The Baby Boomer Market Maven in the United Kingdom: An Experienced Diffuser of Marketplace Information

This study identifies and profiles market mavens among the baby boomer generation in the UK. Boomers are an important market segment, yet most advertising targets younger audiences, making word-of-mouth communications crucial among this older cohort. Findings suggest boomer mavens place great importance on ‘respect’ values, are particularly concerned with fashion, and compared to non-mavens are more likely to try new brands, watch more television, hold positive attitudes towards advertising, and seek out bargains. The study is useful to those businesses wishing to target a mature consumer who people perceive as a good source of marketplace information and who likes introducing new brands to others

Unwrapping senior consumers’ packaging experiences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experiences of older consumers with a range of product packaging. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses qualitative diary research (QDR). Ten seniors recorded all their experiences with packaging over a two-week period. Using a frame narrative that views ageing as multidimensional, diary entries uncover rich data that goes beyond physical age-related issues. Findings – In addition to physical problems with packaging, older adults experience psychological frustration and feelings of alienation. Social implications of dependence on others are also discovered, despite many being purchasers of up-market luxury products. Research limitations/implications – The study is exploratory and due to its qualitative methodology findings cannot be generalised to the wider population. Nevertheless it provides a starting point for future research into packaging and senior consumers. Practical implications – The study has implications for all managers who participate in planning and designing brand packaging and calls for them to work more closely with ergonomics and design professionals in order to better plan for the needs of a large and growing sector of the population. Social implications – Findings suggest that the basic need to feed oneself is hampered by some packaging, which of course is detrimental to the quality of life of older adults. Originality/value – Few studies consider packaging and older consumers and this is particularly true in the marketing literature. This is the first study to use QDR in this context, and as such has several advantages over recall studies. The study also makes a contribution to knowledge pertaining to vulnerable consumers. </jats:sec

Why Older Adults Show Preference for Rational Over Emotional Advertising Appeals: A U.K. Brand Study Challenges the Applicability Of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to Advertising

Conventional advice when targeting older adults was to use factual, rational appeals over emotional appeals due to age differences in information processing. Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) posits that when people perceive time as limited, they pursue emotionally-orientated rather than knowledge-orientated goals. Advertising experiments using SST suggest conventional advice may have been misleading, and advocate using emotional appeals. This study tests the theory in a specific advertising context among adults (n=2550) aged 19 to 90 years. Contrary to expectations and prior SST research, older adults demonstrated clear preferences for rational over emotional appeals, suggesting conventional advice was correct all along

Respected Pillars of the Community: A values-based profile of the British Market Maven

Market Mavens are consumers who are active purveyors of word of mouth (WOM) communication in society. In contrast to opinion leaders, mavens provide information that cuts across product categories, and advise on old and new products. Consequently, mavens can impact a wider number of social networks with WOM, and are therefore a valuable target for marketers. Despite much empirical work, a socio-demographic profile of the market maven remains elusive, and recently work has focused on those intrinsic characteristics that may distinguish mavens from others. However, no previous work has considered the possibility that personal values may be a distinguishing maven factor. Using the original market maven scale, the full Rokeach value survey and the List of Values (LOV), this research (n = 158) found mavens to place significantly more importance on several values than do non-mavens. Results suggest that mavenism has an external social dimension to sharing marketplace information that is not motivated out of self-interest, but by altruism and a genuine concern for others. Contrary to some previous research, this study shows that market mavens can be identified in a useful way to marketing practitioners. In addition to the obvious need for marketing communications to supply the maven with plenty of information about products and services, communications strategies need to focus on positioning brands around the values which reflect altruism, respect, helpfulness, and responsibility. In this way, the usefulness of market mavens and WOM communications can be harnessed successfully

Ethically minded consumer behavior: Scale review, development, and validation

AbstractThis paper details the development and validation of a new research instrument called the ethically minded consumer behavior (EMCB) scale. The scale conceptualizes ethically minded consumer behavior as a variety of consumption choices pertaining to environmental issues and corporate social responsibility. Developed and extensively tested among consumers (n=1278) in the UK, Germany, Hungary, and Japan, the scale demonstrates reliability, validity, and metric measurement invariance across these diverse nations. The study provides researchers and practitioners with a much-needed and easy-to-administer, valid, and reliable instrument pertaining to ethically minded consumer behavior

Baby Boomers of Different Nations: Identifying Horizontal International Segments Based on Self-Perceived Age

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate self-perceived age among Baby Boomers in the UK, Germany, Japan, and Hungary, and identifies two horizontal segments based on the way consumers view their age. Design/methodology/approach Questionnaires were used to sample 880 Baby Boomers. Structural equation modeling is used to investigate multinational measurement invariance of the cognitive age scale. Findings Two distinct segments are identified, providing support for a young-at-heart consumer culture in all nations in the study. Results also find cognitive age to exhibit partial measurement invariance, which is expected given the disparate nations under study. Research limitations/implications This research contributes to cross-cultural global age research which is still in an early pioneering stage. The study builds on a small number of previous studies that validate cognitive age, extends current knowledge of the measurement properties of cognitive age, and identifies two distinct international segments of Baby Boomers. Further research needs to delve into the antecedents of self-perceived age, particularly in the ways in which different life experiences and cultures may impact age identities. Practical implications The study has implications for marketing managers wishing to target the increasingly important young-at-heart Baby Boomer. Originality/value The study uses four non-American countries, uses samples matched for chronological age, and does not use convenience samples, which make it unique in the cognitive age literature. The study has value for marketing managers, global age researchers, and consumer culture researchers

A cross-national study of the ecological worldview of senior consumers

This paper presents the results of a cross‐national study into the ecological worldview of senior consumers using the N ew E cological P aradigm (NEP ) scale. It was designed to examine the extent to which senior respondents in the UK , G ermany, J apan and H ungary are endorsing the NEP scale and which factors determine NEP in the four countries under study. Our study is the first of its kind to measure the ecological worldview of older consumers across different nations. Examinations of the overall frequency and mean distributions of the NEP scale showed that the majority of seniors in each country support the NEP statements, but there is no general support for pro‐NEP orientation. The relationship between values [using list of values (LOV ) scale] and environmental attitudes was tested through a series of regression analyses calculated separately for each country. According to the results, a very weak relationship between some of the LOV values and the NEP scale was found in all the samples. Our study contributes to both cross‐cultural environmental attitude research and to consumer studies in general