By Dominic Carter
I know it sounds like a blunt question, but what age does a consumer have to be before we stop caring what they think and feel? Unless it was a study specifically targeted at a geriatric market, for a long time it was quite rare that my clients asked me to routinely include respondents over the age of 60 in our research studies.
Why would you? As conventional wisdom goes, the over 60s have passed the peak of their earning and spending, they’re often struggling on a pension or, if better-heeled, thinking of going on a cruise but basically just counting down the years to the assisted living facility.
For those of us who live and work in the Japanese market, the days that we can afford to continue to think like that are decidedly numbered. Think about these statistics: in 2015 one in four of the Japanese population is already over 65. That’s 32 million people out of a total market of around 127 million. By 2060 it is projected that three in five Japanese will be over 65. Yes, you read that correctly.
Nobody, least of all me, has any idea what an economy or society as old as that would look like, let alone how it would function. But the reality is that Japan is just the first advanced country to enter into that uncharted demographic territory. To some degree all advanced countries are ageing and even China, which currently seems economically unstoppable (not unlike Japan did 25 years ago) is going to face its own severe ageing crisis in the coming years.
So, it’s useful to have a look at what’s going on in Japan as a kind of lab for the rest of the world. Indeed it appears Japan is on the cusp of a “wrinkly revolution”. It’s also far from unreasonable to expect that smart companies in Japan might be able to use the revolution to foster a sustainable edge in innovating for older people, that they can also extend to other advanced markets.
Products such as nutritional supplements, pharmaceuticals, anti-ageing cosmetics, mobility aids, cruises, personal development classes etc (the list goes on and on,) are in for a sustained boom for years to come. Supporting this idea, according to Unicharm, a sanitary goods manufacturer, adult diapers have started to outsell baby diapers in Japan!
A poster child for the wrinkly revolution is the ageing rock-star, Eikichi Yazawa. Think of a Japanese version of Mick Jagger. Yazawa is a mature, yet cool and young-at-heart rebel that, even if their lives look nothing like his, the fast-ageing baby-boomer generation in Japan identifies with. He defies the stereotypical ‘senior citizen’, often portrayed as being passive, frail and sickly.
The boomers, who do not wish to be made to feel old, recoil at things that are obviously marketed only towards seniors. This requires us to have a much deeper level of insight into what’s really making older people ‘tick’ in 2015 and beyond. Those who came of age in the sixties are totally different from my grandparents’ somewhat genteel generation.
Possibly inspired by Mr Yazawa, the number of over 60s Japanese men playing in their own ‘garage’ rock bands is steadily increasing. You know you’re talking to a different kind of senior when one of your respondents has to cut short his interview to get to band practice on time, as happened to me in the field recently.
So, apart from scheduling interviews in between band practice, what’s the best way to approach getting on with seniors when we do research? Apart from the obvious fieldwork factors like allowing a little more time than you would allow for younger people to do interviews and printing materials and questionnaires in larger type, really the main thing is having an open mind and not pre-supposing anything in your line of questioning or analysis based on what you think seniors are looking for.
I have found that seniors, if anything, make for better respondents than younger people. They speak on many issues with a perspective based upon significant experience, so have clear points of view. They can be much franker than younger people. They know what they think and are not afraid to tell you. Far from disempowered, and passing time at home watching TV dramas in their Unicharm diapers, Japan’s seniors are taking charge of their lives. In Japan, women are particularly competent at creating and executing a refreshed vision of their lives.
However men, even if they need to be shown the way (does anyone see an opportunity here?), are also determined for the rest of their lives to be active and have meaning. Since work is a key source of meaning for Japanese men, many are simply not retiring. This means that all the anticipated leisure hours marketers are seeking to help older consumers fill are being replaced for many by what they know best – work.
This is consistent with a generation in Japan that, while it may have worn the fashions and listened to the music of the 60s and 70s, never really rebelled. There were no “summers of love” in Japan and, by and large, the Japanese baby-boomers played by the rules and know more about saving than spending. We shouldn’t necessarily anticipate the rise of the American-style “self-indulgent boomer” in Japan, or anywhere else in Asia for that matter.
Nevertheless, the endurance and continuing relevance of Yazawa gives us some reason to expect that the older generations will represent more than just a growing market for the tools and aids of old-age. There are dreams that are yet to be fulfilled among these people, and in many ways it is condescending to think that it is the job of those managing brands today to work out how to ‘deal’ with this huge group.
Perhaps the real answer to the future will lie in innovations created by the aged for the aged. For marketers, co-creation and collaboration with older people is where we’re really going to re-write the book about ageing. Facilitating this collaboration is a massive business opportunity for market research and an opportunity to create a better, more inclusive society.
Dominic Carter is CEO of The Carter Group Tokyo Japan. Originally from Australia, Dominic came to Japan in the late nineties to expand the reach of a global research company into Japan. Since launching his own agency in 2004, working across the Asian region, he and his team have helped some of the smartest global brands use research to create breakthroughs with Asian consumers.
