All Ages is an agency based in Belgium that specializes in marketing to the 50plus market. What differentiates All Ages from other consulting companies?
All Ages is within the Flemish part of Belgium the only specialised marketingagency in the 50plus market. Altough we are quit new, we base our knowledge on thorough market research. That market research is conducted mainly trough our mediapartner SeniorenNet, a very popular 50plus website in the Flanders part of Belgium, with over 350.000 visitors each month, that’s almost 90% of the web-visiting people of that age. Marketing towards 50plus population is nowadays a new marketing-area in the Flemish part of Belgium, this means that there is very few knowledge about it, and it is our knowledge differentiates us from other companies.
Do you think that companies in Belgium are conscious of the impact of population ageing on national economy?
It is fastly changing now. Some companies, mainly banks, financial institutions, and companies in tourism and beauty and healths have discovered the 50plus market a few years a go, but many other companies are nowadays trying to do something towards the 50plus market for the first time. This means that a lot of mistakes are made… To provide some free imformation on the subject, I launched a website with general information on ho to approach the targetgroup, and I get a lot of good reactions on it. At this moment it is only in Dutch (www.50plusmarketing.be ). General market research about the behaviour of 50plus consumers is also available.
What kind of companies hire your services? What are their fields of activity?
The most popular branch at this moment is tourism, but I cannot say that there is no branch who is not interested in the 50plus market. Most companies that hire my services at this point are small and medium-sized companies, at this stage not yet the international firms.
What are the main problematic issues of companies that hire your services? What services can you provide them?
The biggest problems are that they have problems to approach the 50plus market and even more important, which media they have to use to get to those people. Thorough research gives a good answer to the question which media are best towards this group (I suggest the internet and magazines are best). The most common mistake I discovered is that companies who target the 50plus-market for the first time, they approach them trough traditional channels (suchs as specific media for those people). The problem with this is that people of who use this specific media, are not neccesesarely the best targetgroup (it is mostly the oldest group who use this media).
The services my company can provide are:
– consultancy on how to reach this people (communication)
– consultancy about the media
– market research towards this group
Could you give an estimation of the 55plus target group in Belgium. How much would you estimate the market?
55plus in Belgium: about 3.000.000 people (on a total of 10 million), good for about 60% of the capital in Belgium. Important is also, that people in Belgium retire earlier than in other countries (most of them retire between 50 and 60), this means that theay have a lot of spare time, which is interesting for leisure products. The 55plus group in Belgium is growing fastly, just like in other western countries.
Market research showed that the 50plus group does not feel involved in advertising. Did you notice similar reactions within the Belgian population?
They have an attitude that advertisements are not always adapted towards them (visibility, legibility..). Own research tells me that 20% of the 50plus population in Belgium is bothered by advertisements because of that reason. But, more than half op that people are bothered by advertisements because there just too much. Almost 70% of them thinks that advertisements are too much aimed at young people, and they would like to see more people of there own age as model in advertisments.
The are very negative towards TVcommercials, but positive towards ads in magazines and on the internet. Internet is very fastly growing as a source to look for new products.
Kristof Paermentier
All Ages Marketingbureau
Tel: 09/324 57 73 GSM 0475/989015