Campaign Crash Course: Marketing for the silver generation

Welcome back to Campaign Asia-Pacific's Crash Course learning series, in which you will learn valuable lessons and practical business tips on trending and essential topics from industry experts in just five minutes. Think of it as a mini mini MBA, if you will.

Lessons will cover the breadth of the marcomms industry, including technology, creative, media, strategy, leadership, diversity and inclusion and more. We'll start off by introducing you to larger topics and delve deeper into specific elements in the future. This series is designed to be useful to C-suite executives as well as those just starting out in their careers.

The 17th lesson in the Crash Course series comes to us from China, where like in nearly every market, the silver generation is routinely overlooked in brand marketing. Even though seniors may form a large segment of the consumer base, brands often fear that associations with seniors will make them appear less dynamic and outdated. 

But is this largely a product of marketers' own prejudices, leading to missed opportunities? Brands that engage seniors can actually enhance and broaden their wider appeal. And marketing products used by seniors can be done more effectively when members of the older generation have been included and bought into the creation process. 

In this lesson you will learn:

• What is the biggest barrier to marketing to seniors
• How brands traditionally speak to them
• Whether brands have opportunities to grow their senior demographic 
• How to engage seniors in product development
• Examples of brands that include seniors the right way in their marketing
• Why there's no need to fear losing brand appeal by involving seniors

To dig even deeper on the opportunity of marketing to the 60+ set, see Wavemaker's thought leadership series on the topic. 

Your teacher

Linna Zhao is head of insights at Wavemaker China, where she leads research projects and provides analysis on market trends across many category verticals, informing the planning and strategy of marketing campaigns. Based in Shanghai, she also generates thought leadership programs. 

Prior to joining Wavemaker (and MEC, its predecessor), Zhao was a qualitative consumer research manager at Nielsen, providing insight studies and prior to that worked in marketing communications at software firm SAP. 

The quiz

After you watch the above video, test your understanding of how to approach silver generation marketing with this quiz: