We hate to say we told you so, but… wait a minute, we LOVE telling you we told you so!
In our Smartshot webinar on Radical Demography, we told you about four dramatic demographic shifts that need to be in marketers’ peripheral vision, including “DINK” (dual income, no kids) households and multigenerational households. Well, guess what? In Nielsen’s new Pop-Facts® Demographics report, they describe these shifts as an integral part of their five demographic key trends for the next century. And, they’ve got the numbers to prove it. (Contact us if you’d like a copy of the deck.)
Then again, that shouldn’t be new news to our frequent readers. What is new is that marketers are paying attention, particularly to the rise of multigenerational households. A recent article from Ad Age shares a number of examples, including:
- Nintendo marketing their Wii gaming systems to appeal simultaneously to kids, adults, and grandparents, including games like Brain Age and Wii bowling
- Toys ‘R’ Us has offered targeted coupons to grandparents, since grandparents “buy one in four toys, four of every 10 children’s books, and one of every five video games.”
- Ameriprise Financial advisers have been trained to address the specific needs of adults who are now tasked with caregiving for their parents
- Even TV shows like “Modern Family” and “Parenthood” are starting to portray multigenerational households as the norm. And those shows are likely to have more multigenerational households watching them, providing advertisers with the opportunity to target this demographic more effectively.
Oh, by the way, don’t think our other two trends from Radical Demography (single person households and female-headed households) were left behind. In fact, they recently came together when single women lauded Lowe’s for positively portraying single women in their 30s in their TV spots. See, demography can be radical.
Speaking of radical, don’t forget to vote for Upshot’s proposed panel for SXSW 2011. Voting ends this Friday. You’ll need to create an account to vote, but we promise that it takes less than a minute. We appreciate any help we can get!
