OlDGUYS

Don’t trust anyone over 30
By Paul Herbig

Advertisers want to be where the youth are. Advertisers are willing to pay a steep premium (sometimes two to three times as much) to have their products seen by young men and women in the ‘coveted’ 18 to 34 age group. Examine any primetime network show and you can almost see the intended audience mirrored by the show’s stars and culture. The networks cringe in horror if any show is targeted to “older” viewers (The dropping of Joan of Arcadia was because the viewership had turned old with many of the youth tuning out.). They fight one another over the average age of their viewers, dreading the ultimate insult of having the “oldest” average viewer, knowing the toll it will take on its advertising income.

Which brings us to the major question at hand: Why does Madison Avenue fight tooth and nail, court fiercely, and live and die for those youthful viewers? It can’t be for the money. Those “old folks” age 45 and over are the ones making the big bucks, have the largest disposable income, and who are buying most of the expensive products available today. The kids are either in school or just out of college, beset by huge amounts of college loans they must pay back, in an uncertain economy where any job is a good job, and living in modest digs if they haven’t already moved back with mom and dad. If the Advertisers wish to go where the money is, they have their priorities upside down.

Why then pursue the young and restless? Several reasons exist to rationalize the Advertiser’s odd behavior. The number one reason is the belief that marketers need to instill brand loyalty when the consumer is young and it will be maintained for the rest of their lives (Analogous to “Give me the child until he is 5 and he will be mine forever” School of thought). The only problem with this theory is that is it blatantly wrong. Young girls play with Barbies, that does not make them loyal to Mattel for life; as tweens (8-13) they loved the Backstreet Boys ; as teens they listened to Hip-Hop, in College young women have different tastes, and so on. Just because at one stage of their lives, they enjoy a product does not guarantee their loyalty for life; in fact, just the opposite is true, because they enjoyed a product as a high school student will almost guarantee they won’t like it as college student (because they associate it with their less mature high school life and they are now college students who must act and live like college students). This fallacy can be seen through the results of a recent survey:: males 18 to 21 are nearly four times as likely to favor apparel specialty shops than those 8 to 12 (38% to 10%) But guys lose interest in shopping at discount department stores as they get older (78% 8to 12 enjoy, compared to 57% of males 18 to 21). Perhaps as their spending patterns grows, their desire changes to more status brands.

The second reason is the “my customers are dying” syndrome whereas you fear the older average age of your product users could spell major problems in the future. Some truth may exist to this fear: the average age of Cadillac buyers have been edging up; however, Cadillac as a brand is under siege. In real life, some products are preferred by different age groups: Cruises tend to attract more seniors because they have the time and the money. To attempt to market to the young as a means of complementing your older users tends to alienate both groups: Remember “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” commercials. They failed to attract the young and drove away their loyalty older customer. Oldsmobile has been retired from GM’s stable primarily due to this debacle.

The third and more probable reason is that the creative team at the Advertisers tend to be young and project what they like to see and what they think their peers would appreciate. It must be new, hip, faddish. Very few fifty-ish creative types exist at agencies anymore. It is a game for the young (who likewise tend to be selling to their youthful marketing peers at your company). If you do not want to lose your older users, you “senior” marketers must monitor and rein-in those runaway youth, less your product finds the black hole as did Oldsmobile.

Don’t forget the older or they will forget you.