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If there was ever a golden age in which mass marketing was all companies
needed to reach homogenous markets and predictable consumers, it is
long gone. Traditional brand management systems, pioneered by Procter
& Gamble, were very successful in the 1950s and 1960s. Theodore
Levitt, emeritus professor at the Harvard Business School, pushed the
idea of the virtues of mass marketing to new heights in his famous 1983
article, “The Globalization of Markets.” In it, he wrote: “Different cultural
preferences, national tastes . . . and business institutions are vestiges
of the past . . . Everywhere everything gets more and more like everything
else as the world’s preference structure is relentlessly homogenized.”15
But the world has not become what Levitt envisioned. Rather, tastes
have become more fragmented. Worldwide, people are increasingly
spending their money in ways that reflect their individual values, which,
in turn, are embedded in their respective cultures. As such, global strategies
based on uniform tastes have not lived up to their early billings.
Instead, companies are “going native” in terms of product expansion.
Ford’s Mondeo sought to be a “global car.” But the car was only
successful when adapted—in name and design—for local markets in
Europe and North America. MTV relies primarily on local music and
local administration for programming in Europe, Asia, and South
America. Coca-Cola now has over 230 brands in more than 200 countries,
and one of its top sellers in Japan is a canned coffee drink. In
China, Volkswagen and General Motors have both introduced small
family cars, the VW Santana and the Buick Sail. The Sail even features
jumbo-sized cup holders big enough to accommodate the thick jars the
Chinese use to hold their tea.
The sweeping changes in consumer demographics, demands, and
perceptions of global brands simultaneously present new opportunities
and challenges for retailers and suppliers. How have firms responded to
these consumer changes? With global branding under siege, firms are
exploring new ways to adapt. Corporations are attempting to bring consumers
back into focus by identifying the attitudes, needs, and values
underlying different age brackets, income levels, and ethnic groups.
For instance, companies are increasingly targeting senior citizens in
advanced markets who—after being tied down by jobs and child-rearing—
hunger for experiences that were denied them in their youth. Healthier
and wealthier than grandparents of generations past, the over-65 crowd
seeks to flex both their minds and bodies. As Roger Heeler, professor of
marketing at York University observes, it is dawning on the travel industry
that not all elderly tourists “want to sit in a coach with 30 other seniors
and two 20-year-old guides and be shown the sights they shouldn’t miss
before they pass from the mortal coil.” The Canada-based Eldertreks was
one of the first companies to adapt to the senior travel market by offering
people 50 years and older small-group adventures—such as camel trips
through Mongolia—in more than 50 countries. Elderly travelers are also
fuelling a growing field of “study travel,” sponsored by professional organizations,
zoos, universities, and museums.
Similarly, DeBeers marketed its new line of three-stone jewelry to
elderly women in Japan by appealing to a similar desire for personal
journey and experience. Marketing research found that, among elderly
women, purchases of upscale products were largely driven by desires for
self-improvement. The company’s campaign emphasized that the threestone
jewelry represented the past, present, and future of a woman’s
personal journey. DeBeers’ marketing arm, the Diamond Trading
Company (DTC), launched print ads featuring women studying overseas, running a cafe, and taking up photography. “The market was about
accumulation of past life, but also rediscovery [of themselves] and an
ever-evolving journey. This was an emotional hook for us,” explains
Peter Bromwitz, the account director at DTC’s ad agency J. Walter
Thompson in Japan.
Indeed, senior citizen advocacy groups such as AARP and specialized
marketing firms such as the San Francisco-based Age Wave are striving to
convince companies and advertisers to dispense with the stereotype that
the elderly are too set in their ways to explore new brands and products.
“If that notion were real, I would be sitting here in Thom McCann shoes,
have a Chevy Impala parked in my garage, be wearing a Timex watch,
have brushed my teeth with Crest and, for a little arthritis in my shoulder,
I would have taken St. Joseph aspirin,” complains Ken Dychtwald, the
president at Age Wave. “All of which is ridiculous,” he adds. “There’s not
one product that I use today that I was using in my late teens.”
Even though young people tend to be the first to buy new products,
consumers over 50 may also do so. The Global Consumer Innovation
Study, which links consumer personality traits to a variety of demographic
and adoption factors, shows that about 12 percent of consumers
50 and over are innovators or early adopters of new products, especially
high-tech products. The study was cosponsored by A.T. Kearney, the
Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California,
and the Judge Institute of Management at Cambridge University.
Perhaps the most self-defeating assumption among marketers is the
belief that the elderly are technophobes wary about using the Internet
for any purpose beyond sending e-mails to the grandkids. In truth, a rising
number of “silver surfers” are reaching for the computer mouse.
Nielsen/Net Ratings reports that senior citizens are the fastest growing
age group online in the United States, surging 25 percent per year to
9.6 million web surfers from home and work in October 2003.20 In the
United Kingdom, this age bracket represents 12 percent of all online
users.
A 2002 survey found that 52 percent of older consumers are
using the web to make purchases, while 38 percent research stocks and
check investments.22 Banks have begun actively courting this group of
consumers, making them aware of the advantages of online services. As
more and more retirees take to the road, they appreciate the convenience
of being able to monitor their finances and pay their credit card
bills from a cyber cafe in Venice or Las Vegas.
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