In what may seem to be twisted logic, the TV network thought it could attract more advertising dollars with Letterman because, even though his show had a smaller audience, it was a younger audience than that of “Nightline.”

Never mind that there are 25 million households in Letterman’s target audience – 18- to 34-year-olds – while the number of households in the 35- to 64-year-old group is almost twice that number at 46 million. Never mind that those 46 million households annually spend $3 trillion, compared with $1.3 trillion for the younger, smaller group.

But that is what happens when most marketers worship at the altar of the 18-to-34 male demographic group.

Though people older than 50 account for more

than 40 percent of all consumer spending, less than 10 percent of ads are designed to appeal to them. But not all marketers are clueless, and more seem to be catching on.

Take Ronda Jackson, owner of Lansing, Mich.-based Oasis Pools and Sundance Spas. She recently reeled off the demographic subsets of spa buyers.

There are the young couples with children who buy spas for family time; the thirtysomethings who buy for entertainment; people in their 40s with teens and pre-teens who buy for stress; the mid-40s and older who like spas for entertainment and to quell the onset of aches and pains; and finally those 55 and older who buy for the health benefits.

And for each group, Jackson has a specific marketing strategy. She hits the 55-plus group by running an ad in a local publication called 50 & Better – For Those (B)old Enough to Know What They Want .

The ad depicts an attractive, smiling 50-ish couple basking in their spa with the words “You’ve worked most of your life. Consider this a benefits package.” Jackson said that she sold two in-ground pools off the ad, so from that perspective it was a success.

What Jackson does is a form of what marketing expert and author David B. Wolfe calls “ageless marketing.” Wolfe co-wrote a book by that title detailing the realities of what has been termed the “new customer majority.”

It is an incredibly lucrative market. The Federal Reserve estimated from a 2001 survey that age 50-plus households control 70 percent of total net worth in the United States. And Wolfe noted that during this decade, the 25-to-44 age group will shrink by 4.3 million, while the 45-to-64 age group will increase by 16 million.

“What many companies must learn to do is hook their growth goals to the lift forces of the population explosion taking place in mid-life without turning off younger people,” Wolfe said.

Those who do, he said, will be the winners.

Before World War II, Americans were pretty much thought of as one huge, single-minded consumer.

That changed in the 1950s, when marketers realized that once every household had a refrigerator in the kitchen, a television in the family room, a washing machine in the basement and a car in the driveway, people would be pretty well set. At some point, companies realized, people wouldn’t need to buy more stuff – unless they created the desire.

In her book, “A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America,” Lizabeth Cohen writes of marketers and their ways, noting that in 1950, B. Earl Puckett of Allied Stores told 400 fashion leaders, “We must accelerate obsolescence.”

Later, Cohen writes of automakers’ designing obsolescence into their products.

“The head of styling at Ford, George Walker, explained the challenge: “We design a car to make a man unhappy with his 1957 Ford “long about the end of 1958. His counterpart at competitor General Motors was even more ambitious: “In 1934 the average car ownership span was five years; now it is two years. When it is one year, we will have a perfect score.”‘

Then in 1956, Wendell Smith, an executive with RCA , wrote a landmark paper published in the Journal of Marketing espousing the idea of “market segmentation” or the grouping of consumers by age, income and other demographics.

It took hold and has become one of the most important, if not the most important, tenets of marketing.

“I had a hippie friend who used to say anything in America worth doing is worth doing to excess, and that’s what’s happened,” Wolfe said. “Segmentation by definition is the process of exclusion.”

Dwight Barrett of Barrett Marketing Group in Kansas City said he increasingly has noticed that he would watch a commercial and like it, but come away not knowing who the sponsor was.

“It’s like the agency was so caught up in the creativity that that was the whole goal,” said Barrett.

But in this frustration, Barrett and others like him saw opportunity. They recently formed the Fifty-Plus Marketing Group. The name pretty much says it all.

So far, Barrett said, the consortium has put together programs and talked to potential clients ranging from hospitals to financial institutions to casinos.

Barrett thinks the reason that so few ads resonate with people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and older is that agencies and particularly creative departments are so heavily staffed with young males.

Others agree, including Steve Bernstein, chief operating officer of Bernstein-Rein Advertising in Kansas City.

Asked why the 18-to-34 male demographic is the driving force behind so many marketing plans, Bernstein said, “Well, if you want to be critical of our industry, you could say that the agency world is populated by those very people.”

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Some marketers would argue that the reason the 18-to-34 male groups is so desirable is that this is a group that’s still forming brand loyalties, and so now is the time to snare them for a lifetime.

But an AARP survey finds bogus the notion of diehard brand loyalty among older adults.

The group uses the survey to help sell ads in its magazines, and other data back up the findings. Besides, new brands are being formed all the time. Some marketers are increasingly clued into that fact.

Wolfe points to several companies he knows “get it,” including his favorite, New Balance, which has significantly increased it sales even while the athletic shoe segment has been flat for quite some time.

He said others that get it are Chico’s, REI and Anthropologie. Another example is Gap, which a couple of years ago adopted a new tag line, “For All Generations,” which helped turn around its sales.

Others would include the Walt Disney Co., which has ads and programs aimed at young families, couples, and multigenerational families. And the cruise industry, for years thought of as only for those 60 and older, today appeals to many different segments of the population.

(END OPTIONAL TRIM)

Besides the issue of agencies being populated by young males, Wolfe thinks another huge problem is that marketers and agencies don’t really understand human behavior.

“Marketing is really not very innovative – it’s not very contemplative or reflective, or interested in human behavior,” Wolfe said. “You can get a degree in marketing without taking a class in behavior. They have a belief that the numbers will tell you everything you need to know.”

Although Wolfe pushes for the ageless marketing approach, there are obvious differences between those in their 20s and those in their 50s.

“I refer to the first half of life as the period of social actualization and the second half as self actualization,” Wolfe said.

People 50-plus still buy things, just for different reasons. For instance, the average American buys 13.1 cars in a lifetime – seven of them after the age of 50. But an ad for a car aimed at a 20-year-old is not likely to attract a 50-year-old.

Some think marketing is getting more sophisticated.

“What I definitely see is not so much marketing to different segments, but instead finding unifiers – the things that unify the different segments,” Bernstein said.

As for Jackson, the owner of the spa and pool company, it seems a no-brainer.

“People want information,” Jackson said. “And you just have to figure out how to give it in different ways to different people.”

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

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-The 40-plus household controls 91 percent of the population’s net worth, accounts for 65 percent of discretionary spending and represents 62 percent of all spending on shelter.

-Consumers 50-plus buy 41 percent of all new cars and 48 percent of all luxury automobiles.

-Fifty-plus adults represent 80 percent of all luxury travel and spend 74 percent more on a typical vacation than 18-49 year-olds.

-Those same adults spend 40 percent more time vacationing in their 50s than they did in their 40s.

-Half of 50-plus consumers have personal computers at home, and 70 percent of this group has access to the Internet.

-By 2010, adults 45 and older will outspend younger adults by $1 trillion, or $2.6 trillion compared with $1.6 trillion for the younger group.

-Sources: DM Review, The Center for Ageless Marketing and The Journal on Active Aging.

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(c) 2004, The Kansas City Star.

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