Engaging the Aging: Marketing to Europe’s Seniors

A recent French billboard from lastminute.com, Europe’s largest on-line travel booking service, features a grinning caricature of an older woman with large unfashionable sunglasses in a bikini, over which is splashed the caption “Stay fresh this summer.” Her husband, we assume, is the man with the oversized belly in the background. Is this meant to tempt our grandparents into a delirious last-minute holiday? Is it selling the idea that lastminute.com vacations are a laugh? And how about the slogan “heat wave 2004” on the top corner? Questionable taste after 15,000 old people died in France last year in a freak summer heat wave.

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The commercial, according to lastminute.com’s managing director in France, Pierre Paperon, was initially aimed at seniors, but was then extended to a much wider audience. « I got the idea from my grandmother who loves to travel, but it’s for anyone really, » he explains. The advertisement doesn’t really work for anyone it seems, but its confusing message underlies a growing phenomenon in Europe. As the old continent’s population ages, companies, which until now have largely ignored the over-50 consumer market, are starting to take notice. However, when brand owners like lastminute.com try to target this clientele—often for the first time—the message is often confusing and inappropriate.

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