Digital Marketing to Senior Citizens
Governments in developing and developed countries all over the world are aware at the growing numbers of their ageing population. In advanced Asian countries such as Singapore for instance, recent statistics show that the percentage of population over the age of 50 in the year 2008 is approximately 27% and by the year 2018 that number will reach 37%.
What do these kinds of numbers mean to the advertising industry? in short – Opportunity… and an often neglected target audience. For too long the focus of new age Advertising agencies and the Media industry in general has been to target the younger generation. The recent market crisis, job insecurity and general economic malaise that has plagued the world for the past few years has shown us one thing – The younger generation’s buying power is not that high. In the worst case, Advertising agencies feel there would be no “cool thinking” opportunities in addressing an older generation for advertising. They can’t be more wrong!
Senior Citizens of today are the ones who have saved, are financially better settled, and are ready to spend after they worked a hard life. The last generation were also the ones introduced to the early days of home computing when they were in their early 30s and are thus more likely to adapt to Digital advertising and technology, even more so if it addresses one thing – Adds value to their life!
The Digital Advertiser running an advertising or marketing campaign aimed at the Senior Citizen needs to remember this at all times. While glitz and bling will attract the younger consumer, it makes complete sense to realize that when addressing the ageing population in society, a digital marketing exercise would need to try and add value to their lives and on the side-lines broadcast the brand message. The Digital agency also needs to take into account the learning curve that would be involved in addressing senior citizens with technology that may go behind such campaigns. What is second nature to teens and young adults of today, in the way they deftly navigate complex menus in cell phones and multi-task when web-browsing may just be a bit intimidating to the older generation audience.
Digital Advertising and Value add – Cellphone Magnifying glass:
There would be some creative thinking needed when designing a Digital Marketing campaign aimed at senior citizens. An example would be for instance, designing an Intelligent Magnifying app for mobile phones. Most of todays cell phones have powerful cameras of the 3 – 5 megapixel range. Using the camera cell phone as a Digital Magnifying glass, is an innovative way of creating a mobile phone application that is of actual value, rather then the usual gaming app.
Even more value could be added to such an app, if there was an easy to use interface to allow for zoom of the magnifying glass and built-in text enhancing (edge detection and sharpening of text). This would make a handy tool to read small text on Medication bottles, items on supermarket shelves and even newspaper print. A further addition such as click the picture and store for later reference in an intuitive manner can make this a branded application that would find favor with most senior citizens.
Augmented Reality – Hybrid Newspaper:
Augmented reality has actually been around a long time before Advertising agencies decided to run with it. That, and the fact that computer vision processing power has been accelerated with better algorithms and hardware that has come out. However, it seems that any and every Digital Agency now uses AR as though it were the initiation test to enter the Digital Advertising “frat house”. AR needs to add value and have a context tp the brand message, and is more than just holding a marker or card in front of a webcam to see a 3D dancing avatar loop on the palm of a hand.
Senior Citizens for example, are still more comfortable with reading a traditional newspaper, than opening multiple windows of Firefox or Internet explorer. It has something to do with the tangible feel of paper – and we have to admit even the younger audience of today still depend on paper, although that is soon fading away with the versatility of net books, internet tablets and devices such as the Kindle.
Why not create a Hybrid newspaper? for the senior citizen who is computer literate, yet can’t be bothered to surf nested videos buried in some tech blog or fashion website or lost in some complex medical or travel and tourism website which, let’s face it… are not easy to navigate for most of us. You would think that with the number of cruises and holidays that retired folk take, that cruise liner and online ticketing websites would be a bit more navigation friendly and designed a bit simpler for the older population!
Wise use of Augmented Reality would be taking the best of both worlds, tangible paper and digital content and in this context augmenting a real newspaper with digital media that is intuitive to browse and consume. A newspaper that has a few simple markers placed besides the text, can be a completely pleasing AR Digital Marketing exercise and end-user experience. All that senior citizens would need to do is open the news paper or magazine in front of a webcam aimed at the newspaper, and keep their web-browser open. Through clever use of AR and Flash, there would be no downloads etc, just a full screen Digital mirror of the newspaper, with dynamic videos and audio playing back and located in-line with the news-paper article they are reading.
Augmented Reality Magic Lens Metaphor:
Today there is sufficient processing power under the hood in an Iphone or a Google Android powered cell phone with Wifi (or subsidized 3G for senior citizens) to be able to do away with a webcam and PC itself. The same application as described above can run on such a cell phone, with the entire display of the phone working as a “magic lens” when passed over the newspaper. Sections of the newspaper come alive with video clips or audio commentary activated as the user passes the camera phone over a standard newspaper.
This is good use of Augmented reality. Another example would be for people who find it hard to read newspaper print, to have an audio version of the article playback, when the AR marker is recognized on the printed newspaper. Next day’s edition of the newspaper can have updated or alternative videos playing, as a world headline story unfolds. This intuitive way of browsing video and consuming updated multimedia content (by turning pages) is far more appealing to an older generation who grew up on passive television and newspaper for their daily news fix. It goes without saying that the Digital Ad agency would know where the 10 second ad spot would go!
E-book Readers could be replacing newspapers and magazines for Senior Citizens:
Devices such as the e-readers can be targeted at today’s senior citizens who love to read. The ability to chage font size is something that can’t be done with newspapers, and one has to resort to magnification etc. With light-weight e-book readers, it’s easy. Marketers could consider newspapers and magazines in e-paper format and promote devices such as the Kindle for this. Adverts can of course be embedded as would in a normal printed newspaper.
Twittering Granny!
Cutting edge Digital marketing does not need to be aimed at the younger generation alone. One creative company created a more human interface for twitter for older users. A similar idea would be to use an ‘almost’ Augmented Reality application to allow such human input to Digital conversion interface. For example a flash full screen webpage can be opened and a connected webcam started. A user can then write a message with pen and paper which is then instantly “digitized” by the webcam with the click of a mouse button. This can then be posted directly to a pre-configured TwitPic account or as a facebook page update.
Senior Citizens can enjoy social media in an innovative manner. If a Digital Ad agency is handling for instance, the marketing and branding account of a medical company, or a dentist, etc. the same technology and human interface can be used to add value such as allowing the user to send hand written text, medical reports, photos for diagnosis etc, directly to their medical practitioner. This is what a “micro site” could be like when suggesting an online presence to a client.
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