Reach for the Silver Dollar

It's always fun and enlightening to visit trade mags from around the world.

Today, we're off to New Zealand and Grocer's Review -- with our knowledgeable and friendly tour guide, Gill Walker:

Gill Walker, Director and Founder of Evergreen Marketing and Communications, a Melbourne-based trans-Tasman consultancy, says that with a growing mature population, advertisers and marketers should take more time to focus on people over 50. She says many advertisers are missing this lucrative market by not taking into account how mature people live and shop. "There is a lot of missed opportunity," she says emphatically. "It's financial suicide."

Younger creators of advertisements also sometimes fail to take into account the importance of colour in ads. A strange but true and little-known fact, says Walker, is that as you age, your eyes yellow. "What happens is that your eyes are letting in 50% less light in your 50s than when you were in your 20s. But you don't notice it, it's subtle. But it means that there is actually a yellowing of the light." Purple/light purple/blues/light blues/green/light green are harder for mature people to read and cooler colours in ads therefore require a high level of contrast. Brighter colours or higher contrasting colours are easier to read. "You can make ads where you just subtly improve their readability for an older person without sticking a sign on it saying: 'for 50+'." Read the complete article.

Here's an idea ad agencies will think is really stupid: Hire Baby Boomer graphic artists and art directors. They'd probably design TV and print ads as well as web sites that are not only cutting-edge, creative, and persuasive - but ones that they can actually see…