Happy New Year. Cleaning closets, and marketing to older adult audiences.

January 15th, 2009 by Robbie Magee

In spot number six on the National Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions for 2009 is to become better organized. This often involves the dreaded cleaning of closets. Actually, I’ve come to almost like closet cleaning. It gives me a brief illusion of total control in an otherwise crazy world. “This goes (what was I even thinking?).” “This I love, so it stays no matter what.” “This just isn’t ‘me’ any more”. Et cetera, et cetera. To put a positive spin on it (isn’t that what marketers do?), closet cleaning is actually an exercise in self-definition.

So how can cleaning closets possibly have anything to do with our profession?

We, as marketers, rely on the fact that people will always want more stuff. Even better, they will always believe they need more stuff. And we are excellent at serving up all that stuff in the form of products or services that satisfy that want or fulfill that need. For marketing folks, the blurring of Need and Want in the minds of consumers works in our favor. We use tricks of the trade: leveraging the power of peer pressure, getting to be the first on your block, needing to keep up with the Joneses, the esteem of being labeled an early adopter, and the list goes on. So how do we, as marketers, succeed when Needing and Wanting, or more specifically, having, become far less important than being? When the pursuit of “self-actualization” comes into play (as much more eloquently described by David Wolf than by my closet cleaning metaphor) and the marketing equation becomes far more complicated? When the aforementioned tricks of the trade don’t work so well–or not at all? This is precisely the challenge we face when our clients’ prospective customers are seniors.

Older consumers have always presented a challenge to marketers because their purchase behaviors are more complex—from how they assess value to how they choose brands or products they want to experience. Now add to that equation a difficult economy. Everyone feels some fear and uncertainty, but seniors—many of whom are retired or approaching retirement—feel it most of all.

“What to do? Who to trust? What do I really need?” These questions are more pressing than ever.

Through our work with clients, (such as MetLife Bank, MetLife Home Loans, MetLife Retirement Strategies Group, National Council on Aging, Ace Brands, Senekot, and Tommy Armor Golf) we help senior audiences discover products and solutions and evaluate whether they might be right for them. Our approach to message creation is holistic, anticipating the full spectrum of factors that play into the decision-making process so we can better address concerns and ease the emotional journey from before-purchase anxiety to after-purchase peace of mind. In short, less is left to the imagination. A prospective buyer can more easily access whether the brand or product will contribute to becoming his or her desired self. And while the aforementioned tricks of the trade offer little hope of success when marketing to older audiences, there are some tried and true techniques that do (let me know if you’re interested in these). For now, just remember that your senior audiences have done a lot of closet cleaning over the years—both literally or metaphorically. They have a well-defined sense of self and a compass for what’s truly important. Assume they will instinctively use the golden rules of closet cleaning to evaluate your advertising messages—along with almost everything else in life: “Is it important? Do I need it? Does it belong in the life I desire? Is it ‘me’?”

Happy New Year!

- Robbie Magee

This entry was posted by Robbie Magee on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 and is filed under Advertising, Brand Strategy, Business, Clients, Copywriting, MF, Marketing, Senior Marketing, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.