Older consumers say that health and wellness influences their product purchases. In fact, according to a report from GlobalData, 62% of consumers aged over 55 say that the way a product impacts their health and wellness often or always influences their product choice in food. Clearly, mortality is a powerful motivator to change behaviour. It’s a […]
products
Gillette tackles product design for the ageing consumer, actually for their caregivers
Gillette has designed a razor solely for assisted shaving. It’s called Treo. As caregivers are often adult children in their fifties and above, I wondered if this product was designed with the user and the receiver in mind? While there is a specific page dedicated to the Treo on the Gillette website, when I searched […]
Japanese companies innovate in response to the ageing consumer
With the dramatic rise of the ageing consumer in Japan, and the resulting shrinkage of the domestic market, companies are having to respond with product and service innovations to meet the changing consumer needs. For example, the ready-made food sector is booming due to the rise of single-person households and ageing consumers as reported here […]
Hearing-aids will become easier to buy. But will they be easy to use?
My brother-in-law suffered hearing loss attributed to years of working close to the squeal of a dentists drill. But he refused to wear a hearing-aid because of what others might think of him. In the USA, about 48 million people (20% of the population) have hearing loss in at least one ear, but just 14% […]
Blame boomers for the decline in electric guitar sales
In the past decade, electric guitar sales have plummeted, from about 1.5 million sold annually to just over 1 million.
Asia’s older consumers are just as dynamic in society’s evolution as younger generations
Brands need to take heed about how much the lifestyles of older Asians have changed according to The Generation Game: Understand the different life stages of the Asian consumers from research company Mintel. Here are a few other quotable quotes from the report; Brands need to keep in mind that older lifestyles need change, and […]
Is ‘anti-ageing’ an ageist descriptor for brands?
Commonly used in the beauty world, I have long maintained that the expression ‘anti-ageing’ is ageist. It implies there’s something wrong with ageing. Imagine if skin-whitening treatments were positioned on an ‘anti-black’ platform! Now there are signs that the anti-ageing term is losing popularity. According to this article in Elle, Google reported that last year […]
Reframing Ageing – Let’s talk longevity?
A few weeks ago I helped to run a collaborative innovation workshop in Singapore, themed around opportunities in ageing and longevity. The workshop was managed by Hugh Mason of JFDI and sponsored by BOSCH. It brought together a group of entrepreneurs and enterprises including Munich Re, BP, OCBC Bank, Singapore Press Holdings. The innovation output was […]
Why our hands become increasingly critical to our customer experience
Hand strength declines with age and the effect is exacerbated by hand arthritis – one of the most common problems that adversely affect the fine motor skills of older people. I should know, I suffer it. This issue and it’s consequences for the customer journey (think packaging and product design) are a centrepiece of my […]
Luxury brands to gain from the ageing consumer
There are some refreshing surprises in this list of companies which a leading bank thinks will benefit from an ageing consumer base. Societe Generale has selected a list of 40 companies with metrics based on historical performance relative to GDP growth and current market cap. The 40 make up a ‘Silver Economy Index’ as reported […]
