The older consumer: Hip, Sexy, Happening

Getting older no longer means getting weak, frail and unappealing. An increasing amount of retailers are realising this.

Today’s older citizen is showing the world that age can be a blessing not only for the wisdom it brings, but also for its sense of class and beauty. To maintain this image, many older people are in the market for classier and sexier retail items than ever before.

The December ad campaign for Nintendo’s Wii Fit Plus is a case in point. Rather than getting a slick and sexy teen idol to market the product, the company appealed with a still slick and sexy veteran actress, Helen Mirren.

Ms Mirren, to hit 66 July, was recruited to enlighten potential customers on the benefits of the Wii for the user.

Looking healthy and comfortable in her sweat pants, she reported feeling “very, very modern and very young.”

Despite many reports on the suffering of older people who no longer work and have to live on increasingly thin pensions, the other side of the coin tells quite a different story.

Many people who hit 50 and 60 have savings that become available to supplement their pensions. They finish paying their houses and vehicles, and they no longer have homes full of kids to care for. They take vacations, they enjoy their lives free form the rigours of a work schedule, and generally live it up. They have money and time to look and feel as good as they want.

At the same time, the older population is increasingly disinclined to die when they reach 70 years of age or indeed to become the traditional old-age symbol of decrepitude and frailty.

Nintendo wasn’t the only retailer to realize the potential of the older market.

These are the consumers that several retail businesses are now targeting for products ranging from stylish hearing aids to slick clothing. Louis Vuitton, for example, has used several older faces to promote its products, including Catherine Deneuve (67) and Mikhail Gorbachev (79).

Fashion retailers, in turn, have used the Sixties icon Twiggy for their rebranding promotion in 2005. At 61, the model still appears on television screens and looks good doing so.

In the light of complaints that older people are dismissed by society in general, perhaps these trends are the beginning of a new recognition. Growing older is no longer the curse it once was. It now means being sexy, confident, and free.

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