Nielsen have placed EEG-tracking caps on hundreds of older consumers. The results confirm our hypotheses and some useful tips.

Here’s are topline conclusions from the report in Advertising Age;

• As boomers age, some neural decline will be inevitable, and they’ll find it harder to handle visual or verbal complexity so “keep it simple.”
• Boomer brains tend to experience negative emotions less and filter out negative messages (so they may have already forgotten the bad news). Negative images are overlooked unless they’re “immediately relevant.”
• Older consumers display more “emotional resilience” and a tendency to “not sweat the small stuff,” so they’re less likely to fall for alarming messages like “last chance to buy”.

The panel to the right has some useful tips.