KEY POINTS:
It is one of anomalies of the marketing age, says French adman Jean-Paul Treguer, that as the population gets older marketers are increasingly focused on youth.
Treguer is the managing director of the ad agency Senioragency which targets selling to the over-50s.
He says the demographic has most of the spending power but is ignored by an ad industry obsessed with youth.
Treguer, 52, was in New Zealand last week to talk about targeting the baby-boomer generation.
"The presumption they have an unmovable attachment to established brands is ridiculous," he said.
"They don't follow brands out of nostalgia. I am 52 and have brothers and sisters aged 60, 65 and 68.
"They switch brands all the time - they have money and they do what they want.
"But they complain that advertising is made by young people for young people.
"People aged older than 50 make up 33 per cent of the New Zealand population, consume 7 per cent more than than under-50s and own 60 per cent of the purchasing powers.
"And yet people over 50 attract just 5 per cent of the marketing spend.
"These are people who can and will pay a premium price that deliver higher profits for the right product or service."
Treguer said was a question of understanding older people's interests, values and the fact that they were interested in things like comfort.
Because they had money and had experimented with brands, they were interested in buying quality.
Among the global and European brands Senioragency secured after its launch in 1995 was working with skin care company Nivea, a division of Proctor and Gamble, which has a massive market-research budget.
They hired Senioragency for a new anti-wrinkle product aimed at the over-50s.
"They were using a 20-year-old model to advertise anti-wrinkle cream ... she was a girl, not a woman - how did they expect older consumers to take their product seriously? The first thing we did was to make advertisements featuring an older woman.
"The sales growth was huge and Nivea's competitors like L'Oreal followed with people like Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon - now all these products use older models."
Treguer is passionate about his demographic, but some in the marketing sector dismiss his comments, pointing out that health and financial products aimed at older groups are far from rare in advertising.
He ignores the premise that many older people want to remain focused on being young. But for all that, mainstream agencies reject his dismissive view on their service to advertisers, some aspects make sense.
Treguer had an epiphany of sorts when he was in New York in 1989 and met American Association of Retired People focused on older groups.
"What they said has stayed with me - I should go where the money is and that is with the older age groups."
Treguer is convincing. But doesn't his theory defy capitalist common sense? If there is so much money to be made why haven't multinational groups such as Publicis, WPP and Omicom focused on it?
Why have they left this lucrative and growing business to a relatively small specialist agency like his own?
"The first thing is that the advertising industry is in the hands of young account or creative executives who are aged 25 to 32," said Treguer.
"These are people who focus on advertising awards handed out by judging panels of other people aged 25-35. The marketing managers for the advertisers are the same and they assume the market thinks like them.
"Advertisers believe people aged over 50 do not change brands but that does not stand up to scrutiny.
"And yet 95 per cent of market spending is invested to reach under-49-year-olds - one third of NZ's population [has] only 5 per cent marketing investment. We are here to grow that."
Simon Healey, who heads the local arm of Senioragency, says the issues apparent in Europe are apparent here.
Market research, for instance, has limited material about spending for anyone aged over 54.
The anomaly of marketers avoiding a growing demographic ia apparent with Television One. Healey says TVNZ is turning its back on a growing demographic of older people, and trying desperately to attracting a declining audience of young ones.
