An age group waiting to be discovered

At the last meeting of Trade Marketing Klub in 2009, the topic was consumption habits of the + 50 age group and their shopping potential. Zsuzsanna Hermann, Trade magazin’s editor in chief and one of the TMK founders welcomed club members. When registering, participants were happy to receive the Dove Pro.Age products, the HUF 5000 vouchers of Bali Hajnal hair saloon and the box of bonbon beautifully packaged by MekkoraPrint. Later the revised edition of the soon-to-be-published book Trade marketing a mindennapokban was presented in CD format. The first presenter was Eszter Boczán, research adviser at Nielsen’s consumer research department. Recently Nielsen conducted a survey on the 50-64 age group – according to Eurostat the proportion of this age group is growing in both the EU-27 and Hungary. Those who belong to this group are economically active and have at least one child who now lives separately. Coffee and sweets are important for them, just like TV, radio and mobile phones. They use the Internet regularly and are open to new things – which are introduced to them by their children and not by marketing. Zsolt Barta, head of the web site Ötveventúl.hu and managing director of Silver Kiadó spoke about the +50 age group’s representation in the media and in society. Many still think that only a marginal proportion of people belong to this group, but the fact is that every 3rd person is above 50, more than half of them are of ABC status and 41 percent finished secondary school or has a university/college degree. For most of them, the market economy and information society are completely natural; what is more, they have significant savings that they are willing to invest. Since their children have already left home, they have more money to spend on themselves, for instance on buying a car, travelling or wellness. As for their consumption habits, they prefer smaller shops close to their home. The +50 age group is strong in the beer, mineral water, coffee, kefir and pet food segments. Tibor Veress, Unilever’s trade category manager talked about the successful introduction of Dove’s Pro.Age line. One of the keys to success was a new communication approach: instead of the Anti-Ageing approach they created a new concept, Pro-Ageing. Top-quality skin-care products were developed especially for the aging population. An extra force was the radically new advertisements; Dove Pro.Age tried to convey messages about beauty being independent of age or body shape, and aimed at diminishing discrimination in society against aging women. The campaign’s success was beyond expectations and won the silver prize of Effie. TMK-founder Ágnes Csiby closed the meeting by calling attention the “Trade marketing manager of the year” contest: the individual winner will join the POPAI delegation to the Marketing at Retail Show in Paris, while group winners will spend a weekend at Harkány. Results will be announced at the “Trade marketing my love” conference at Foodapest in February.