grandmother had 3 cars during my lifetime; a1955 Mercury, a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker (hey, fancy AM/FM radio) and a 1965 Mercury which she had until the early 80s when she stopped driving. She also had a black and white TV until it literally gave up the ghost and I got her a color set.
But it's my strong opinion that most shoppers today are different and brand loyalty simply doesn't mean as much. In most of the examples above when people spouted off particular brand names of consumer electronics, car brands and the loyalty that certain family members had toward them, most were speaking about older family members, parents and perhaps even grandparents.
As @michael hagerty explained in his post immediately above yours, he doesn't rely on brand names or advertising and delves further into the products. For me, when we bought our most recent LED TV, we considered several factors including features (number of HDMI inputs, etc.) sound quality and the like, vs. price point. I wasn't particular to any specific brand. While my grandfather always drove an AMC car (I think he was friends with the dealership owner), my parents were not loyal to any particular car brand, nor am I or any of my siblings. When I bought my last car, my research entailed going to a number of websites to find which vehicles in the class I was interested in offered the best fuel mileage, regardless of brand. While my parents had Kenmore appliances when I was a kid, they know that brand isn't what it once was and all their local Sears stores have long been closed...When in the market for new kitchen appliances, they visited a few appliance and home improvement stores and made their selections based on other factors.
At Walmart 32 inch sets are available now in the low $100 range, and I'm sure it's the same at Best Buy. Sometimes there may be a sale price that is under $100.
Again, Kirk, I think what you have here is a solution in search of a problem.
The major brands are, for the most part, not competing with the cheap stuff using once-competitive brand names. There's no upside in trying to convert those folks, who are buying on price, not brand, anyway.
And IF you have an established brand, do you really want to put it into peoples' heads that brands are transitory? Because you're by default telling those folks that the clock is ticking on your own brand's relevance.
I bought the cheapest one I could find, each time I needed one.
And each purchase was made because I needed a new DVR. I am loyal to TiVo for recording shows. But the most up-to-date versions would not work with my combination TV/VCRs, all of which were purchased (or in the case of one, made) before the 2009 transition. I bought those to simplify recording. TiVos are complicated to use, though, but they had to be used.
Exactly. Thanks largely to Walmart.
Edit to Add: And over the past 2 decades, online retail.
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Not to hijack this thread, but if you're dealing with OTA signals (content you receive using an antenna) that's one thing and you may be stuck with TiVo or a VCR to record and playback depending on your equipment - but know that if you're using most any cable, internet or Dish provider to pull in what you watch, most of them normally come with the ability to record and play back programming, up to a certain amount of memory.
I think when it comes to discussion about 'brand loyalty' this apparent attitude that older folks hold to 'brand loyalty' more than other demos is based on 1960's thinking, as opposed to the way older demos think today, in the 2020s.
Brand loyalty went the way of the dodo about 20 years ago, for all demos except maybe teens, to whom particular brands are often a status symbol. But once you get past age 20 or so, the brand means less and less. Maybe if you've had great luck with a particular brand you stick with it. But I don't sense the massive "my family only drives a Ford" attitude that was prevalent in the 60's and 70's.
Every older demo knows that Toyotas are made in the US, that some parts and sections of Fords and Chevys come from overseas somewhere, they all know that a Boeing airplane is made of parts and sections from all over the world, and to them, the brand name on the device means less than the abilities of the device itself (with few exceptions), and maybe their own personal history with devices with that particular brand name on the device.
They're also full aware of the continuous move by brands (and companies) to consolidate. Compaq is now part of Hewlett Packard. Safeway now owns Kroger (or was it vice versa?). If you were a Compaq fan, good luck. Older demos are aware of this. Many in the political scene or media may not think much of older demos for various reasons but gross stupidity is not one of their dominant traits.
How to relate this to radio? I'm not sure how one can, or should. If the big advertisers hold the attitudes that older demos are useless to them, there isn't much radio can do to remedy that.
Brand loyalty went the way of the dodo about 20 years ago, for all demos except maybe teens, to whom particular brands are often a status symbol. But once you get past age 20 or so, the brand means less and less. Maybe if you've had great luck with a particular brand you stick with it. But I don't sense the massive "my family only drives a Ford" attitude that was prevalent in the 60's and 70's.
Every older demo knows that Toyotas are made in the US, that some parts and sections of Fords and Chevys come from overseas somewhere, they all know that a Boeing airplane is made of parts and sections from all over the world, and to them, the brand name on the device means less than the abilities of the device itself (with few exceptions), and maybe their own personal history with devices with that particular brand name on the device.
They're also full aware of the continuous move by brands (and companies) to consolidate. Compaq is now part of Hewlett Packard. Safeway now owns Kroger (or was it vice versa?). If you were a Compaq fan, good luck. Older demos are aware of this. Many in the political scene or media may not think much of older demos for various reasons but gross stupidity is not one of their dominant traits.
How to relate this to radio? I'm not sure how one can, or should. If the big advertisers hold the attitudes that older demos are useless to them, there isn't much radio can do to remedy that.
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