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Thursday
- September 21, 2000
Retirees New Online Target Group
By 2005, 3.2 million retirees will be online with one
common trend -- hyper-speed learning: fast-forwarding their
online behaviour through increased leisure time and a love
of communication, according to a recent Report from Forrester
Research. Successful firms must adapt now to seize the commercial
opportunities online retirees present.
"High-income pessimists will begin to
use the Web, discovering the experience is much more attractive
than they had imagined," said Forrester analyst, Caroline
Sceats. "PC retirement gifts and the impact of children
and grandchildren communicating via email will spur uptake
of the Internet amongst the over-55s. And the kick-off to
hyper-speed learning happens when consumers spend sufficient
time online to pack a year's worth of online experience into
a few months.
"The most dedicated users -- Addicts --
will use the Internet six or seven days a week, increasing
the opportunity for online businesses to engage with them
through advertising. Adopters, in comparison, will come online
for around four days a week. The least active group -- Experimenters
-- will go online less than two days a week, limiting the
ability of online businesses to target them," she added.
Within a year, Forrester asserts, older users
in hyper-speed learning will out-perform in areas such as
online gaming and shopping: Sites will have only six months
at most to target online retirees before the cost of recruiting
them starts to rise. And as their behaviour development picks
up speed, users will come to expect higher functionality
and better service. Companies must re-focus their attention
on attracting and retaining the most profitable of the online
seniors -- what Forrester calls the Net-Powered and Net-Reticent
Retirees.
The Net-Powered are technology-driven experience
seekers who are frequently online, but they are also low
spenders. With their fondness for new technologies and with
strong tendencies towards gambling, gaming and downloading,
Net-Powered Retirees are a good match for lower-cost digital
TV and mobile Internet offerings.
"For Net-Reticent Retirees to turn into
profitable customers, media and commerce players must create
partnerships to build lifestyle management portals that attract
and educate new users," Sceats added. "Lifestyle
management portals -- online personal assistants -- will
give older Web users an online experience they value and
help open up access to their high online spending potential.
Content-commerce partnerships will become retailers' best
revenue propositions, and Net-Reticent Retirees will have
the finances and the interest to plug into online financial
management in a big way."
For the Report The UK's Golden-Age Opportunity,
Forrester spoke with executives from 30 UK companies including
members of Britain's leading retailers, portals and hardware
vendors. Forrester also drew on data from its Technographics® May
2000 Europe Study and the May 2000 UK Internet User Monitor™ which
surveyed over 65,000 users of the UK Web. Additionally, Forrester
spoke to Dr. Alistair Edwards, Senior Lecturer in Computer
Science at the University of York, whose areas of expertise
include how older people use technology.
Dot Com Sites Looking at Super Bowl Spots
Some dot com companies are jumping on the Super Bowl
bandwagon early despite research that shows dot com ads
as ineffective for long term traffic. Generally, Websites
shelling out millions of dollars for an ad see a mass spike
in traffic at Super Bowl time that quickly disappears.
Some sites apparently seem content with shelling out millions
for limited results versus investing in marketing programs
aimed at long term loyalty.
Monster.com is one of the first sites this
year to begin staking out its space for the upcoming Super
Bowl. According to the New York Times, Monster.com "said
it would run four 30-second commercials during CBS Television's
Jan. 28, 2001 broadcast of the championship football game.
It will air one spot in the first and fourth quarters of
the game, and two during the pregame show."
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2000 News Archive
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