Introduction
The over-50s category is not only growing in size and in importance for financial services providers, with the advent of the baby-boom generation, it is undergoing fundamental change. Financial services marketers will need to reconsider how they segment seniors and how they communicate with them. This report provides the basic principles on how this should be done.
Scope
* Basic demographics from Eurostat and Datamonitor
* Strategic analysis by Financial Services and Consumer segmentation experts
* European coverage: France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK
Report Highlights
People between 50-59 experience more change and life events than in any other decade in life. The ‘50-something’ experience is best described as ‘50 anything’ because so much change occurs during that decade.
All this hype about the over 50s becoming more active and healthier is a myth. Our figures show less than a third of over 55s are doing anything. Whilst there has been an increase in activity ratios for some this is more than offset by those who stop doing anything when they get older.
Primarily, the communications problem stems from young marketers lacking empathy. In the UK, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising estimates 81% of staff in advertising and marketing communications agencies were aged under 40 years old and 49% of staff under the age of 30.