The Invisible Powerhouse

Ayesha Walawalkar writes in Bloomberg via Business Reporter.

The over-50s have been overlooked and treated as a homogenous herd for far too long. MullenLowe Group’s latest research recognizes the widely differing attitudes and behaviors of this huge demographic and illustrates the economic value of understanding and targeting it better.

Forty-seven percent of British adults are aged over 50. While that number indicates the social and cultural significance of this group, what’s even more notable is their spending power.

People aged 50+ control more than half of total UK household expenditure—a figure set to rise to 63% by 2040, when they will be the biggest spenders in every category from technology to fashion. But society in general, and the advertising world in particular, has a myopic approach to older adults, often treating them as an undifferentiated and economically inactive mass. While marketers have been aware of this problem for some time, it’s an issue that’s yet to be resolved.

UK advertising tends to misrepresent or, worse still, entirely ignore this group. According to recent research, only 12% of UK ads feature someone aged 50+ in a lead role, and those roles are often highly stereotyped. Think about the last advert you saw featuring an older person. Was it for life insurance, a cruise or a walk-in bath? Cheerier still, perhaps it was for a funeral plan. Yet over-50s are the people most likely to shop in some of the UK’s major retailers.

At MullenLowe Group, we’re making moves to better understand the invisible 50+ powerhouse. In partnership with a data analytics company, we’ve carried out cluster analysis on beliefs, attitudes and behaviors to create a quantitative segmentation of the UK’s 50+ population. We’ve identified seven distinct groups (the smallest of which represents almost 3 million people): Social Progressives, Accountable Citizens, Experience Lovers, Savvy Spenders, Carefree Hedonists, Caring Conformists and Security Seekers. These segments have very different attitudes toward sustainability, technology, travel, health and finance, and they behave, spend, relax and consume media differently.

Uploading these segments back into the database has enabled us to explore how each of them interacts with brands, categories and platforms, driving sharper insights and more effective targeting. Further nuance has been added through qualitative research to uncover the views of each segment regarding the communications that are theoretically aimed at them.

With this research, we aim to unlock more value for brands and achieve better, more relevant communication, while also addressing the ageism that is so apparent in our industry.

Debunking media habit myths

Our research demonstrates that several outdated myths about older adults’ media habits are in urgent need of debunking. For example: “They’re not digitally savvy”; “They’re media skeptics”; “They only engage with one form of social media.” Such statements misrepresent the 50+ consumer generally, but if we dig into the behaviors of different segments, it becomes very apparent that some groups significantly outperform not only the rest of their age cohort, but also their younger counterparts.

Since 2019, the way the over-50s watch TV has changed, and the proportion of them saying they now watch more TV because of online streaming has doubled in this time.

While 81% of under-50s now use on-demand services, older consumers are catching up fast. 73% of those aged 50+ are now watching shows on demand, and if we explore further, we find that two of our segments use the UK national streaming players more than the average: Social Progressives (74%) and Experience Lovers (72%), vs. only 51% of under-50s.

This is also the case with the national streaming hub offer, which is most likely to be used by Experience Lovers (47%) and Accountable Citizens (46%), compared to just 30% of under-50s.

While those under 50 are still more likely to have an international streaming service (56%) or a streaming service connected to e-commerce (49%) than the 50+ age group (31% and 32%, respectively), penetration is growing among older adults, and there is clearly an opportunity to drive subscriptions by targeting segments that are already highly familiar with on-demand. Also, while older adults generally watch a wider range of programming than the under-50s, key segments such as the Social Progressives are drama addicts for whom streaming services with original content are likely to hold high appeal.

While there are clear differences when it comes to media and entertainment habits, our research showcased some universal truths that span all segments:

• Age is not identity: No one defines themselves by their age, and in our minds, none of us is an old person.
• Over-50s must be normalized in marketing and advertising. This huge group uses all kinds of products and services—not just those designed for the elderly.
• Multigenerational inclusion is a highly appealing form of representation. Not all over-50s are fragile, lonely and homebound—or hyper-fit long-distance runners.

The challenge to remove the age lens

What’s next? It’s time for the advertising industry to remove the age lens and stop overlooking the over-50s. Understanding the interests, attitudes and lifestyles that traverse age is an essential first step in targeting and communicating more effectively, and we hope our latest research will enable such understanding. The over-50s have lots to offer us. It’s time we started listening to what they have to say.