Kilkenny festival aimed at over-50s to target lucrative 'grey market'

GREYSTOCK, A festival of culture, sport and debate aimed at people over the age of 50, will take place in Kilkenny in September, the Business of Ageing Partnership announced yesterday.

The organisers said the festival would be the first in Ireland to concentrate on the so-called “grey market”. Anne Connolly, director of the Ageing Well network, said the event would be “about exploring opportunities, discussing issues and dispelling myths whilst having fun”.

The Business of Ageing Partnership, which includes representatives of Intel, IBM, RTÉ and Chambers Ireland, among others, hosted a conference on the subject of “turning silver into gold” in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham in Dublin yesterday.

David Sinclair, head of policy and research at the UK’s International Longevity Centre, told the audience there were many retail companies who didn’t believe the so-called “grey market” had anything to do with them. Despite the fact disposable household income in the UK peaks in the 50-64 age bracket, the response from retailers is often “that’s not our demographic”, he said.

“I think there is a huge amount of denial here on the part of business,” Mr Sinclair added, noting that the dominant image of consumption used by retailers is often a woman in her 30s, beaming as she swings her shopping bags.

Companies who do try to tap into the wealth, or perceived wealth, of the over-50s often get it wrong because they lump everyone in this age group into the same category, the conference also heard.

Dick Stroud, marketing consultant and author of The 50-Plus Market, placed less than 30 per cent of over-50s in what he called the “charmed generation”.

He described this as a wealthy socio-economic group that tends to be in their late 60s and early 70s and still in good health. But that doesn’t mean people in their 50s now, who are more likely to be part of a cash-strapped “anxious generation”, will become happier in a decade, he said. The charmed group are transitory, according to Mr Stroud. “This group will move through and eventually disappear and the next group that comes through probably won’t have anything like the same wealth.”

George Magnus, senior economic adviser at UBS International Investment Bank, compared marketers’ attempts to capture the grey market to a snake eating its prey. “It’s a bulge and now it’s a bulge that’s moving into retirement.”

The first baby boomers – the generation born in the postwar population spike – reach the traditional retirement age of 65 this year.