demographics

A long time ago, at the birth of the ageing business, there was a set of arguments that were always rolled out to justify why brands focus on the young. In those days young was 18-34, for many it still is but it has gone up a decade or two.

I always like reading Trendwatching promotional material. Recently they produced some content about post demographic consumerism that they define as: People – of all ages and in all markets – are constructing their own identities more freely than ever. 

It's early January and that means one thing - forecasts for the coming year.

I have this image of the poor sods that have to come up with these insights huddled in a room in late December trying to come up with something interesting to say. Time is running out and they default to rehashing the forecasts from the previous year or the one before that. In this case, the ones from a decade before.

Pew Internet Research has been busy looking at the demographics of social media use in the US.

This EuroMonitor report looks at the world through the prism of its young populations.

The proportion of population aged below 30 in the global population stood at 50% in 2012, down from 62% in 1980.

I have already said a few words about the latest census data.

Thanks to Richard Webber I have just been reading a more detailed analysis of what has been happening in London - 2011 Census first results: London boroughs’ populations by age and sex.

Last week I was in Dublin attending a conference organized by the Ageing Well Network.

Nielsen has published some data about the TV audiences in the US.

The ‘average’ American watched 34 hours 39 minutes of TV per week in Q4 2010, a year-over-year increase of two minutes. Not 1 minute or 3 minutes but 2 minutes. Wow

I totally agree with the conclusions of this article that Apple products are and will continue to be popular with older people. I don’t agree with the rationale for reaching this conclusion.

The author is basically saying that older people buy Apple products because the want to be ‘hip’ and this gives them an easy way of achieving this goal. Here are some of the quotes:

Five years ago I identified a cohort of older people I called the Charmed Generation. A combination of final salary personal pensions, house price inflation, lack of debt and inherited money from their parents has insulated these people from the financial trauma that has afflicted their children and grandchildren and many of their peers.