“The most certain outcome of ageing is the change it creates in the minds, senses and bodies of consumers” (p. 26). Marketing to the Ageing Consumer is a book with a different perspective. According to the authors of this book, Stroud and Walker, much has been written about the psychological effects of ageing as well as the mechanics of segmenting and communicating with older consumers. Even more has been written about the apparent differences in attitudes and behaviours between generations (p. 1).
The perspective of Stroud and Walker is to consider the physiological changes in bodies, minds and senses. In fact, the authors affirm that the physical aspects of ageing are easy to understand and for which to create business opportunities.
For Stroud and Walker, “unless a company ensures it is satisfying the consumer’s physiological needs it doesn’t have the foundation for fulfilling their psychological needs and wants” (p. 45).
So, if readers think that they will find contents related to psychology, this book will disappoint. The idea of the authors is to answer how companies can adapt and profit from the population’s physical ageing.
The contents of the book are organized into four sections. The first section includes the first two chapters, and it summarizes how the discipline of marketing to older people has changed and the scope and size of the economic changes created by the ageing population.
The second section covers Chapters 3 through 7. Here, the reader will find discussed different types of physiological ageing (sensory, cognitive and physical) and how they impact a company’s products, services, communications channels and distribution infrastructure. For example, declining quality of eyesight can impact communication when the customer finds reduced text size in a company’s website.
The authors claim to be aware of the effects of physiological ageing and its influence on customer experiences with companies. So, in these chapters, Stroud and Walker explain, using a business standpoint, the effects of ageing and how this affects the “consumer journey” or the consumer’s experiences in communication, online, retail, product and support.
A third section of the book (Chapters 8, 9 and 10) explain the concept of age-friendliness and how it is measured. The authors define age-friendliness as an environment in which the unique physical needs of older people are satisfied in a way that is natural and beneficial for all ages (p. 59).
In these chapters, the reader will find interesting topics like:
the universal design concept: “design for the young and you’ll exclude the old. Design for the old and you’ll include the young” (p. 153);
examples of age-friendly (AF) companies like Apple;
the importance of measure and some techniques that could be used to measure age-friendliness;
criteria for success, which include a comprehensive, flexible, holistic, consistent, comparable, affordable and actionable process.
AF Audit model where different variants of customer experience in communications, online, retail, product and support are divided in detail into a sequence of touchpoints. The idea is to evaluate each touchpoint. Examples of touchpoints include reading a newspaper ad, navigating a website and assembling a product for use.
AF technology platform: this platform consists of an iPad app (to collect the touchpoint data) and a processing engine to analyze the data and present the results; and
How to create and implement an AF strategy.
The last section of the book (Chapters 11 and 12) explains how the concept of age-friendliness can be applied to helping companies use their ageing workforce and governments to best serve an ageing citizen.
The idea is that population ageing affects much more than the relationship between the company and its customers. Ageing also influences in the relationships between employers and employees as well as governments and ageing citizens.
Finally, the last chapter of the book looks to the future. Here, the authors talk about what they believe, the knowns, unknowns and what they would like to ask if they could spend a few minutes with the oracle at Delphi.
When predicting the future the authors say, it is almost certain to be wrong.
To summarize, Stroud and Walker think age-friendliness will follow the same route as sustainability (p. 231), and they believe the drive for change is likely to come from the Asia Pacific region.
This book was easy to read but depressing and rough in the second section due to its description of the physical problems of ageing that we all face. Yet, it is also important to know what could be done to prevent some problems and to diminish some effects of ageing.
There is a lack of pictures, which could make the book more enjoyable when talking about business opportunities and product design. The figures and tables of the different chapters help not to make the read rough and summarize some topics.
The title of the book Marketing to The Ageing Consumer, probably does not deliver what it promises. The subtitle The Secrets to Building an Age-Friendly Business fits better with the contents of the book.
Nonetheless, the message of the book is good, and it has an interesting perspective to consider satisfying the consumers, “employees” and citizens’ physiological needs. The book is aimed not only to the chief executive officers of different companies, but also policymakers in the public and private sectors.
By buying the book the reader will obtain a broad guide of the physical inconveniences of ageing and some of the consequences for the private and the public sector.
