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Are Age Differences Just In Your Head? When it comes to understanding and reaching out to the mature market, there's one question we must continually ask ourselves: How does the mature consumer think? There are many ways of answering the question. One approach involves relying on the shared history of a given generation, or the current life stages of its members, to determine what's most important to them. Baby boomers embraced ‘60s counterculture, so they are generally idealistic; they are becoming grandparents, so they're in search of family-oriented activities, and so forth. While this type of analysis is the meat and potatoes of age-targeted marketing, a very different kind is transforming market theory and practice. Neuroscience increasingly offers insights into how male/female and age differences dictate a brain's way of processing information, supporting the theory that targeting any market segment can be done more effectively when scientific data informs your strategy. For example, a study conducted a few years back by the Rotman Research Institute at Toronto 's Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care found that mature adults performed to the same standard as young adults on visual, short-term memory tests. Intriguingly, however, they used different areas of the brain to achieve these results. The study (undertaken in cooperation with the University of Toronto and Brandeis University in Massachusetts ) was the first to focus on what the interplay of brain regions means to cognitive functioning and aging. It revealed that older brains often managed to compensate for losses in one area's functioning by "turning on" another. "The older brain is more resilient than we think," Dr. Randy McIntosh, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto , remarked. "If aging brains can find ways to compensate for cognitive decline, this could have exciting implications for memory rehabilitation." Subjects included ten young adults in the 20-30-year old age range, and nine older adults aged 60 to 79. They were asked to undergo identical visual, short-term memory tests while their brain activity was measured with positron emission tomography (PET), a technology measuring regional cerebral blood flow. Analysis of outcomes indicated that both age groups performed equally well on the memory tasks, but the neural systems or pathways that "lit up" in the PET reading were different for the mature adults studied. While there was some overlap in the brain regions supporting performance, neural communication among these common regions was much weaker in older individuals. The mature subjects compensated for this lessened communication by bringing into play areas of the brain little called upon by the younger subjects, including hippocampus and dorsal prefrontal cortices. Study leaders were particularly interested in the older brain's activation of the hippocampus, since this area is associated with far more complex memory feats such as learning off Shakespeare by heart. With similarly compelling results turning up in numerous recent studies, companies might soon be turning their market research budgets to the scientific sphere. Back To Mature Market News → Go To The GenerationTarget.com Mature Market Bookstore → |
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