Ever Heard of 'Silver Surfers?'

By Anja Merret

Well they are not silver coloured alians who balance on surfboards off the coast of California or Australia. A company called AXA has produced findings in a survey that states that OAPs (What an expression - it stands for Old Age Pensioners) are now more likely to surf the internet than do a spot of gardening. Considering that the Old Age Pensioners are possibly not living in properties with gardens anymore, that is probably not such an outrageous statistic. What is it with the younger people that they can reduce a huge segment of the population to an acronym? I suppose one never realises, when that age, that one will be there oneself in a few years. And boy, do those years fly quickly. It will be in the blink of an eye. So you would have gathered that a Silver Surfer is an ancient dude who likes the internet. For ancient read somebody over 50.

However, getting side tracked here. The issue is not the disregard these market research specialists have for the older generation. What is of interest is the fact that the older generation, 50+ finds it a lot more interesting to surf the net than to potter around in the garden shed. Not only that, hear this one marketers, this lost and ignored generation, according to the findings of this research actually spends a fair amount of money shopping online. That must come as a bit of a shock. After all marketing campaigns are so directed at the 18 to 48 year olds. Nobody in other age groups actually lives, or do they? Well if they do live, they certainly don't have any consumer type needs. If they did, marketers would actually direct advertising towards them, wouldn't they? You would think.

According to this survey, 45% of Old Age Pensioners actually purchase travel tickets online. Can you imagine what sort of revenue a company could generate, if it were prepared to acknowledge that some of their target market is actually a little older. Not only should advertising be geared to this segment of the population, as well as the other groups of course, but the websites should be accessible to the older generation. Although this generation generally is not senile or physically handicapped, they do have some needs such as larger font size and a more logical way of moving about a website. With other words, lose those ever so clever Flash intros and floating or pop up navigation buttons. Get some accessibility experts in to advise and please have the website tested by a sampling of your target audience. A 25 year old designer can't possibly presume he/she knows what it is like to be fifty plus and have failing eye sight and not quite as steady a hand as previously.
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