Following the ASA/NCOA event was the The Seventh Annual
What’s Next Boomer Business. As I have said before Mary Furlong does an absolute awesome job organizing these. This year was no exception.
Mary kicked off the day by telling attendees that over $40m has been invested into senior care businesses the last four months alone. She is also seeing a wave of top talent migrating to the boomers and senior space - similar, she said, to the early dot-com days. In short, this space is hot. Very hot. She also discussed the trend of public private partnerships as budget cuts have motivated non-for-profits and government entities to contract with for-profit companies to improve service delivery. Another hot trend is "boomer entrepreneurship" as many older Americans look to secure their financial future.
I had to leave the conference early but not before I listened to the opening presentations which I will summarize here.
Kevin Donnellan, EVP, AARP
- Boomers most studied demographic
- Boomers represent over half of total US spending power.
- Boomers want health, money, mobility, independence, choice, control, simplicity, user friendliness, meaning from work. They view life as a journey.
- 94% of companies expect to further invest in social media.
- Reviews are huge! Info ricochets at warp speed. Companies must embrace these sites and join the conversation.
- AARP now delivers their messages on many different platforms (video, podcast/radio, print) - all companies need to be doing this. As Kevin stated, AARP is "modernizing the toolkit" - marketing has not changed, just how we execute our campaigns.
Mark Graham -SVP, iVillage - NBC Company
- iVillage relies on 650 volunteer forum moderators to keep their message boards active. Great strategy.
- Recommendations from message boards carry twice the trust than blogs according to Nielson.
Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow
- 9 million unique users - info on 95 million homes (most of single family homes)
- 3-5 months supply of homes for sale is standard - we are currently at 8 months meaning if we stopped putting homes on market today it would take 8 months to sell inventory.
- 55+ households move less often (they age in place)
- 26% of thjose 55+ expect to move in the future
- Most boomers will stay in rural and suburban areas
- 75+ are increasingly opting for apartments and rental accommodations.
- 90% seniors prefer to remain in their homes but...
- Large percent of boomers don't have savings so they may be locked into homes.