Editor's note: Leslie M. Harris is chairman and chief executive officer of Consumer Sciences Inc., Brookfield, Connecticut.

By the year 200O, America's senior population is projected to reach 76 million - one quarter of the total U.S. population.

By the year 2010, our senior population is expected to reach 96 million - one third of our total population.

Between the years 1990 and 2020, the 50 and older population is projected to increase by 76 percent.

In the 1980s, 100 percent of the growth in the mature market was among those over 65. In the next 10 years, it is estimated that 85 percent of the growth will be in the ages 50 to 65.

Marketers and researchers no longer can rely on the concept of a single senior group. Attempting to identify only one senior market (as in the 1980s) no longer provides a true understanding of the senior population. Today the senior population, which forms an estimated $900 billion market, is too diverse in terms of its stage of aging and other lifetime and environmental events.

Today's senior is living a more active and more positive life. Seniors who constitute this market want to live their lives to the fullest. They are open to buying new products, planning and engaging in new activities. Our maturing seniors demonstrate a declining interest in materialism. They place a higher priority on value than on price.

They are an active part of an information-driven society, reading newspapers, magazines, and books extensively. They spend a lot of time on self-improvement activities and in volunteer work helping others. They try to expand their knowledge of the society they live in and desire equally to contribute to that society. They want to continue to be productive citizens and for society to recognize them as such. They vote at a higher rate than any other age group and are more concerned with social issues than are those under 50.

- Many of the 50- to 64-year-olds have college degrees.

- Eighty-four percent read their daily newspaper.

- Seventy percent are magazine readers; more than half of the households have cable TV, and 56 percent own a VCR.

- Spending for education has increased as the population of 50-plus couples with younger children has risen.

- 50-plus women are returning to the work force in part-time positions, and there is a general trend toward learning new skills, both in vocational schools and colleges.

Success with seniors

The greater the level of maturity (age plus lifetime experience and economic status), the greater the likelihood the 50-plus population will seek to define a product's attributes using their individualized perceptions of need and desire.

Knowledge of the changing levels of maturity and the feelings, fears, wants,

hopes, and dreams of the seniors can result in the ability to develop more predictive segmentation strategies and in the successful marketing of your company's products and services to the senior market.

The importance of maturing America is reflected even more in terms of per capita income and in spending for leisure activities. Per capita discretionary income (money left after the costs of food, shelter, and the other basic neces-sities have been paid) for the 50- to 54-year-old age group is $4,899; $5,759 for those 55 to 59; $6,188 for those 60 to 64; and $6,280 for 65- to 69-year-olds.

Mature Americans enjoy an average of 39 leisure hours per week. A majority (55 percent) believe it is a right they deserve. Travel ranks among the top leisure ac-tivities for men and women 50 and over. About one half of 50-plus individuals buy hobby-related equipment or supplies in an average three-month period and nearly 27 million subscribe to publications related to a hobby or to leisure time.

With greater financial well-being, and better health and emotional stability, people over 50 are more active and affluent than ever before. They enjoy stronger economic status, with attitudes, interests, and consumer behavior that is changing the meaning of aging to the American manufacturer.

Motivational factors

Traditional segmentation, based on demographic correlation with lifestyle patterns, has proven less effective in trying to understand the senior market than it has with younger age groups. The more mature market can more accurately be classified by motivational factors which are influenced by various psychological and sociological factors. Those who are less mature are more influenced by peer group values. Conversely, with increasing levels of maturity, peer group influence wanes.

When trying to understand the mature market, current thinking is to consider multiple factors such as cognitive age along with chronological age and other social and physiological factors.

In cognitive age analysis, the focus is on understanding how older customers think about themselves; when used in conjunction with chronological age and other factors this method has been found to be an effective means of segmenting the 55-plus population into more meaningful sub-segments.

Older adults who are cognitively young are often very much the same as middle-aged consumers in their buying and lifestyle characteristics. In cognitive analysis, the seniors who feel and act middle-aged can be responded to differently than the seniors who think of themselves as older.

Older adults who are cognitively young are not likely to act out the traditional stereotype. They think of themselves as 10 to 15 years younger than their chronological age. They think of themselves as "just beginning": They don't want to be considered homebodies; they are mobile; they enjoy traveling; they are alert and affluent. They dine out frequently and spend time reading best- selling books, shopping for new clothes, and buying gifts for their grandchildren.

Advertising viewed positively

The mature consumer's view of advertising is generally positive. They are pragmatic consumers who favor advertising that appeals to their intelligence. They will reject advertising that attempts to persuade by hyperbole rather than by providing information. Seniors want to be seen as active individuals.

- Fifty-eight percent think advertising that promises a money-back guarantee to be most believable.

- Fifty percent think advertising statements that offer the approval of a health or medical group to be most believable.

- Sixty-eight percent think those advertisements which carry celebrity advertisements to be least believable.

- Sixty-three percent think those advertisements showing interviews with a hidden camera to be least believable.

- Sixty-two percent think those advertisements describing the product or service as new and improved to be least believable.

Seniors approved of these ads:

- K Mart stores showing people of varied ages shopping together. Seniors are satisfied with K Mart advertising. They want to be included as part of the total market along with the middle and younger ages.

- Michelob's commercial with the tag line "The night belongs to Michelob." The tag line enables the seniors to perceive for themselves how the product might be, and how they would like to associate the product.

- Automobile advertisements depicting the satisfaction the car can provide rather than its performance characteristics.

Print advertising was found to most credible by the mature consumer. Three quarters find advertising they read in newspapers and magazines to be useful and informative. Television advertising is considered to be less believable and less informative.

About 28 million adults 50 plus say they have purchased an item in the past three months from mail-order catalogues, toll-free 800 numbers, and television broadcast home shopping channels.

Research techniques

One of the most popular techniques that has been used in researching the older consumer is the focus group. The group typically consists of eight to 10 people and employs moderators who are experienced in conducting research with the senior market.

These groups are generally composed of users and non-users of the products or services over a range of demographic segments such as age, income, and education. The participants are further qualified on the basis of other sociological and environmental factors.

Photo sorts (picture representations of people of different ages and occupations), role playing, and other techniques are used to improve understanding of how the senior views a proposed new concept, product or service, and/or advertising promotion.

Focus groups have been utilized by banking institutions, retail and restaurant chains, travel organizations, clothing manufacturers, senior living environments, financial services, health care institutions, electronic equipment, cameras, automobiles, and recreational products.

Other research techniques have included in-depth interviews and "laddering" (asking for more information when a deeper level of motivation is desired). Mail surveys and personal interviews in the senior's home or in shopping malls also are used. Limitations of mail surveys include difficulty identifying the important non-verbal movements used when responding to a question. Personal interviews in the senior's home are costly.

Other considerations in conducting meaningful research with seniors are:

1) The ability to analyze the meaning of responses that consist of more than the literal meaning of the language.

2) Asking questions people understand. A diverse population can understand the same question differently, therefore their responses can mean different things.

An increasingly important challenge in conducting research with seniors is whether semantic and cognitive differences can limit effective communication and analysis between people of different ages, i.e., can a survey document be created for older respondents by someone who is not older? Second, can such a person be sufficiently sensitive to accurately analyze the answers?

Summary

In summary, the continuing physiological and socioeconomic change in the maturing adult has transformed the senior market into a highly involved and complex state of being from a lower level of activity, health, and resources.

Marketers and researchers can no longer focus on a single senior group. Older adults are becoming increasingly

individualized. They are affluent and their general level of health is better than in the past. Most of all they want to be asked what they want, and they want to be heard.

Sources

Interviews with David Wolfe, author of "Serving the Ageless Market," and with Jeff Ostrow, vice president of the Data Group's over-40 marketing division, were extremely helpful in the preparation of this report.

The source for much of the statistical information was a special report from Modern Maturity magazine and the Roper Organization, and the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Other sources include: Guide to the Mature Market and the Mature Market Report published by Lifestyle Change Communications and American Demographics, a publication of Dow Jones and Co.

Additional input was provided by James M. Sears Associates, Clifton, New Jersey, and by Marketing Solutions Corp., Wayne, New Jersey.