Trouble in Motor City

There’s trouble in Motor City this month and the senior market could save em! Bob Schnorbus, Chief Economist of Forecasting for J.D Powers estimated 2007 US auto sales at 16.2 million cars. That’s revised downward from 16.5 million. Toyota suffered its second straight monthly decline falling 3% and Chrysler is off 6%.

That translates to 300,000 fewer cars than last year and it’s believed that car sales won’t begin to turn around until after 2009. Not a lot of happy faces in auto show rooms these days as June and July auto sales were equally dismal.

What if you were an auto dealer and I pointed out to you that you’re avoiding and ignoring 48% of your market. You don’t think so? Take a look at any TV commercial announcing auto sales. A showroom full of people ages 25 through their late 30’s jumping up and down and climbing in and out of the cars on the showroom floor. What’s wrong with that picture is that there’s not a single person with gray hair looking at the cars! They are purposely ignored because some in the car industry thinks that if they show older people looking at their cars, the rest of the market will think they’re “Geezer Cars!”

There’s “green in the gray!” A total of 48% of all new cars are purchased by people over the age of 55. They also buy 54% of all higher priced cars. That amounts to 60 billion dollars worth of cars every year.

Oh, one more thing about car purchases. Women over 55 buy 60% of all cars. They also account for 83% of all purchases.

Mister Car Dealer, I suggest you get off your showroom floor, hire and train some sales ladies with gray hair and include people over 50 in your commercials. If you need an added push, the 7 trillion dollar 50+ market will grow by 21% and the 55/64 year old market will grow by 77% in the next 10 years. The lusted after 18 to 44 year-old population will shrink 1 to 2%. You make the call!

The Newspaper/Radio Demo Dilemma

Roy Williams, the editor of The Wizard Academy, tells a wonderful story of how the media missed the boat in the past! (Link to full story.)

New York City 1886. The Statue of Liberty was being uncrated. a man named Richard Sears was creating the first catalog shopping in America. John Pemberton was in Atlanta mixing his first batch of Coca Cola while in Germany Gottlieb Daimler built the first automobile engine. those were all big events. Yet according to Manufacturer and Builder, the nation’s leading journal of innovation and change, the big news that year was the discovery of a new way to color bricks red. In other words, the business leaders of 1886 were oblivious to the raging social evolution that was happening all around them.

And it’s happening again today!

Last week the Chicago Tribune ran a front page article concerning college students and 237 reasons why they have sexual relations. (Link to full story.) I don’t know about you but when I was in college I didnt think I needed a reason. The Trib’s readers exploded with rage over both the content and placement of the article. Even my wife commented that she though it was tacky and the story belonged buried in the Sunday Metro section some place.

The truth is that nationally newspaper advertising is down 12 to 18 percent no thanks to the Internet. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that 24 percent of American adults now cite the Internet as their main source of news. (Link to full report.) Couple that with the fact that newspaper subscriptions are dropping faster than Miss Paris’s panties and the end maybe in sight. Not Miss Paris’s, the newspapers!

The newspaper’s challenge is this: write titillating articles to attract the 20 somethings and blow out thier core readership of people aged 50 plus or write for the 50 plus market and not cultivate the younger readers.

Radio is facing the exact same problem. My teenaged grandsons have never listened to radio. Their Ipods and downloads do the entertainment job very nicely thank you.

Oldies stations are begining to move away from the 60’s music and are trying to attract younger demographics by playing 70’s and 80’s music. Like newspapers, they have to attract younger demos in order to sell the advertisers on thier media.

Meanwhile the fastest growing demo is 50+. Someone reaches that milestone every 7 & 1/2 seconds in this country. That’s 10,000 a day with a discretionary spending of $160 billion a year!

Until newspapers, radio stations and advertisers in general realize there is “Green in the Gray” we’ll continue to see these marketing upheavals. At their expense!