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Topic: Student Questions

Senior Citizen Market Segmentation

Posted by Anonymous on 10/6/2004 at 5:28 PM ET 250 Points
Hi

I am doing a study on market segmentation and I am learning about the senior citizen segment. I have done a lot of search on the internet about this segment. It seems that they are a growing number and have considerable purchasing power and companies have started to realise that.

However I am unable to find instances where companies wrongly targetted or neglected this segment and had a product failure. Or an example of a product targetted to this segment which failed for any other reason. Could anyone help me by providing some information on this. I have found examples of successful products being targetted to this segment but not vice versa. Any additional infomation and examples of successful and failed products would also be appreciated.

Thanks
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  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 10/20/2004 at 6:09 PM Accepted
    One glaring example was more of a sales problem than a marketing one.

    Potential buyers being shown through a retirement village asked about the ownership status of their town-house. The sales person outlined the body corporate leasehold regulations and consistently used terms like "and then when you die..."

    As she left the fit, vigorous prospective clients for another group I heard the gentleman say to his wife: "Die? we don't want to come here and die, we want to come here and LIVE!"

    So she missed the sale by pigeonholing these people into the "almost ready to shuffle of this mortal coil" basket, quite wrongly.

    Marketing errors I have seen in advertising portray users of products targeted at over-50's as looking well over 50. Sometimes the on-screen talent looks more like 65-70 than 50. With the huge baby boomer bulge already in their mid-50's, that is a terrible mistake. Over-50's don't mind age-targeted products, but they don't want to be made to feel aged if they buy them.

    Bear in mind, with modern life-expectancy, someone who is now 50 is less than two-thirds through their average life expectancy. They have around 30 years left on average.

    Not sure if this helps you as your definition of senor citizen is not clear.

    Good luck...

    ChrisB
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