Changing Times are Redefining the "Right" Demographics

They say that generals are always caught up fighting the last war instead of the current one. The same may be said about today’s marketers. A lot of their effort and investment may be going against the wrong targets — yesterday’s! And in this miscalculation may lie your organization’s greatest opportunity to steal the march on your competition.

Consider two key bits of demographic data:

Age

Many marketers are focused on (obsessed with?) the 18–44 age group. But census projections over the next decade show these age bracket changes are coming:

18–44: -1%
55+: +21%
55–64: +47%

The 50+ audience accounts for 50% of all discretionary spending, and yet is the target for only 5% of all advertising messages!

“…I find it interesting how each of the networks is striving to decrease the average age of its audience. Instead, they ought to find more powerful ways to position themselves to the current 45–54 demo that will be the 55–64 of 2010.”
—Lonny Strum, Media Week, Oct. 28, 2002

Gender

In the buying decisions for these products and services, women are the primary deciders…

Consumer electronics — 51%
Cars — 60%
Health care — 80%
Bank accounts — 89%
Houses — 91%
Vacations — 92%
Home furnishings — 94%

Women have the upper hand (often the only hand) in 83% of all consumer purchases!

“…like nervous boys at a junior high dance, marketers haven’t figured out how to talk to women who comprise 51% of the U.S. population.”
—Hillary Chura, Advertising Age, Sept. 23, 2002

When it comes to lining up the right message with the right audience, perhaps your competitors have left you huge openings just waiting to be exploited.

These are just a few of the critical facts that can change your thinking about new products or services you might offer in the future—and about how you might go about marketing them. To us, facts like these are part of helping clients answer the question, “Where do I start?” (Three other vital questions are “What do I say,” “Where do I say it,” and “How do I say it?”) For answers, ask us how to apply this data to your future plans.

Data on age and gender culled from “From Excellence to WOW: Reinventing the Rules for the Brand New Workplace” by Tom Peters. For more good insights, go to Tom Peter's Web site.

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