Page 12 - RPA May 2020

10
WHAT’S TRENDING
DON’T IGNORE
THE BOOMERS
he top 10 wellness trends for 2020, recently released on industry stalwarts such as Ensure and Boost with its almond by the Global Wellness Summit, included, in second vanilla taste. Its ad campaign features buff senior citizens place, ‘Ageing rebranded: positively cool’. running on a beach with the tagline, ‘longevity tastes good’.
The trend revolves around the market finally This is just the start.
catching up with baby boomers (now aged between 56 and Industry analysts predict that more conglomerates will invest
74) and giving them not just the marketing attention they deserve, but also the right kind of marketing attention – hip and happening – to entice them to dig into their deep pockets and spend.
Boomers, now seen as giving a whole new meaning to ageing, are strutting their stuff compared with previous generations. They’re active at the gym, and animated and busy with activities and projects that interest them. From starting
up businesses to travelling widely, their scope takes in motorcycles and fashionable inner-city apartments, among other elements once regarded as appealing essentially to a more youthful market.
What differentiates them is that they have the time and money to pursue these activities.
In countries such as the US and Japan, boomers control the highest percentage of disposable income. They operate on smartphones for up to five hours a day and spend more on online shopping than millennials.
Perceptions have most certainly changed since the
‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ commercials of the late 1980s. No longer are baby boomers treated like feeble victims by
way of fear-based messaging, or worse, simply ignored. With their increased longevity and substantial wealth,
they put a premium on health, wellness and nutrition. And yet this powerful demographic has historically
attracted only 10 per cent of marketing budgets and less than one per cent of global innovation.
That’s changing as multiple industries target seniors with product design, experiences and campaigns that speak to their strengths and sensibility.
From beauty to food, brands are stopping and taking note of this ‘here we are’ demographic – giving them the attention they deserve.
Such a development means the medical concerns that come with older populations are now being treated more sensitively and with the same aspirational design and marketing
afforded to younger demographics.
Even adult nutrition drinks are getting a much needed makeover – for example, Perennial, a plant
based beverage, taking
resources in the senior market, adding new products and experiences that attest to the boomers’ vibrancy.
Marketing agency and media company Ageist works
with start-ups and multinational conglomerates eager to capitalise on the sunset years. Many incorporate senior feedback to create aesthetically driven products promoted as being created with thoughtfulness, practicality and, more importantly, respect.
The resounding message is that baby boomers are living longer and healthier, and the market can no longer afford to ignore them.
The World Health Organisation predicts the 60-plus population will nearly double by 2050, from 12 per cent to 22 per cent.
The trends referenced here were gleaned from the understanding of 550 experts – spanning doctors, academics, technologists, economists and heads of international corporations
– across all fields of wellness from 50 nations that gathered at the Global Wellness Summit.
It is believed they will have a significant, not transient, impact on the global wellness industry, valued at a whopping $4.5 trillion.
By Nerine Zoio.
Other top wellness trends were: ‘Focus shifts from sleep to true circadian health’; ‘J-wellness’; ‘Mental wellness and technology: rethinking the relationship’; ‘Energy medicine gets serious’; ‘Organised religion jumps into wellness’; ‘The wellness sabbatical’; ‘The fertility boom’;
‘Wellness music’; and ‘In wellness we trust: the science behind the industry’.
RETAIL PHARMACY ASSISTANTS • MAR 2020