Contents

About The 50-Plus Market

Like all good books The 50-Plus Market is a story with a beginning and an end.

Chapter 1 sets the scene of the story by relating the views of leading marketers about the 50 plus market. Chapter 14 concludes by looking at the broader issues of the aging population and its effect on business. The intervening chapters separate the facts from the myths; tell how the 50 plus market can be segmented and discuss the implications for media planning, creative and interactive channels.

Alternatively, the book can be used as a textbook. Each chapter is self-contained and explains the facts and implications of the aging population, on each aspect of marketing.

Chapters 1- 4 look at the facts, myths, prejudices and uncertainties about the 50 plus market and marketing. This analysis uncovers a group of older people - The Charmed Generation - which has a level of spending power that is unlikely to be matched by future generations. The analysis also reveals why the spending power of 18-35 year olds - Generation Broke - is in decline.

Chapters 5 - 7 uses OMD's research from Australia, Czech Republic, France, the UK and the US to show how age affects peoples' attitudes and behaviours and what this means for segmenting markets.

Chapters 8 - 9 show why marketers need to change their approach to the 50 plus market and adopt the principles of age neutral marketing and how this can be accomplished.

Chapters 10 -11 discuss the impact of ageing on the way people use interactive channels, especially the Web, and how to make these channels "50 plus friendly".

Chapters 12-13 review how the selection of media and the choice of advertising creative is affected by the needs to target older people.

Chapter 14 considers a range of subjects; starting with the application of the Tipping Point theory to the 50 plus market and ending with the description of a world that is rapidly dividing into regions of old and young people and what this means to the marketer.

The book's style?

Many business books are difficult to understand and deadly boring. I have endeavoured to make this book light-hearted, engaging in tone and amusing. Where I have encountered ill thought-out arguments, I have said so, perhaps not as diplomatically as I should.

I believe the book provides new and interesting insights into the 50 plus market and that the 'age-neutral' approach to marketing is one that all marketers should adopt.

OMD - my research partner.

OMD is one of the largest and most influential media communications specialists in the world.

Without the partnership with OMD it would have been impossible to write the book. I was fortunate in working with a company that shared my interest in the 50 plus market and had the confidence and capability to undertake a multinational research project to understand the affects of aging on consumer behaviour. Special thanks to Jo Rigby, the head of OMD Insight, and an authority on media strategy for the over 50s, for all of help and assistance.