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

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

The Representation of Older Adults in Malaysian Advertising

This paper presents the results of a content analysis of older adults in Malaysian advertising. It is the first study to utilize both print and television advertisements. Despite a global ageing population, many businesses in general and advertisers in particular have been criticized for not meeting the needs of older consumers. Previous content analyses reveal that older adults are vastly under-represented, and this is true across many countries in the world. The present study finds that while older women are still slightly underrepresented, there appears to be progress made in that greater numbers of older adults are now included in mainstream advertising. Moreover, these seniors are depicted as relatively happy, active, and physically strong and are utilized in ads for a range of different products. The study is the first content analysis to tentatively suggest that business is now beginning to respond to the shift in demographics

Ethically Minded Consumer Behavior:Scale Review, Development, and Validation

This 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