1. The number of aging consumers is growing and accelerating. The leading edge of the baby boomer bulge will approach the age of 60 in 2006. Many scholars believe the rapid aging of the global population to be the most dramatic event of the 21st century.
2. Aging consumers gravitate toward easy-to-use packages they are comfortable with, just as they gravitate toward models of cars with features that meet their needs and comforts.
Many mature consumers turn to cosmetics, hair coloring, exercise, yoga, herbals and cosmetic surgery to look younger. They also seek products and packages that make them feel young and avoid those that make them feel old.
3. Aging consumers avoid unfamiliar packages with benefits and features they don’t understand.
Packages that satisfy elderly consumers are both “senior-friendly” and “consumer-friendly.” Such packaging tends to please consumers of all ages, while having special advantages for seniors.
Running shoes offer insight
Here’s how this strategy applies to running shoes. Running shoes help walkers and runners “do it,” extend their reach and go faster and further by cushioning and protecting their feet, tendons and knees.
Although they are designed primarily for young athletes, running shoes are worn by millions of seniors who find that their cushioning, support and balancing enable them to walk further, faster and more comfortably than in any kind of traditional shoe. For many seniors, good running shoes make the deterioration of age disappear.
Senior-friendly packaging shifts the decline of aging from the “in-your-face” foreground into the background. It also enables seniors to bypass rather than confront their major or minor infirmities.
But many packages are not senior-friendly. In fact, some newer package forms that profess convenience are in disfavor with aging consumers, according to a recent survey of shoppers by The Consumer Network.
Earlier this year, The Consumer Network repeated and expanded a Packaging Report Card survey that it conducted in 2002.
In this year’s survey, participants were asked to rate their opinion of packaging and package types in 60 product categories on a five-point scale, with “1” being “Awful” and “5” meaning “Excellent.”
The researchers also asked consumers to comment on specific packages they liked or that needed improving.
The study findings show that some package types—stand-up pouches and “flip-top” or “pop-top” lids on cans—score continually poorer as consumers age (See chart).
Why do these relatively new types of packages and others receive low scores from seniors?
Habits are hard to break
Lifetimes of habit and belief are hard to change. After decades of associating jars with glass, many seniors are uncomfortable with jars that are suddenly made of plastic, even though in the abstract they state a preference for plastic packages because they are easier to lift and handle and less likely to break.