ABSTRACT
The “Gray” market, or “matures,” or “seniors,” or by whatever name it goes by, is a big market. There were 78 million Americans aged fifty years and older in 2001 (approximately one-third of the total population); they control 67 percent of U.S. wealth. Furthermore, households headed by someone in the fifty-five-to-sixty-four year age group had a median net worth of $112,000 in 2000—fifteen times the median net worth of the under-thirty-five age group. This is clearly a market worth exploring, even if your product or service seems to be an unlikely match for this demographic segment (Greene, 2004). Of course, there is always the problem of marketing to this market without totally turning off younger buyers, but the numbers make it imperative to most companies to start spending money to attract the attention of older consumers. There is always pressure to attract younger consumers; some of that pressure is a residuum of the fact that the Baby Boomer cohort was so huge—and young in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. They no longer are young. Some of the pressure is simply the ongoing effort of people in advertising and “creative” areas to be cool and hip. This pressure needs to be fought tooth and nail by any firm that wants part of the mature market.
