Ad age and ads.

Aging is greatly impacting marketing, the process that creates customer demand for goods and services in the American economy. Although U.S. marketing is considered the most advanced globally, it's facing tough times. A study from 1999 revealed that TV ads only brought back one-third of the money spent. Another study in 1995 showed that 70% to 80% of new product launches fail, costing up to $25 million each.

Despite these poor outcomes, companies are increasing their marketing budgets. An analysis of 20 industries found that selling, general expenses, and administrative costs now make up over 40% of every sales dollar. Higher advertising costs and lower returns have led to a quicker turnover of clients at marketing agencies, where the average client relationship has dropped from 11 years to 2.5 years. These lost relationships have contributed to a decline in ad agency revenues in 2001 and 2002, the first consecutive decline since the 1930s.

Where Marketing Went Wrong

Technology, which has boosted productivity in many industries, has had the opposite effect in marketing. Expensive "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM) programs, designed to automate marketing by collecting and organizing vast customer data, have largely failed. According to the Gartner Group, half of all CRM projects fail to meet their objectives. So, what went wrong?

One major issue is that the marketing industry has overlooked the importance of older American consumers. Instead, many agencies still rely on age-based marketing, where consumers and ad campaigns are segmented by age. This approach focuses on one group while neglecting other significant demographic segments. Often, campaigns target younger audiences under the assumption that if they adopt a brand early, they will remain loyal for life.

Revamp marketing metrics.

To improve their advertising and marketing strategies, marketers should reconsider some fundamental ideas. The majority of American Baby Boomers, who are now 40 years old or older, are the main consumers both in terms of numbers and spending. As consumers age, their decision-making process shifts from being primarily objective to being more subjective. Unlike younger consumers, older consumers make decisions that are not clear-cut, but rather influenced by their life experiences, emotions, and personal values.

Consumers can be broadly categorized based on their age into “four seasons of life: Spring (childhood to age 20), Summer (20-40), Fall (40-60), and Winter (60+)”. Each season reflects the culmination of past experiences and leads to a unique developmental theme. Adults in the Summer season, seek self-actualization through their work and look for new challenges. Fall season adults strive to find a balance between work and leisure, acknowledge their limitations, and start questioning the meaning of life. Winter season adults, on the other hand, embrace uncertainty and irony, seeking to integrate their life experiences into a coherent whole.

Values and the seasons.

The stages of psychological growth impact how people see the world, what drives them, how they think, and, consequently, what they need and how they go about fulfilling those needs. As individuals reach their later years, they become part of the New Customer Majority and start to base their buying decisions more on intangible factors like attitudes, beliefs, and values.

By using "ValuePortraits" created by J. Walter Thompson’s Mature Group and Market Strategies Senior Research Group, researchers have identified different consumer categories to understand their buying behaviors. Focusing on these values instead of just demographics is a more effective way to group consumers because values tend to stay the same and reflect desirable lifestyles and behaviors. Understanding these values gives advertisers and marketers valuable insights to create effective messages. For example, by studying values, marketers can better identify which market segments are most likely to be interested in specific products or services, and they can position these offerings more effectively by leveraging strong emotional connections.

Understand Older Consumers' Values

To understand what older consumers value, researchers used many surveys to identify 34 values across 13 subject groups. For winter season consumers, key values include self-respect, family ties, faith, and the need for warm relationships. For fall-season consumers, the top values are altruism, family ties, intellectual curiosity, and psychological well-being. Despite these similarities, individual experiences determine how strongly these values are held.

Translate values into campaigns.

Using Value Portrait research, marketers created campaigns that successfully engaged older consumers. For example, to boost occupancy at a senior citizen residence with an average dweller age of 84, an agency revamped the facility's image by emphasizing its intangible cultural and intellectual benefits alongside its physical amenities. This approach led to increased sales through lectures, seminars, book signings, National Public Radio sponsorships, and a newsletter.

Marketers face greater challenges when working with consumers in the Fall and Winter seasons of their lives compared to younger markets. This is because older adults are often more complex and interesting. For example, older adults seek product satisfaction that is not only temporary (episodic) but also enduring (ambient), meaning it contributes significantly to what they value in life over the long term. This lasting satisfaction is emotional and holds considerable power in the marketplace. It helps explain why Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners keep their bikes long after they can no longer ride them, showing a deep emotional connection, while also appealing to a younger market.

The Power of Ageless Marketing

Positive self-perception is crucial in ageless marketing. When advertisers use clichés about older consumers, it can lead to costly mistakes. For instance, Johnson & Johnson's shampoo for "over 40" hair, Gerber's pureed "Singles" food for denture wearers, and Campbell's Senior Singles soups all failed because they focused on age, portraying older consumers negatively instead of highlighting the value of their products. Research shows that older customers are less responsive to materialistic, narcissistic messages and more receptive to messages about emotional fulfillment and life-enhancing experiences.

The new face of older Americans includes qualities like romance, sexuality, creativity, wisdom-sharing, compassion, and vitality. They are less interested in buying things just for the sake of owning them. Traditional marketing relies on research and statistical analysis, while ageless marketing is rooted in behavioral science. It considers how the brain responds to emotions, words, visuals, and other non-observable factors that behaviorist social scientists struggle to quantify.

Marketers should craft messages that penetrate the subconscious, arousing emotions and capturing sustained attention. For Winter and Fall consumers, messages should be relevant, covering both the person's interests and the product's key features. Such messages stimulate "intentional" attention, which is more effective for older consumers than flashy ads aimed at younger audiences.

Craft Effective Campaigns.

Saturn car ads succeeded by highlighting how workers and customers shaped the product, rather than focusing on quantitative aspects like engine life. McDonald's created empathetic ads featuring people of all ages, races, and ethnicities in social settings, unlike Burger King's price-focused approach. Hallmark effectively uses TV ads that sell cards through relationship vignettes. These ads evoke emotional responses, connecting the marketing message with consumers' interests. Emotional ads, stimulating the right side of the brain, are more effective than argumentative ones. They establish credibility and believability by creating emotional arousal, making storytelling more important than the narrative approach, especially when the brand is presented as an interesting character in the story.

Understanding how the left and right sides of the brain influence human thought, known as "lateralization," has led to remarkable marketing strategies. Charities, for instance, often structure their donation appeals by first telling a story to evoke an emotional (right brain) response, followed by specific numbers (left brain) about how the donation will help. By using seasonal symbols to link these two approaches, marketers can engage both brain hemispheres, creating a compelling message that resonates emotionally and logically. Applying this principle can help marketers create materials that resonate with their target audiences.

Create Emotional Connections in Marketing

Marketers can learn from acting teacher Constantin Stanislavsky's "method acting" technique, which encourages drawing on personal experiences to connect with the audience. This approach, contrary to older methods, injects actors' personalities into roles, potentially evoking emotions in the audience. Marketers can apply this technique by creating a method marketing approach, using products instead of actors, to achieve similar goals.

Marketers must show their product's relevance to buyers to establish long-term relationships. Research indicates that brand names trigger emotional responses in the right brain, linking to consumers' ideas and experiences. Hence, brand loyalty is more emotional (right brain) than rational (left brain).

Believability is fundamental to successful marketing. Once established, brand bonding can occur when consumers have positive experiences they want to repeat, leading to brand loyalty. To establish believability, campaigns should focus on three key attributes:

1. Conversational Reciprocity: Genuine listening between companies and customers.

2. Reciprocal Empathy: Empathy toward a brand.

3. Reciprocal Vulnerability: Acknowledging that companies can make mistakes.

Understanding consumer motivations at each life stage is crucial for creating effective messages that appeal to all age groups, forming the basis of ageless marketing.