We do most of our shopping at the nearby Meijer store in Defiance, Ohio. There’s a Kroger on the east side of Defiance, but we’ve only shopped there a handful times since we moved back to NW Ohio in 2005. There’s also an Aldi store and a locally owned store called Chief Supermarket. Both of our youngest children work part-time at Chief in Bryan. (they work full-time at Sauder Woodworking)
Meijer loves for me to express my opinion about this or that recent purchase or my last visit to the Defiance store. Today, after checking out the Thanksgiving week sale paper, a browser pop up asked me if I would like to share my opinion about what I had just viewed. Why not, I thought. Sometimes, Meijer offers respondents an opportunity to win a gift card. Woo-Hoo! No such inducement this time, but I still took the survey.
At the end of the survey they asked me my age. Great, I thought. Here comes a reminder of how o-l-d I am. What follows is a screen shot of the survey’s age question.
Damn, I thought, only two age groups to go. I could choose to focus on this depressing bit of information, but instead I decided that I would focus on the fact that I have successfully survived the previous ten age groups. Who knows, I just might make it to the 65 and over category; the age when marketers no longer value your opinion or money.
“Who knows, I just might make it to the 65 and over category; the age when marketers no longer value your opinion or money.” That’s interesting. Over here in Europe, some pensioners are especially targeted by marketeers. There’s a group within that age-group that is relatively well-off and so there’s an increasing number of adverts specifically aimed at them. Also more magazines and tv-programs. It’s basically about getting them to spend their savings or use it to invest in children/grandchildren or other worthy causes.
I read an article recently about the new viewership numbers for The Daily Show. Trevor Noah has seen a significant decline in older viewership numbers, but younger viewership numbers are up. And that fact thrills Comedy Central. I’ve never understood this. Generally, older people are more affluent, yet advertisers focus on younger viewers. I suppose younger viewers are still developing brand loyalties. Older people tend to be set in their ways. The only ads we get are for Viagra, Depends, and new drugs. ?
As Indy put it, it’s not the years, honey, it’s the milage.