Resources - Mature Market Headlines

Aging boomers most lucrative market for just about everything

Canwest News Service, 3/31/08

Abstract:

Shuffling around their offices wearing goggles, leg weights, inflatable water wings and thick gloves, Roxanne Casey and her colleagues realized how hard it can be to find a phone number or open a saety pin. By the end of the two-hour Through Other Eyes workshop - intended to mimic the physical challenges of old age - everyone was exhausted, but enlightened...

... With the front end of the baby boom on the cusp of their senior years and their parents already there, there's rising demand for insights like these. From role-playing workshops to "living labs with two-way mirrors and hidden cameras, companies and service-providers are looking for better ways to understand older customers.

"It's absolutely booming," says Michelle Pratt, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AgeLab. "The fact that someone turns 62 every seven seconds means that this segment of the population is the faster-growing, the most lucrative market. Companies know this demands a new approach to old age."

The AgeLab brings together experts in different fields with the aim of improving quality of life, says Pratt, who's currently researching natural disaster planning for older adults. There is a vehicle simulator in the lab an another for the road that lets them assess how varying age groups interact with car technology, she says, offering as an example iPod-style controls that may be second nature to young adults but foreign territory to their grandparents. The lab also has a handful of "empathy suits" that simulate balance difficulties, deteriorating sight and hearing and loss of muscle control.

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