Don’t be fooled by the grays: People over 60 are quickly wielding more and more spending power and retailers are starting to sit up and take notice. According to The Business of Fashion, the 60-plus crowd spent over $8 trillion globally in 2010 and their spending is predicted to reach $15 trillion by 2020.
In order to gain this demographic’s hard-earned dollars, however, retailers have to be willing to pay attention to their needs. We live in an admittedly youth-dominated culture and advertising tends to skew toward the younger set. There are less obvious ways to attract an older customer as well: retailers can make labels easier to read, make sure stores are well-lit and hire older workers who can better relate to shoppers of a certain age.
Retailers and brands also need to make a commitment to reaching older customers through digital engagement. Selfridges’ Creative Director Linda Hewson points to a video it created with filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson about “age not being an issue” which did better than the company anticipated. “We were really surprised about how people engaged with it. One would assume that it is more a younger population that engage with things online and engage with short films, but it just isn’t the case, as we are fast discovering!” A recent survey shows that in many countries, people up to the age of 75 are navigating the Internet.
Brands like NARS and Marc Jacobs have used older models in advertising campaigns, so things are slowly changing. But if they want the almighty gray dollar, they need to step it up.
[via The Business of Fashion]
