Unlocking the World's Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market
August 28, 2017
Would-be entrepreneurs take note: the founding director of MIT’s AgeLab has a message for you about a severely underestimated, undertapped market. By 2050, people over 65 will be more than 16.7% of the world’s population—and more than 25% of the populations of some European and Asian countries. Yet “less than 15 percent of companies have established any sort of strategies focused on older adults.” Meanwhile, older women in particular are projected by economists to have a huge influence on the marketplace. Coughlin goes on to show in detail why Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are, in their bias toward the young and male as both workers and consumers, missing a huge opportunity. Coughlin even argues that, if American businesses could find ways to capture the productivity of an older workforce, they could improve America’s GDP. The author’s evangelism is contagious. Convinced that home sharing, grocery delivery, and online dating sites are examples of services that transcend age in their appeal, he makes a striking case for putting a new, less generically young and male face on entrepreneurship, product design, and marketing. His book should inspire entrepreneurs of all generations to dust off their best business plans and make products that are exciting for all ages and abilities.
September 15, 2017
Demographics and economics meet in this oddly cheering book about the world's aging population.Geezers of the world, unite; you're a member of the baby boom, you're about to reassert your role as a huge market force. By 2030, writes MIT AgeLab founder and director Coughlin, there will be 1 billion people worldwide who are 65 or older, a number that will rise to 1.6 billion by 2050. "The emerging population of older adults isn't just big," he writes. "It's so enormous, it's as though a new continent were rising out of the sea, filled with more than a billion air-breathing consumers just begging for products that fulfill their demands." In the U.S., senior spending and what economists call its downstream effects amounted to about $8 trillion in 2015, $10,000 more per capita in spending than those aged 30 to 44. Advertisers will obviously want to rethink their efforts to capture the younger demographic stratum when so much money is waiting to be claimed at the upper end. Coughlin examines some of the changes that are being wrought in recognition of older consumers, and he identifies a few design challenges to come. For instance, he observes, CVS drugstores began to organize stock to lessen "store-wandering from folks dealing with mobility impairments" by, for example, grouping diabetes-related products together. Inspired by the tennis balls that some seniors put on their walker feet so that they slide more easily, some manufacturers have added plastic skis. Business opportunities ranging from grocery delivery to home care and landscaping are broadening with this rising audience. The author urges younger readers to prepare for impending old age by saving far more than they do (only about 4 in 10 millennials, he writes, save consistently at all), and he concludes that those who have prepared will find that "we are on the cusp of learning to celebrate life in old age--while we're still alive." Fruitful reading for trend-spotters and entrepreneurs, who will find much grist for their mills.
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