The Baby Boomer Cinemagoers and their value to brands

Blackett Ditchburn, Head of Planning and Knowledge, Digital Cinema Media, looks at the older cinemagoer and reveals why brands shouldn't discount this valuable audience segment in the latest edition of Admap.

We’ve recently had a fresh and thorough look at everything we know about the cinema audience, triggered by the arrival of the latest findings from the annual FAME (Film Audience Measurement and Evaluation) survey. Amongst many other interesting and frequently convention-challenging facts to emerge, the growth in the reach of cinema among the older (55-70) audiences stood out.

Discovery of the renewed enthusiasm for the cinematographer’s art by this age group led us to look more closely into how they use cinema. What we found revealed, not a fuddy-duddy bunch hiding from the cold, but a vibrant group of people making active and considered purchasing decisions about cinema. And by extension, this mind-set must carry over into other aspects of their consumer lives, providing guidance for marketers interested in getting through to those who increasingly hold the purchasing power[1].

While the overall reach of cinema has grown since 2007 by 17 per cent, growth in reach over the same period of the 55-70 cohort is a remarkable 30 per cent. Cinema now achieves a greater reach against this age group – at 57 per cent  –  than national daily newspapers[2]. The traditional profiling of cinema as a predominantly young media seems no longer to be true.

There are two primary reasons for this growth. Firstly these are baby-boomers, the generation that grew up challenging convention and re-examining everything their parents told them. They are the generation that started the massive resurgence in the popularity of cinema from its nadir in the early 80s to the present day highs (cinema admissions 1984: 54m, cinema admissions 2011: 172m[3]). Secondly we have seen a broadening diversity and appeal of the movies available. In 2002, 369 movies were released for cinemagoers to choose between. By 2007 this had risen to 516, and in 2011 it had reached 558.

The marketing world has been criticised for not entirely addressing the economic significance of older folk, and not quite ‘getting’ them, despite warnings[4],[5]. Ask most advertising creative people to put something together for an older audience and the same hackneyed imagery of grey-haired be-cardiganed smiley folk appear. But older people are not exclusively benign grandparents – in their own minds they are still active, ageless, and in control.  We are, after all, talking of Mick Jagger’s contemporaries…

In 1984, today’s 55 year old was 26, settling down and (probably) exploring parenthood and a career. This age group drank deeply from the 80s and 90s economy, and played the housing bubble to great effect. Cinema had remodeled itself around the multiplex and soon became an attractive extension to their social repertoire. As children arrived, so they were introduced to the cinema experience. It’s those baby-boomer kids who are today’s 18-34 year old cinemagoers.

These cinemagoers have built a lifetime cinema habit and as they move into older age they are discovering they have more time, more disposable income, and a greater appetite to pursue their interest in big screen concentration and drama.  That they are arriving in greater numbers in the seats of their local cinema should therefore be unsurprising.

So we thought we should dig a little deeper into this aspect of our cinema audience, contrasting them with a younger age group.  Using the latest data available through FAME, we saw that the 15-34 age group enjoyed, on average, 7.4 different genres of movie.  The 55-70 age group were narrower in their enjoyment: they only enjoyed 6.0 different genres of movie, despite the fact that greater numbers of this age group are being attracted to the cinema[6]. They have winnowed out the stuff that doesn’t do it for them.

We had a look at other aspects of their cinemagoing.  While 29 per cent of young people feel the need to get to a movie on its opening weekend, only 19 per cent of the older audience feels the same way.  They’d rather time their visit later in the movie cycle.  This shows that while younger people feel the need to know quickly, so they’re not behind the social melee surrounding a new release, older cinemagoers don’t feel the need to respond.  They’re more comfortable doing it their way, taking their time, watching others’ reactions prior to making a judgment as to whether it’s worth it.  Over half of them will listen to the opinions of family or friends.

The lag may also explain the fact that older people – although active online (cinema-goers aged 55-70 are 17 per cent more likely to be active online than the rest of the adult population[1]) – are less voracious viewers of trailers and tend not to book their tickets. They understand the mechanism of the cinema experience and plan their visits so that it best suits them.

The older cohort is also canny on which day of the week they visit – markedly choosing to go on days that are traditionally quiet. They like their space; they like to control their cinema visit their way. 62 per cent of them are going as a couple – the clichéd cinema-visit-with-grandkids is not their prevailing experience.

Trajectory Partnership was also kind enough to share with us some of its findings about different age groups’ use of and attitudes towards technology from its Global Foresight Survey. Take the response to the statement ‘I find new technology products such as computers and mobile telephones confusing and complicated.’ Contrary to the popular stereotype, a sizeable 44 per cent of those aged 55+ disagreed with that statement.

While a larger 68 per cent of 18-24 year olds disagreed with the same statement this does show that techno-fright in the older generation isn’t quite as prevalent as may be suggested by the stereotypes portrayed in popular media.  Younger people have an advantage in their use and familiarity with technology – computers are used throughout the education system and the ubiquity of mobile devices creates an environment conducive to fear-free adoption.

Thinking in simple volume terms, that 68 per cent equates to 4.1 million 18-24 year olds – while the 44 per cent over 55s number 7.8 million… Look too closely at the percentages and you can be distracted from just how many people are comfortable with technology. When new technology provides useful utility for older folk, they’re as fast as anyone to use it.

The same Trajectory survey showed marked differences in attitudes to owning things. While 18-24s own things for explicit self-expression reasons (42 per cent like owning things that impress friends and family) a much smaller proportion (just 7 per cent) of the 55+ age group feels the same way. The 55+ group are canny: 67 per cent of them use price comparison sites to save money while only 58 per cent of the younger group agrees with that statement.

To further support the idea that this group has strong ideas about choice and independence of thought, the Global Foresight Survey also provided this gem: 49 per cent of the 55+ age group agree that ‘people have free choice and control over their lives’.  Only 41 per cent of 18-24s feel the same way.

Does all this mean our audience are conforming to the stick-in-the-mud, stigmatised, pipe-and-slippers stereotype so promoted by marketing literature? (Just Google ‘Over 50s’ images and you’ll see what we mean…) Or is there something a little more profound going on that has wider implications? What lessons can we draw from cinema’s experience that may be applicable for other marketing folk thinking about an older audience?

The baby-boomers’ consumption of the cinema experience shows a group that has strong views as to what it likes.  It has found routines and practices that make the experience fit the way they want to live. They are confident in their views, less swayed by the crowd in the short run, but very alert to its wisdom. Their behaviors are thus quite determined and harder to shift without good reason. We would argue that a picture is emerging of a different kind of customer to the stereotype so often portrayed by marketing and media: one that has acquired considerable expertise in disentangling the wheat from the chaff in buying things.

The experience of cinema shows that older consumers are learned, expert consumers.

Such a consumer will, of course, be harder to convert to your brand – but don’t for a moment think they are impervious. They’re watching, judging you all the time.  And since they have, by and large, bought at least one of everything (and several of most things) they have become quite wise and thoughtful in their approach to consumption.

On the basis of their ‘learned consumption’ older people are simply making more sophisticated, experienced choices: their instinctive appetite for consumption has been polished by their experience of buying.

What are the lessons to be learned from all this for brands interested in the older consumer?

1. Consumption (at least of cinema, but most probably everything) among older people is a result of active, engaged and informed choice, not merely the repetition of old purchasing habits portrayed by populist stereotyping.
2. Older cinemagoers’ willingness to adopt new ideas reveals a generational willingness to try - and perpetual curiosity about - new experiences.
3. Appealing successfully to this older group requires brands to pay greater attention to their competitive benefits, and ensure these are available – not in every communication, but available somewhere.
4. The older group are still alert to and affected by contemporary ideas of style, but this is tempered by their independence and learned approach to buying new things. They’re both emotional and rational in their buying processes.

Respect those points, and your brand too could see 30 per cent growth in the next few years.