I have given up blogging about the economic importance of the 50-plus on the basis that everybody knows all about that and it doesn’t need it to be endlessly repeated.
Yesterday, I had a chat with a marketing agency about some work they are doing for a major international company, I wont say what industry because that will identify the company, but it appears that their marketing staff are unaware of the economic clout of their older customers.
This article in Media Post states again the sort of facts that I had assumed all marketers understand – clearly that is not the case.
- People 50-plus earn $2.4 trillion annually compared to $1 trillion for the 18-34 group.
- According to McKinsey, people 50+ generate 41% of all disposable income.
- They buy 60% of all packaged goods, over half of all new cars and spend 75% more per vacation than consumers under 50.
- In 2007, people over 50 spent 3.5 times the national average holiday shopping online.
I don’t expect these stats will make a jot of difference to marketers who are still institutionally youth-centric but I guess they still need to be repeated.
Image source: Jake Wasdin
Original Post: http://www.20plus30.com/blog/2009/06/spending-power-of-50-plus.html
