Are Baby Boomers a large opportunity in India?

1.     Do Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, or broadly those aged 50 to 70 years, present a large opportunity in India? If yes, for which segments? Are Indian brands alive to this opportunity?

Housing 1.22 billion people as a nation we are entitled to some pretty unique and startling demographic related facts. Close to 50% of us are below 25 years of age and mere 12% of us qualify in the baby boomer category.

We are set to don the youngest country in the world title by 2020 and while that looks like a positive, consider the fact that our youth dependency ratio is 44% high implying that our youth is unable to participate in or contribute towards the economic growth of the country in sufficiently large numbers.

On the contrary, the elderly dependency ratio is mere 8% and this would tell you that our geriatric population wields a significant economic clout.

For starters, this group appears to have a monopoly over family real estate asset holdings marking their (high) net worth status and potential for finance leverages.  

In terms of quantifiable numbers the number of seniors in the top most echelons (A/B) of the Socio Economic Classification amounts to 9 million thus representing a market larger than UAE and close to the size of Sweden. One may have not realized it but the seniors segment has changed and morphed into a large business opportunity.

Fact is that the world over Baby Boomers are darlings and doyens of – medical and healthcare services, pension and annuity plans in addition they are also heavy consumers of travel, tourism and vacation services.

Trust USA to recognize the opportunity by designing homes, civic facilities and entire habitats for its affluent baby boomers. Little wonder, that Florida is better known as the retirement city coveted by Americans in their golden years. This only goes to show the world of possibilities for India. Unfortunately, the opportunity has not been tapped in to aggressively here.

At Max Life -

·         we recognized the Retirement needs of baby boomers by launching effective solutions like GLIP – Guaranteed Lifetime Income Plan that guarantees lifetime monthly annuity to Policyholders that are 50 years or above age

·         Our other product – Forever Young Pension Plan is also designed to create a retirement fund corpus between the age of 50-75 years. The corpus can be used to subsequently purchase immediate annuity

·         Senior living & care is a new and emerging lifestyle - At Max Group we have been privy to the changing needs of our senior citizens and MAX Antara was created with the objective of making senior citizen living – a dignified and pleasurable experience.

That apart, we do see brands targeting the elderly segment across a range of industries-  for example

·         There is the ‘rare’ innovation like mobile devices with larger screens and bigger buttons for ease of use called “Asaan” from iBall mobiles

·         NTT DoCoMo Japan, tasted success when it launched “easy-easy” or Raku-Raku featuring a panel with larger buttons and easier to read numbers. In less than 2 months, the model sold more than 200K units

Closer home...

·         The hair colour category has targeted an older audience

·         Similarly, Personal care (hair re growth) category has seen traction with use of contemporary personalities like – Shane Warne, Gautam Gambhir, etc.

·         Syed Kirmani the former Indian cricketer endorses hearing aids to senior citizens

·         Short haul cruise vacation services and destination management (Asia region) has been a success at targeting older holiday makers. The key insight that - While travelling abroad seniors prefer covering fewer cities as opposed to hectic tours designed for younger people has encouraged more seniors to travel abroad nowadays.

.      2. Is the youth demographic a more ‘low hanging fruit’ that takes away brands’ focus – perhaps even rightfully so – from the elderly TG?

It is quite natural for brands to base their planning around our demographic pyramid and chase the largest segment (25-54) that comprises 40% of the total population pie.

However, many seniors today are wealthier than those in the past. With better living conditions, improved diet and healthcare facilities seniors are more energetic than ever before. Their active socal life sees them often travelling to different cities to visit relatives, and attend family weddings. 60 is truly the new 50!

Elderly TG can be viewed as a low hanging fruit for brands that are willing to understand the needs of this Diaspora and are inclined to invest in this market opportunity. Like the West, our Life Insurance, healthcare, medical services industry is uniquely positioned to address this high potential base.

3.       Is this (elderly) segment being targeted well enough? And consistently enough?

This remains an underpenetrated segment. Given the significant opportunity that exists in the 25-54 years age group, it is natural that Indian marketers focus on that segment.

However, as product categories mature, marketers try to find their niche. Here, 50-70 years audience could be a high potential segment with its unique needs.

Indian marketers need to invest more on research to understand this segment and create relevant product and service offerings specifically for this segment.

There is a large population of entrepreneurs, professionals and private sector employees who have enjoyed the benefits of economic liberalization of the Indian economy in early 1990’s and now on verge of entering this age group. This group has high disposable income and could be an attractive customer segment - example, for Life Insurance this could be an attractive segment for immediate annuity plans.

4.      Is traditional mass media advertising relatively more effective in targeting this demographic? What other channels could work well?

Mass media works for “mass markets”. Using large format media vehicles to speak with the baby boomer segment  will result in un-necessary spill over and media wastages. Lower age consumers (media age 35 years) have very little in common with baby boomers and hence the spill over will be a losing effort without any ROI.

Instead, the media mix has to be custom-configured to ensure a sharp delivery of the messages by using specific print media publications and magazines to effectively resonate with the higher age-group consumer.

Interest specific media properties (Health, Wellness, Lifestyle, Medical, Travel, News, Devotional and Spiritual genre) can be utilized in the electronic media space to drive campaigns.

However, a robust media mix would also feature Direct marketing campaigns reaching out to the baby boomers in their natural surroundings and habitat – parks, community centres, recreation clubs. 

Pushing the boundary line further, the space is ripe for creating and thereby owning large communities of baby boomers. These communities can be started online in the social media space over Facebook or by offline channels. The communities are a potential ‘marketplace’ for collating brands, offerings and its consumers.

 5.       Should messaging for the elderly TG be specially created?

Any communication has to centre around the audience, its social and physical needs, its situation in-life and motivations. Since baby boomers are unlike any other mainstream consumer segment there is a need for customizing the messaging and creative environment catering to this audience type

We have to bear in mind that senior citizens are awfully smart! They drive a hard bargain and look for value-for-money offerings coupled with long-lasting quality and service commitment.

Seniors are also not as hung up on brands as younger people. They are not looking at image or the emotional component of brands. To them, brands provide a reassurance of quality and a responsible organization that will address any issues that they may have vs a vs product/service issues.

More than brands, seniors are likely to look at corporate reputation to assess the company for honesty, fairness, financial stability (will not close down) etc. so that they know that they can trust the company.

All elements of the communication, its tonality and its creative language therefore has to take reasonable account of all these messaging ingredients and designed appropriately.

6.     The convenience of e-commerce should be a reason for the elderly to use the channel. Have they been educated and incentivised enough to shop online?

      This remains a key opportunity area and a challenge area for brands to translate financial capital of the baby boomer in to online monetized opportunities. Consider this – less than 5% Indian netizens are 55-64 years old whereas 75% internet users in India are 35 years or below. When compared with other BRIC nations India’s online population is significantly younger.

As a first step, we have to consciously onboard baby boomers to the online universe before we can talk e–commerce with this group.

Matrimonial classifieds market seems to be an exception that has bucked this trend. It is interesting to see how these brands were able to target senior citizens to try their services while evaluating potential alliances for their children.

If we can get a baby boomer to sample matrimonial services online, we should be able to on board them for a variety of other services too.

Data Source for Internet Use: ComScore India 2013, Future in Focus

 7.    Can you think of any brand campaigns that have effectively targeted this demographic in India? And internationally?

At Max Life Insurance - We had an interesting insight about the cycle of human life that helped us plan our brand campaigns targeting the baby boomers.

You start off in a rat race and aim to make more and money your entire professional life. The irony is that you never have time to savour the sweet fruit of your labour. Exactly the reverse happens during your retired life when time “freezes” and you are left with all the time in the world but at this juncture of life it is most likely that you have no rewarding or creative pursuits.

Now imagine if your retired life finds you in the pink of financial health. Would you then be able to live 2^nd innings of your life to the fullest, travel wherever you pleased and do whatever you wanted to?

This thought sparked our campaign idea allowing us to boldly re-interpret Retired life and reposition it as the fun and carefree part of a seniors’ life that is usually associated with the life of a teenager ie. Stress free and carefree abandon.

The brand campaign stood out because of its refreshing take on senior citizens breaking away from the stereotypical imagery of old people who are frail, or have little enthusiasm to live life.

The campaign creative showed how a retired person is able to travel enthusiastically across the country attending weddings of distant relatives while also indulging in theatre/musical events – all for his personal entertainment and leisure. And who wouldn’t – if time and money were freely available?

Since the campaign vibed with audiences we extended this positioning into creating products and solutions where the fun that starts during retirement does not end with the end of a policyholders’ life; rather the benefits continue for the surviving partner or spouse.

Looking back there is a sense of satisfaction having gone beyond format advertising to create products specifically for baby boomers.

Can Marketing afford to be a laggard?

In the fast changing world, could Marketing afford to be a laggard? Here are a few practices that I would certainly like to help transform:

Marketing Department to Marketing Labs

Successful organizations realize that the only way to predict the future is by consistently aiming to create and re-create it. This has to be a continuous and self perpetuating cycle within the organization DNA. Social scientists study lifestyles, emerging trends and product teams “cook” insights in to create breakthrough products and innovations. This would be pretty impossible in conventional organizations where Product R&D develop products for existing markets whereas Google, Apple, 3M & GE create scenarios imagining the future... Future ready brands need to create a “lab environment” for fizzy innovations. Isn’t that how Man created – fire? By accident...!

Customer Mania in the organization

Today every employee and every part of business has the potential to touch the customer at some point along the purchase cycle. From a tweet to a blog to a call center experience, the customer’s expectation of service is just a click away. In such a scenario, the responsibility of owning the customer agenda cannot be with just one function or a handful of employees.

Whilst all organizations claim to keep the customer at the forefront, very few of them actually deep dive and rally every single employee to work for this common cause. Marketing does not own the customer, each employee does and therefore this means a huge transformation in organisations.

What marketing can ensure is that they create a culture and almost a maniacal passion around the subject of customer-centricity. Not just through communication but concrete actions and processes with clear measurable outcomes.

Advertising to Content

If you are a brand that believes in show and tell you are stuck in the 90’s! 
Customers will tend to remember how you made them feel, or how you treated them or the drama that your brand story created in their life. This is where the next dimension of content curation comes in as a golden opportunity to reach across and co-create branded content with customers. 

Research proves that branded content has highest recall and clearly cuts above conventional format advertising. Co-creation is a enriching experience for both – brand and consumer. The give and take results in a potent brand story created by, for and of the consumer, making it easier to accept at not just functional but cognitive and emotional levels, resulting in brand stickiness that is hard to achieve, otherwise.

Content curation is the new holy grail of brands of future. It’s where the sizzle lies.

Social Engagement to Social Business

Digital engagement, just collecting some likes on social platforms, is past. Social networks are today as real as the physical world and marketing department has to view every interaction on social networking as an opportunity for social monetization. The digitally equipped marketers need to understand the socio-commercial behaviour of netizens, collect insights and offer its consumers an opportunity to do business in the social environment they are comfortable in. As Indians latch on to the digital domain communicating, buying, selling and shopping in new ways, it is for brands to lead the way and monetize the user base online progressively.

Brand Buzzar: " I am a life-holic": Brand Wagon's 'After Hours'

Brand Buzzar: " I am a life-holic": Brand Wagon's 'After Hours'

" I am a life-holic": Brand Wagon's 'After Hours'

My Job

As the CMO & Head Direct Sales & Ecommerce at Max Life Insurance, I have direct functional responsibility of varied verticals comprising brand & marketing, media, marketing, direct sales, e Commerce, research, corporate communication and end to end customer value management.

With such a diverse portfolio there is never a dull moment in my day. I am privileged to have a very committed, passionate and a stable team who’s been with me since the time I joined Max Life. Together we have achieved some wonderful milestones including many industry firsts, for e.g.  first of its kind  service to sales model which has become an industry benchmark.

Additionally, as an Executive Committee member at Max Life Insurance I have been part of key strategic decisions that have made Max Life the most admired life insurance company.

The Weekdays

Hectic but exciting. I try and hot the gym at least thrice a week and those days are the most satisfying. I end up feeling light and easy and most guilt free on my gym days. The energy is of a very different order. The habitual relaxed newspaper reading over steaming cup of tea does end up getting compromised on these days. However my hour long commute to work ends up giving me enough time to catch on the news in the car. I have recently started practicing 15 minutes of meditation preferably in the morning itself and this has now become an integral part of my life. It has a very calming effect and when I enter office, I am ready to start the day with positive energy and work without biases or any kind of stress. Except official engagements I prefer to be home with family and avoid any social engagement on weekdays.

The Weekends

Saturday is a day of outings, socialising, shopping, household chores, movies, plays, live shows and what not. Since I plan my Saturdays well in advance, I can pack in a lot. This is the day I live for. After my gym and meditation, I catch up with friends for a relaxed lunch at Delhi Gymkhana. At least once a month my lunch date is with my son and it's great to hear his teenage stories and catch up on all that’s happening in his life. Our gym interests are common and we exchange a lot of notes on fitness. Evening outings are with my husband as he works through the day. We enjoy watching movies, plays and all kinds of musical live shows. A gig in town is booked in advance and at least 3 out of 4 Saturdays we manage to unwind in different ways.

Sunday is exactly the opposite. Except for the morning yoga session, it is all relaxed. Managing kitchen and home, afternoon siesta and a recorded English movie on TV completes the day. I spend at least an hour or so in the evening searching and reading interesting stuff, mostly latest trends on the net. I enjoy writing articles on consumer and business trends and this keeps me abreast of the latest in the world. I am basically a life-aholic and as much as I enjoy my weekends, I do look forward to getting at my desk come Monday morning.

The Toys

My ipad is a constant companion, when I am at home or even when I am travelling on work. I not only do my work on it but watch movies and play around with apps and am active on social networks. Between my Samsung S4 and Apple ipad my communication channels are active all through my waking hours. I research a lot and am also fairly active on Facebook, Twitter and my blog and of course e mails. Having worked in the car industry before joining Max Life (as Director Marketing - General Motors), I enjoy my Audi and all the comfort that it offers. I have the largest collection of Sufi music from around the world and I love to unwind my day by listening to my favourite Sufi music on the Bose AirPlay.

The Logos

I am not very brand conscious and can wear even street fashion but I do like a few  brands. Anita Dongre is my favorite for Indian wear. Her styles are very elegant and very wearable at all kinds of occasions. My favorite casuals brand is the Japanese brand UniGlo. It has yet to enter India but I do manage to stock up from my various visits to Bangkok, KL etc. I also wear a lot of Zara especially jackets and Marks &Spencer.  For accessories, Gucci, Michael Kor and Movado, Calvin Klein  for glasses, bags and watches are some of the brands that I indulge in regularly. When it comes to perfumes there are many but my favourite is Davidoff cool water.

My recent article in Leadership Insights for Leaders. ODALTERNATIVES BY SANTHOSH BABU

A Few Good Women Women Leadership | Women at Workplace | Anisha Motwani -By Anisha Motwani, Director & Chief Marketing Officer, Max Life Insurance Classic fairy tales are intended to teach a ethical lesson to children. They would tell the story of powerful, bold and handsome men who would rescue the damsel in distress. The women would be naive and defenseless while the world around connived to subjugate them. ‘They Happily Lived Ever After’ would mean that these defenseless women would have gallant men come to their rescue and would be married. However, in the modern day fairytales, such as Snow white and the Huntsman, Shrek 3 there is a twist in the tale. In Shrek 3, the character Princess Fiona and characters such as Sleeping Beauty Snow White and Cinderella come together to achieve a goal without the help of men. They are captured by Prince Charming and held prisoner in a castle. When Fiona asks all of them to think of a way out, Sleeping Beauty falls asleep, Snow White lays down and Cinderella keeps sitting. When Fiona asks what they are doing, they say they are “Waiting to be rescued.” This shows that the princesses are prepared to assume their traditional gender roles of being passive and waiting for a male figure to save them. Their gender roles are suddenly shaken and re-evaluated when Fiona’s mother, the Queen, head butts the brick wall and creates an escape route. After this point the princesses feel empowered because they realize they can control their own fate without depending on a male figure. For years women have played by the rules and kept their heads down. As if being ‘rescued’ is a natural phenomena. But today, women take their own decisions about the way they want to live, how they want to carve their career and lead from the front. The reason they are ready to take on the ‘traditional’ role of the man being a ‘bread-winner’ is due to ‘self belief’. Thisbehavioral change is making them leaders. Women who become leaders have the same ‘self belief’ to ‘rescue’ themselves and dealing with the situation head-on – like Queen mother in Shrek 3. There are women leaders across industries, who have triumphed by just following their heart and pushing themselves to the limit because they believed, like men, they too can achieve. Many more are yet to come, but the numbers are increasing every day. And all women leaders have a common trait – in spite of adversity they believed in themselves and had the courage to go ahead to achieve their goal. We are burdened by the history of our past. But then opportunity to create and build a new world is only limited by our inability to enact in the future we seek. There are some unique qualities in women that make them work differently in work places than men. Women are more collaborative in their approach, hence are great team players. Their ability to balance work and personal life makes sure that they do not go overboard with anything. Lastly, women are more intuitive, have better EQ and hence pre-empt a lot of issues. Women should merge these positive qualities with “self-belief”, to be able to leave a legacy behind. I will list down 5 pointers that may help women who are looking to lead in the years to come.  Love what you do, there cannot be more fun in anything else Women who want to grow as leaders should also take ownership of their professional development. Embrace opportunity – women must often take sharp detours and that the risks of unexpected changes that may seem more obvious than the benefits. Becoming self-reliant and confident by accepting opportunities. Expand your horizons and gain the resilience to move ahead even when things do not go the way you want it.