As we move into 2026, a striking contradiction is becoming impossible to ignore.
People over 55 now account for around half of global consumer spending, and yet markets and advertisers largely ignore them.
This video argues that this is not a marketing accident. It is a systemic failure.
Older consumers are not passive, disengaged, or uninterested in the world. Many are still working, caring, volunteering, and politically active. What they reject is churn, planned obsolescence, and financialised capitalism's obsession with novelty over value.
We want products that last.
We want simplicity, reliability, and trust.
We want markets organised around care, maintenance, and responsibility.
And because those products are not being made, older people are increasingly refusing what is being sold.
This video explores why that matters – and why it points towards the need for a fundamentally different economic model in the years ahead.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
As we move into 2026, I want to talk about an idea that was discussed in the Financial Times over the Christmas period. The suggestion in an article there was that older consumers are being ignored by the world's advertisers.
The statistics are striking, but the real issue is not the numbers. The real issue is what is going on in the market for goods and services for older people, of whom I am one, and of whom many of the viewers of this channel are others. This is a question, therefore, that will affect many of the people who look at this channel.
The fact is that over-fifty-fives now account for roughly half of global consumer spending. Think about that. The over fifty fives are clearly way under half the global population, and yet we account for half of global consumer spending.
We've paid for our homes, in some cases.
The children have left.
We've got money over to buy whatever it is that was once considered beyond our means and is now considered discretionary, and so we power the consumer economy.
In the US, over-fifties are projected to account for 61 cents in every dollar of consumer spending by 2050, and yet, despite this obvious consumer power that the older person has, only a tiny proportion of all advertising and product focus is on people above the age of 50.
This is a puzzle, because what is going on here? There is an obvious contradiction.
One of the contradictions is that the people who are making the decisions in the world's largest companies, seeking us to buy from them, are in fact people of our age. Most directors of most large companies are in their fifties. The average age of a non-executive director is even older; many of them are well into their sixties. So, it's not as if major corporations can claim they do not know what ageing is. They are run by people who are already themselves approaching retirement. But despite that, these companies are still not focusing upon what might be called the grey market.
The FT's explanation for this phenomenon is insufficient, in my opinion. In the article that I've read, they claim that this marketing failure is simply, well, a marketing failure. They're suggesting that the bright young things who dominate the world of marketing don't realise that there are people alive over the age of forty or so, and therefore they don't target advertising at us, but I just don't quite get that. I think there is something deeper going on. That is, that there is an economy which should be serving older people and their values, and which is not doing that.
The fact is that the advertising that is even targeted at people over a certain age, and particularly at people of retirement age, is itself very strange. It assumes that the people in question are basically retired, dormant, stagnant consumers alone, and then of leisure activity like cruises, and even then, very often the people who are actually promoting those are well under retirement age.
In the States, much of the advertising is about healthcare products, but that assumes that we are ill.
The reality is that many people who are aged 55 and above are either still working, as I am at age 67, or are actively involved in caring or volunteering. They still have what are, in effect, full working lives. They just may not be paid for their activities anymore, but they are nonetheless highly competent, and they also have high levels of digital competence and strong social and political engagement, but this isn't how markets see them.
We are viewed by marketers as passive engagers with whatever it is we are presented with, as if we've already all gone doo-lally, when most of us never will. So, what is it that older people are really saying, apparently, when they talk about what is aimed at them?
They say many of the products aimed at older people simply don't meet their needs.
We aren't seeking perpetual holidays.
We aren't seeking healthcare all the time.
What we want is something much more fundamental, and most of us think that the brands that we did identify with no longer identify our needs.
In particular, we do not accept the logic of financialised capitalism, which depends on churn.
We don't want fast replacement cycles for what we buy. As you get older, and I've noticed this, what you are interested in is durability, but markets are only interested in novelty.
What markets are interested in is short-term extraction rather than long-term relationships, and they're most certainly not interested in products that can be maintained, but we, older consumers, do the exact opposite. We want something that is highly reliable. We want to trust it. We want it to last. We want it to be simple, in a great many cases.
I cannot think of anything that symbolises this more than central heating controls. Why can't I buy a simple, straightforward, central heating control that turns the heating on on a day and off on a day at the same time every day, and requires no extensive programming, or override facilities or anything else? Frankly, half the time I turn my central heating on by turning the thermostat because the central heating control, which I'm told is the simplest available on the market, is just ridiculously complicated and over-engineered.
The same is true of cars. When I replace my very ageing Volvo, I don't want something that looks like a machine out of Star Wars or Space Invaders, or whatever it might be. I want something that looks like a car, and drives like a car, whether electric or whatever, and which is not over-engineered and which hasn't got so much high-tech in it that I can just see massive repair bills in the future. We do not want that. When I buy my next car, at the age of 67, I might imagine it'll be my last car, and there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not how markets are structured.
The fact is that the reason why products aren't being sold to older people is that the products that older people want aren't being made, and this, I think, is the underlying fundamental problem in much of the economy.
What we're being sold isn't what we want.
We don't want churn.
We actually do want things that work.
And we are also deeply responsible. Most older people are aware of the needs of their children and grandchildren. Indeed, they invest a lot of their time and even their money in them if they've got them, that is, of course, and I accept that not everybody has. But whatever the case, they worry about the future they're going to leave behind. Legacy, whatever that means, becomes an issue as you get older, and I realise that, but markets rarely sell intergenerational responsibility.
They don't sell us low-carbon choices, for example, and stewardship is a concept they don't understand; they focus on consumption. But I don't want that. I want something which is going to be a symbol of my responsibility towards those who are going to come, and a sign to them that I care about what the world will be when they reach my age, and this is not just an accident, this is obviously where many older people are. Yet responsible products of this sort are seen as reducing repeat sales potential by the market, and therefore, they try to undermine it. They try to sell us products with planned obsolescence built in, but we don't want them.
They want us to consume as much as possible.
We want to slow our consumption.
We want things that are socially valuable.
They want things that let them extract valuable financial reward, in their terms, and so we have a massive conflict going on here.
Now I see this as an older person, but I suspect many younger people see it as well.
What we've got is this failure of markets to understand what people want, because markets spend all their time trying to shape us as the consumers they desire. That to me is fundamentally why the FT didn't understand the phenomenon that they observed, that our age group, the older people on the planet, do not want the products that are being marketed. Therefore, they're not being marketed to us because deep down, companies and marketers know that what they're actually trying to sell to us isn't what we want to buy, but we have no choice but to buy them because they don't want to produce the products that we desire.
Now, is this true? I'm not sure. I'd love to see some research on it, but I think ageing is being framed by these marketeers as a problem rather than as an achievement; an achievement that we want to celebrate by saying we want others to share with it in the future, but which we know the existing system of market extraction may not permit. That's the thing that, well, the market and older people are in conflict about.
We want fewer things, but better ones.
We want services that respect our agency.
We want products that last.
We want an economy that accepts responsibility and takes it seriously.
We want a different economic model, in other words, and this is not what we're getting.
This is an era of marketing incompetence, but incompetence because there's a denial. A denial of what people need, and I suspect that this failure to market to older consumers is a form of collective denial, which is a reflection of this incompetence on the marketing industry's part, because they don't want to respect the fact that we want continuity, care and responsibility.
We need an economy organised around care and maintenance.
We need contributions across the whole of life to be recognised.
And we need markets that are disciplined by social purpose and a state willing to take responsibility for the future.
My point is this: the market isn't delivering those things. The state is not requiring that the market supply them.
The people who've rumbled this are older people who are rejecting the products that are being created by markets who, are hyper innovative in ways that actually add no value to life at all, but charge us a lot for the flashes and bangs and whizz and whatever else it might be that they think that make life possible, but only in the marketing world, because we all know that the marketing world is totally unrelated to the real one. All those car adverts where there's not another vehicle on the road ever in a city centre are the clearest possible sign of that.
So, we've rumbled them; they have not rumbled us, and it's the fact that they haven't rumbled us that worries me.
We need a different marketplace.
We need different products.
We need a different form of consumption, and that, along with much else, is going to be a theme of what I'm going to be talking about in 2026.
We older people need to be shouting and saying, "Give us what we want: simplicity, care, and responsibility, and we'll be happy, and you'll be rewarded. But if you don't give us that, we won't reward you in the way that you want." There needs to be a whole revolution in what we consume, and if we got it, this world would be a much better place.
What do you think? There's a poll down below. Let us know.
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Agreed.
Mark Twain said, ““I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead”.
Achieving simplicity takes time. Simplicity is, perhaps, more appreciated as people get older and have more experience. Many products are designed and implemented by the young who are in a hurry and don’t appreciate simplicity.
IMO much of the problem is down to straight forward ageism. Companies don’t want to employ older workers, so they lack that perspective.
Thanks to you and your team for a pressingly relevant article.
Might the current, dominant advertising ideology indicate, at least, the following?
1) A concern/obsession with extracting money rather than providing goods and services which benefit society and/or parts thereof
2) A belief or conviction that is much more concerned with manipulation than pro-person and prosocial information which serves/cares for potential customers
3) Advertising does not see itself as part of an actual/real society and so is more concerned with parasitism then symbiosis
You are right; that is what it represents.
And, I should have said, a very Happy New Year, to you and all. 🙂
Happy New Year
I was talking to a car salesman recently.
He had sold a car to a couple in their 80’s who had rung him in a panic as they simply could not work out how to work their new car.
Now I learned to drive in about 1980 and if you could drive a car then then until recently the controls on almost all cars were much the same. When I get the ‘latest top spec’ model now as a courtesy car however its like nothing on Gods earth, in fact it rather reminds me of Tom Rolts suggestion in Railway Adventure of delivering a Comet airliner to a remote village and expecting the local blacksmith to get it going. Nothing you NEED is easily to hand a and you are diverted by what you dont need.
I loathe that idea of unnecessary complexity.
I hear you.
I have owned 4 cars over 45 years….. and the first one was best (Triumph Herald convertible). Latest one is now 7 years old and I still don’t know what all the knobs do.
I regularly embarrass my son when I complain about the changing spec of products…. from beer to shirts to…. Well. just about anything.
🙂
I can contribute tuppeny-worth on two types of products you mentioned – cars and central heating controllers.
– like your car, my car is older. Compared to modern cars, it is small with a low roof, simple controls, no consol, manual gearbox. It was 2nd hand when I bought it outright. Most people todays buy finance agreements with cars that need certainty over the finance term (3 years?). Then cars are bought back (with little flexibility on who can do so – typically the manufacturer). In this way, manufacturers have (a lot?) control of resale value (and of the cost of any replacement. The purchase model is different – people are paying a monthly fee for a serviced vehicle to travel xxx miles.
t is now cheaper for cars to offer touch screens and control communication networks in the car than to have individual mechanical switches for things like heaters or headlights. Safety mechanisms like ABS and Traction Control are now standard. Cars warn if you exceed speed limits (detected by sensors). Mandatory compliance with speed limits is coming. In future insurance will not pay out if these “aids” have been disabled. I intend to keep my basic car for as long as I can.
On heating controls: I struggled with configuring mine. It was in an awkward position and I struggled to see the tiny text whilst bent down, hopping on one leg, holding a telescope ….. Here technology has a great answer. A replacement front (compatible with legacy standard wiring) allows me to programme it from my (smart) phone with simple and clear interface. If the broadband is working I can turn the heating down (and see the house temp) when I am away. This allows me to use the heating less than a one time on, one time off switch would do. But I got it because I couldn’t see/ configure the other one!
Thanks
I should look into that second option.
Do what I do
Pass it to your sons
🙂
I’m wondering whether it is because they are still assuming the base market is young adults, working but not yet with children? This was the main group of spenders with the most disposable income, but due to student loans and high housing costs, this is no longer the case.
I would also suggest that over 55s are more resistant to advertising and more likely to do their own research.
In terms of durability, I don’t think producers have focused on this since the 70s. The whole consumer market is based on the need to replace things. I needed to replace an old falling to bits kitchen. I don’t have a lot of money and just wanted a decent kitchen, not lots of gimmicks. The only company really interested in selling me what I wanted was IKEA, who were really transparent and great to deal with. All the others wanted to persuade me I’m needed things that they could make money off. I now have a really solid kitchen and half the price of other similar manufacturers and my work surfaces which were the cheapest on offer are much admired!
Agreed
We rebuilt what we had when our kitchen was 25 ytears old. Much cheaper than starting again
My previous one was the cheap very thin type of chipboard and literally falling to bits so rebuilding was not an option.
I’m wondering if half of all advertising is indeed directed at people aged 55 and over or intended to include them. That would be consistent with spending patterns. Be aware that the best adverts plant a seed in your head without you even knowing, that anything advertised to those aged 0-15 is really being targeted at adults and that the biggest advertiser in the UK by far is Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
“markets and advertisers largely ignore them” I agree. Speaking for myself (I am unlikely to be alone – but probably a minority)
1. I do not watch television
2. My Internet feed is protected against any & all advertising
3. No social media (unless it is ad free blogs like this)
4. Sometimes a newspaper – ignore the ads.
If I want to buy a capital something e.g. a machine tool, I research it – ads have no inflence. That said – I can see the pernicious of ads played out on the road outside as a procession of SUVs (a product built ONLY on marketing) trundles past. Hols? organise my own. I hope I don’t sound too miserabilist.
You sound alive.
With Mr Parr here, although I have to be on Facebook for running events (easy to win 70+ age group when only 70+ running!) and go on Bluesky voluntarily. Car wise, have a Mazda MX5 2006 vintage, a joy to drive but rattles like hell, and a Skoda Karoq, which has the ubiquitous tou
I think advertising focuses on youngsters as once past a certain age, folk are already loyal to a brand, stuck in their ways or more likely to do their own research based on practicality / functionality. (Or put another way, youngsters are more likely to be foolish and parted from their money as a result of advertising.)
Given my age (late 50s) the odd advert for stairlifts etc. slips into my FB feed, but mainly I get ads for exercise equipment and skiing holidays, as that reflects my main interests on FB. (And I occasionally take advantage of discount codes for new running shoes on my preferred make/model.)
Peak stupidity from the advertising world was when I started getting spammed with adverts to buy a particular type of exercise bike shortly after I’d posted on FB that I’d just bought one.
I don’t watch terrestrial TV much these days, but when I do, I’m appalled at the adverts – cruises, assisted living, funeral plans etc. I’m still trying to get faster on my bike. Getting “old” properly will have to wait, I’m afraid.
I am not embracing old age for some time to come, I hope
But, I know I am lucky
I am in good health
That’s an important point about health, Richard. In my experience working with clients, the happiest and healthiest have ‘enough’ or ‘sufficient’ financial means. Those with too much of everything (money, investments, ‘stuff’) end up suffering from anxiety and worry which eventually impacts their health. Of course, one person’s ‘enough’ is different from the next person, but it is interesting to note that people can get by (as long as they are free of debt and have interesting hobbies/diversions) on amazingly little as they age. Except those suffering from terribly superficial ‘moreitis’.
‘Moreitis’ – I like it.
I always agonise about all my discretionary spending – and always have – even though I can usually afford whatever I want. But I have to test that before I ever commit. As a result ‘moreitis’ is not a problem!
A very interesting video Richard as at the age of 74 today it’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while! My impression is that the so called marketing geniuses seem to think me and my friends sit around all day watching daytime TV contemplating where we should go on our next cruise and what OTC products we should buy to relieve the joint pains we haven’t got. I haven’t read the FT article but you are absolutely right that it is a puzzle. I am not interested in and reject products that do not meet my needs – products which seem to have been made so that I can appear cool and impress my peers. I really do not care if my car has 18 inch alloys and I don’t want to drive an iPad. I value functionality, simplicity, durability and reliability. The puzzle, the contradiction as you point out, is that I have the money and the willingness to pay for these. I noted a few weeks ago that the Dacia Sandero has been the best selling car to private customers in Europe since 2017. Why? Because it pretty much meets all of the criteria I set out above. It is apparently ‘counter trend’, which says it all really. I’ve come to the conclusion that these so called marketing geniuses haven’t done their research, and are just thick or that there is a long term strategy to train and condition their own generation that trends and tech trump simplicity, reliability and durability. They will however fail as they too will get old – if they’re lucky!
My garage owner hates Dacia when I say it might be next
I wonder if that is because they don’t make them money
I’ve currently got a Mercedes that’s getting very long in the tooth now and my wife has a Mazda MX5 that we both have to roll out of laughing. We’re going down to one car this year and it will be a Mazda
We are clueless as to what we would get next.
But the Volvo is only 13 years old (ten with us) and I argue it’s only just run in.
Youngsters ask me wnat “running in” means.
You are quite right, Richard. It’s like the analogy between washing machines and pensions that I sometimes use. Like most people, we have a washing machine that offers something like 50 different programme features. Of which we use about 4. So why pay for all these unused features and complexity? Tumble driers, too. Our previous tumble drier lasted for a remarkable 25 years until it broke with no replacement part available. Its replacement offers ‘smart technology’ so I can operate it on a smartphone. But who on earth would need to do that, as you can’t put washing in the darned thing remotely. The chap who delivered it said 5 years tops and then it will die, just as the guarantee expires. More ‘landfill economy’ nonsense.
So, with pensions, why punish yourself with over-complex ‘solutions’, many of which are based on false premises. As a client said to me a few weeks ago “I’m a retired maths teacher, and I really, really, don’t want to spend time worrying about “sequence of returns risk”, “safe withdrawal rates”, hoping that my pension fund holds up, or the kids inheritance. Please can I just have a simple, actual, pension?” Thankfully, we could do that for him by setting up a simple, guaranteed, good value, annuity, which means he can face the future with confidence and, essentially, forget all about it as it will just turn up each month.
Much to agree with
Great video and spot on subject, having worked in property maintenance most of my life and within the age bracket you speak of at 56, I have heavily noticed building construction degrade over years to the point that the time and materials that should be used are much weaker and fail faster. We now construct little boxes made of ticky-tac, not as homes but as short term investment opportunities, with a constant revenue stream for investors and parasitical leaseholds.
I do think that there is another angle to consider on the subject of marketing to the older generation and that is to do with the time and age we live in. With tech giants, tech bro’s, social media, vlogs and blogs, the constant drive to put everything on-line, the younger generation that run this sector in my opinion believe over 55 is old. Forgetting of course that I had a zx81 at 14 and have seen the tech development from the beginning.
I do reject almost all of the new social development as I can see the harm it does and I certainly do not want to know everything about everyone all the time.
This in my opinion is tech giant led, corporations that have more wealth than our entire nation, led by Neo-liberal driven capitalism and short term maximised gain. Corporations that for years have bought their way to legislative change in their favour, allowing more monopoly, less tax, weaker labour laws and reduced costs.
According to advertisers, when I get bored with smiling goofily at everyone from my electric bed, my electric recliner, my electric bath hoist and my stairlift, I’ll go off on a cruise to destroy what’s left of the Antarctic or Venice.
I’m not impressed.
One form of simplicity to be devoutly desired is being able to talk to a human being when necessary rather than doing it online. I can do most of the things I need to on-line and am fortunate having a young person to help when needed!
Someone I know, who is much younger, has had to apply for benefits, much of which had to be done on-line and that process and even the paperwork which was available supplied, seemed unnecessarily complex. I have experienced similar things in trying to access commercial services. I appreciate that it saves govt. departments and businesses some money. The call handler can work from home and less office space is required and so on.
But I also feel a lot of sales could be lost and some people give up on trying to get benefits. Perhaps we should have more customer representatives with common sense to sit on boards?
Agreed
Could it be that as one gets older, one is less interested in impressing friends and neighbours — “keeping up with the Jones”? This is an idea from looking at my local group, mostly over 80, but I have no real evidence. What do others think?
I think some become more obsessed with doing that: they are the hyper consumers of their tax free lump sums, intent on ruining the world before they die.
They are a minority, and the only ones the advertisers notice.
Hence the adverts for cruises.
I think you’re right Linda
Without knowing the research – ‘planned obsolescence’ has apparently been with us since the nineteenth century deliberate reduction in light bulb life.
Maybe Richard’s points about increasing unnecessary complexity is part of the transition from we ‘consumers’ actually ‘buying’ a product to now only renting it or ‘subscribing’ for o it’s services. Maybe when home ownership was at its peak we were at a brief maximum period of autonomy – in that we owned stuff and had some discretion over repair or replace.
As the handful of global corporates who control our tech services, energy, food distribution, etc. keep on reinforcing their dominance – we seem to be becoming more like Varoufakis’s serfs . If only Richard’s mature consumers could form a ‘consumers union’ and go on consumer strike to persuade marketers and producers to deliver what they really want
I agree. We buy very little ‘stuff’. We had our lounge suite reupholstered 3 years back. It was from the 1990s, but we like the shape and saw no need to scrap it. Cost us more, though. My MG ZT is now 21 years old, but doing fine. I had the alloy wheels sand blasted and repainted last year. Next to do is a rub down and repaint of the underneath. Next year three little patches of rust on the wheel arches. I am going to keep it as long as possible. Can’t drive into Edinburgh, though, due to the LEZ. Though I don’t want to as there is no parking and I have my bus pass. Just got new loudspeakers, but that was because my Cambridge made Acoustic Research ones from 1981 literally fell apart. Don’t have TV, so rarely see any adverts.
Is anyone really surprised that one of the most popular programmes on the BBC is “The Repair Shop”?
My wife and I usually rent self-catering cottages when we go on holiday. It’s becoming increasingly stressful when we first arrive at a new venue trying to figure out how the central heating, TV, oven and washing machine works (we don’t touch the dish washer), as they are all more ‘up to date’ than our appliances at home which have proper knobs. On a lighter note we recently stayed at a cottage with an AGA cooker – electric hobs and oil fired oven, a separate gas cooker, an air fryer, a George Foreman grill and a microwave, all of which were a foreign country to us. I took it as a personal challenge to master them all, which after two weeks I’d just about achieved.
I know that experience!
How can television be made so complicated?
Central heating is always a challenge
And even gas cookers. can be turned into a nightmare to ignite as the gas leaks into the atmosphere
And what is the gain to humanity? I cannot find one.
As an old reliability engineering, I think there is an important supply-side dimension that reinforces your argument.
Most competent manufacturing firms know perfectly well how to design robust, reliable and durable products. The constraint is not technical capability but commercial optimisation. Products are typically engineered to be “reliable enough” to satisfy statutory safety requirements, meet warranty obligations and customer tolerance—but not much more than that —because greater durability often undermines profit.
In many sectors, manufacturers make more money from spares, repairs, servicing and replacement cycles than from the original sale. That creates a perverse incentive to design failure in: not catastrophic failure, but predictable, manageable failure, often just beyond the warranty period. From a reliability perspective, this is not accidental—it is optimised.
In engineering terms, pleonexia isn’t a moral flaw so much as a system property: when profit has no definition of ‘enough’, failure just beyond the warranty period becomes economically rational.
Thank you, and much to agree with
I could not agree more – our 2022 Ford Focus only has 3 cylinders but it like a space ship inside and it gives me nightmares about what will happen if it develops a fault – even changing a light bulb in a headlight means a trip to the garage if only to re-calibrate the beam. We’re selling it as soon as we’ve finished paying for it and we will be either going to a hire system or doing without one.
It is amazing how when the we hear about ‘independent living’ for the over 55’s in terms of when looking after us it is considered to be too costly and the NHS ‘cannot cope’, yet the market wants to create ‘relationships’ and dependencies that suck out money from us like regular car servicing and insurance.
I totally agree that over 55 you become somewhat invisible – at work no one worries about your training needs, the assumption is that you don’t want to grow, you just want to retire; I want to know why a £2.50/£3.00 of Corsodyl mouthwash now costs upwards of £5 – that sort of pricing on goods meant to help those getting older is immoral; daytime TV is awful, it is market segmentation gone wrong.
I also have to say that I have very little time for those my age travelling around the world on death wish holidays and buying SUVs. Is camping really that bad?
The investment in social value however I agree is really weak? That needs looking at.
Your Focus sounds like a nightmare
I can still change my headlights on Volvo – no problem!
On a practical note on your 2 examples. I would recommend Tado controls for your central heating, works from smart phone, tablet and the like. I had it installed a few weeks ago, could hardly be simpler and you set heating as and when you wish on a and it definitely saves energy. Very well designed functional bit of kit. As for cars they are now designed so you can’t fix anything yourself, they have to be fixed by a man with a computer. Gone are the days when you could buy a Parker’s manual and practically rebuild the whole car from a breakers yard. Recently I could not switch my vehicle off, it’s keyless, eventually got RAC to come and look after it had been running whilst stationary for hours. Turns out that dust had jammed the switch. Vehicle had done less than 5000 miles. Even changing the battery requires a system reset. I had no wish to change my last vehicle but Motability scheme would not allow it. Perhaps the over 55’s are being ignored because we have analog memories, something that has to be erased in this brave new digital world we are meant to be entering.
I like ‘analogue memories’.
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ch screen, but all necessary controls as manual, as well as a manual change.
Agree with everything you have said here.
As the percentage of older people increases we will be harder to ignore – as already shows in terms of vote chasing.
In addition, I expect most older folk are not influenced by advertising hype and appeals to brand loyalty (unless based on durability / reliability and well proven). I proactively ignore most advertising I see, as my responses to regular YouGov surveys must show. I won’t be the only one by a long way. Advertiser’s will know this
I can’t think of very much I am loyal too.
Even PG Tips and Clogate have been broken by my wife’s persietence, por seeming inability to recall brands. I am none the worse for it.
But Marmite, only I have ever eate that in the hosuehold, and there is no alternative.
So, I know a little still about brand loyalty.
At heart most domestic appliances are simple robust devices dependent on an electric motor and a few valves. I was always interested in how things work and started tinkering with things from before I went to school. So I’ve always at least had a go at mending things.
But now the more the ‘functions’ the worse the switches, and often failure of one button results in having to replace who units, or, worse still, printed circuit boards.
If I found it was something I couldn’t fix we could always call on our local repair man, but he won’t even look at a dish-washer anymore.
If there’s anything that cries out about all this it’s the need for appropriate regulation and standards – without that things can only get worse.
W
When I was a teenager I built radios.
When I got into prhotography I developed my own films, and printed in black and white.
I built (well out together) PCs in my time.
Now I get sealed boxes. They work, until they don’t, and then I have no idea what to do wth them.
With supreme irony, just as I was locking up my office in Cheddar a little earlier, I saw archetypal “Moreism” personified. A massive red Range Rover driven by a couple nearer 80 than 70 towing a huge caravan. Personalised number plates on the immaculate set-up. They sailed right on through the Zebra Crossing, even though a woman was half-way across. I can’t help myself but I always think ‘idiots’. Hey, ho.
I say it.
I joined the pensioners club last year, just 2 or 3 months after you Richard. My income is going into sharp reverse. I started the year with PIP. End of January, received notification of the review. Since my health has certainly not improved, I expected it would continue. However the DWP are not following the (still current) rules and guidelines for it, and seem to be using ai. In mid October I was informed that I was no longer entitled. That also meant the end of Pension Credit. Although I’ve put in a Mandatory Review, it means £7kpa income disappeared. I won’t hear about the MR until late February – over a year since this began. I may have to take it to tribunal and have no idea how long that could take. Still, New Year’s Eve I opened my post to discover that my full rent and council tax rebate no longer exists. From my tiny income of £279pw (before tax) I will have to pay a considerable amount towards them. I had calculated that with the April increases I would actually receive around 1% rise. Now I know that I will be very much in negative territory as £2pm tax will rise to about £44pm, and because rent and council tax will also rise I will be expected to pay even more – as the calculation is based on pre-tax income. If I can’t get the PIP back this will be a further approx £3kpa taken away. There’s no earthly way to afford the help I need around my flat, which when I do it, knocks me out for at least two days. There’s no way I can ever afford to take a taxi home to reduce the exhaustion I experience when going shopping. I won’t be able to save to replace or repair appliances. All thanks to Rachel Reeves and a (nominally) labour government.
So I’m very relieved to not be targeted by advertisers. Very relieved to not have tv or to listen to radio. Also relieved to have found a way to watch YT ad free without paying! (Don’t use the app folks!) Anyhow, I’m seriously hoping that this will be fixed sooner rather than later. And maybe that’s why others of us are relieved to not be targeted by advertisers.
Go well, amnd I do hope they will hear your appeal favourably.
Thank you Richard. Obviously so do I! I should have added that I read a Sky article this morning, attempting to pit workers against pensioners which was annoying. Even with the small extra pension I have, if divided by 40 it falls short by over 55p of the under 18 minimum wage per hour. Clearly it’s very much worse for those with nothing extra.
You are right.
This attempt to divide people is toxic.
Carole, may I suggest that you talk to your local Citizen’s Advice Bureau? In my experience, these kind people are really very good at helping people with problems you describe – and it’s free.
Good advice
Carole
I cannot understand how you are losing your PIP if your circumstances haven’t changed. Two things:
1.Your local authority has a statutory duty to give advice and support to people in your position.
2. There is a website called benefitsandwork.co.uk. They are a very useful source of advice and information.
I hope that helps you in some way.
Alan
I’m not sure older people are ignored by advertisers but marketing is now largely social-media driven, the aim is to create a mimetic viral phenomenon. As the contributor who talked about ‘analogue memories’ implies, those who became adults in a world without the internet respond to (and are properly cynical towards) legacy-type advertising, which is much more about a slow-burn brand awareness/engagement. Furthermore, contributors talking about an expectation of service point up an extra difficulty of marketing to us; for younger generations, I suspect this expectation is largely absent: no loyalty is anticipated from either party in the transaction. The ‘freemium’ model reveals the process: offer something good for free, get users ‘hooked’, begin to extract ‘rent’, increase rent/decrease the offer. Young people have grown up with ‘enshittification’. Calling them brand slaves for paying £70 a month for an iphone has no effect, because Apple is the exception that proves the rule: they pay it because they truly believe Apple phones to be better. If a genuine challenger emerges, they will move to it en masse. Similarly, if Apple’s quality dips, it loses its USP. They won’t bother getting indignant about it because 2 minutes later they will have heard of the next thing and 5 minutes later they’ll have got on it.
Wow! That is cynical, but maybe appropriately.