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Couldl you present
Mokkamarketing ?
It started at the end of
2005 when I carried out a research amongst 200 babyboomers (aged 42 to 60) on
behalf of a medical company in eldercare. I asked these boomers almost 100 questions
in either a questionnaire or in a face to face interview. About their lives,
health, shopping behavior, children, family, friends, cars and so forth. It
gave me a lot of data. I compared that data with everything that had been written
by authors and researchers before me. Dick
Stroud had just finished his ’50 plus market’, Jean
Paul Tréguer was already in business for a few years and I read Nyren,
Green and all the others. It ended up in a huge research report that basically
gave me an overview of the entire babyboomer, senior and 50 plus marketing business.
What works and what wouldn’t?
Applied to the Dutch market I came to the conclusion that besides carrying out
researches and telling companies ‘how to’ (reach the babyboomers)
nothing had been done. There was no advertising agency applying the researches
into campaigns aimed at older audiences. Which made me start it up for myself.
And until today this is still one of the major challenges on the Dutch market.
A lot has been researched, a lot has been advised, but that Is where it ends.
Companies are still not capable of translating research data into a creative
briefing on which their own advertising agency translates the findings into
a boomer friendly campaign. So yes, companies are more and more convinced of
the fact that they ‘have to do something with the aging population’,
but for two reasons this is not enough:
1. Companies don’t
know how to translate research results into creative advertising. That is
where we (hope to) come in.
2. Companies still have
a wrong image of 50 plus. They automatically think about old people and are
very hesitative to associate their brand or product with old. That is because
research has always been quantitative without showing how the 50 plus population
looks like. That is why we also started showing those marketers visuals of
their 50 plus client. For example by using stock photo’s, but more often
by taking photo’s on the street and put these in a powerpoint presentation
or quicktime movie. Showing people that could be their sister’s, brother’s,
neighbour’s or whatever. Make them recognize their clients. It really
makes people change their ‘view’ and ‘image’ of people
over 50.
About Mokkamarketing
Because I did not have time
to write my own book on the subject and because I did not want to repeat the
books written but others I decided to start the first 50 plus marketing blog
in the Netherlands. I figured that would become an (independent) resource for
inspiration. On which marketers could see ‘what is on the market’
and what the latest trends are. On a Google base, on which it is still running,
I launched www.mokkamarketing.nl
. From mid 2006 I have been posting all the news, good and awful campaigns,
trends, online tools, funny gadgets and everything else that has to do with
babyboomer, youngtimer, senior, mature or 50 plus marketing on that weblog.
And not without success. My clients read it, I have regular visitors and get
feedback from fellow senior marketers. I have more than 300 articles already
available on it.
About the InTheField
business
As I said, carrying out
that research in 2005 made me start my own business. InTheField marketing and
communication www.inthefield.nl
. It is just me, my knowledge, my weblog, and my network of freelance copywriters,
art directors, graphic designers, strategic researchers etcetera. I decided
not to start an advertising agency like all the others, but to be a trendwatcher,
babyboomer marketer or just a communicator myself. I do run advertising campaigns
(and often successfully), but always run them in a network structure. I hire
the best people for the job. Freelance, flexible and easy. For example, we recently
created a theme campaign for the new Plus Magazine website www.plusonline.nl
“The world of our generation”. We started with asking visitors and
readers to tell or show what best describes or visualizes the ‘world of
our generation’ to them and will continue this campaign with many designed
theme and action ads to create the online ‘world of our generation’
.
But we work for a lot of
other small, middle sized and large companies in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Not only on advertising, but also on innovative online projects.
So, I do think the market
is ready, but I am positive that marketing managers and communication managers
of Dutch companies need to be given a visual of their over 50 clients. As soon
as they seen what kind of consumers they are, and that they are perhaps no other
than 18-49 consumers, they will see that this is really a very interesting group
to target. They will run that advertising campaign.
See the blog : http://www.mokkamarketing.blogspot.com/