In Asia, grey hair normally earn respect but little else. Youth is at a premium and Asians go to great lengths to prolong their youth or more realistically, masquerade their advancing years. A glaring example of this is evident in the group photograph of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist party of China, with a full crop of gleaming black hair crowning each venerable member.

Marketers have also given a short shift to aged – while they commence studying the needs of children even before they are born consumers are often dropped from the radar even before they reach the age of fifty. The marketers in countries like Japan are forced to change their attitudes, as they realize that the elderly are hoardings large part of the nation’s investable funds.

In affluent countries people live longer (may be there is more to live for) creating a large population of the elderly. However, China faces the ageing issue (or problem as seen from the economic and social point of view) a bit prematurely. In spite of the fact that it is far from achieving affluence, the senior population in China is estimated to be 11.6% of the total. Of course, percentages when applied to the size of China result in gigantic numbers – and one sees that there are 153 million people in China who are 60 years of age or older. The reasons for the “grey boom” in China are not difficult to decipher – sharp increases in basic nutrition and hygiene, coupled with significant increases in quality of healthcare, along with strong discouragement for multiple off-springs, inexorably tilted the balance of population. 

From a marketing point of view, size is important – but so is the purchasing power. The Chinese elderly would normally live on a modest pension. However, the redeeming fact is that well rid of the children, they only have themselves to spend this money on. So while unable to emulate the extravagant behaviour of Handycam wielding Japanese tourists in Europe, they still have the wherewithal to treat themselves with economy travel to a nearby city in China. Hence this sizeable group of healthy individuals with modest but collectively enormous means, represents a growing market segment for marketers if they could read their special functional and psychological needs and address them with intelligently designed products and services. 

The opportunities in this market exist in several areas ranging from healthcare services, health supplements (already a huge market – with not only the elderly buying for themselves, but the children splurging on huge and extravagantly packaged health products to gift to their parents in an attempt to assuage their guilt of abandoning them) to flavour enhanced foods (according to medical research reports, the number of active taste buds declines with age and hence the foods need special flavour boosts to titillate the elderly taste buds).

Product design, specially for products the older consumers did not grow up with, needs to be guided by special considerations for the need of the elders. Implications also exist for design of retail aisles, and physical positioning of products. The product labels need to be large and easy to read and the store shelves designed to provide easy access without challenging contortions of the body.

Financial needs of this group are obviously unique as the group needs to carefully weigh the possibility of running out of resources in case of long life and leaving a large sum behind without an opportunity to enjoy it. Carefully designed financial and insurance products could address these concerns and tap the market.

Marketing is founded in the principle of satisfying consumer needs. Consumer needs exist at several levels or layers. The most obvious layer is, of course, the functional needs, which the products and brands meet through their features and product attributes. Clearly with biological changes, the functional needs of the elderly consumers acquire some unique characteristics. 

However, apart from functional needs, consumer behavior is also governed by social and emotional needs which assume a high level of uniqueness and complexity for the older consumers. These consumers have throughout their lives bought products for their children – their emotive needs have centered around protecting and nurturing their families. They chose brands which offered emotive benefits of helping to be a good mother, a responsible father or a conscientious home maker. But with an empty nest, the elders need to look elsewhere for emotional sustenance. Relatively affluent older consumers’ state of mind often broadens to include ideas of social responsibility and philanthropy, broadening their caring gaze to beyond their own children. At the same time they are learning to pamper themselves, without the gnawing feeling of guilt.  Marketers need to understand these emotive needs with sensitivity and tap them through thoughtfully designed brand propositions and communication.

Traditionally marketers have tended to ignore the older consumers and focused their energies on trying to woo the young. However, with the changing demographics, marketers have no choice to find the market for their products among the elderly. The marketers are not going to endear themselves to this segment by decrying age and glorifying youth. They need to embrace age and cater to the needs of this segment with sensitivity and care.