50+ Housing e-Source - 07/25/2006 (Plain Text Version)

Norman Cohen
Chairman

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In this issue:
Marketers Sell Houses, Too
Hot Topics: The Latest 50+ Research Has Landed
Local 50+ Councils Bring in 61 New Members!
Local Council Connection
Network and Nosh at Fall Board
Around the Industry: Things are Peachy for Del Webb
50+ Housing In The News
NAHB Concerns Highlighted in Fed Testimony
Become a Better Spokesperson
Grab the 'Keys' to Consumer Confidence
Drive Into Savings This Summer
From NAHB: Builder Confidence Slips Again in July

Marketers Sell Houses, Too

Is it really true that “if you build it, they will come?” I don’t think so. Dream fulfillment isn’t on automatic pilot for the active 50-plus market, or any other group for that matter. Nor does it hinge mostly on a home’s design, features, attributes, location, price, resale value, and so forth. These are the centerpiece of a home’s worth, but they only come to life when they capture consumers’ emotions and aspirations. Quality design and construction perk up all the senses like visual appeal. But how does a home speak to them?

How do consumers link a home to how they feel and the experiences they value? What prompts them to imagine how they would live in a home and how that home would enhance their own lives and lifestyles? It’s critical for builders to help their potential buyers envision these important decision points, especially as brand differentiation becomes more fuzzy and difficult to achieve.

Yes, this is a mainstream phenomenon. But its relevance to the 50-plus market deserves special attention, especially when it comes to the substance and tone of marketing to them. It’s important to focus on key product and design issues such as first-floor master bedroom suites, luxury kitchens, and fitness facilities, but it isn’t enough. Builders must drive their understanding home. They must communicate real insight into these active consumer’s needs and wishes and the housing solutions that match them. Speak to vigor and energy and not the adjustments of aging. “They’ll get it.”

By now, it’s presumably “old” news that boomers retain much of their “boomerness” as they age and become empty nesters. It almost borders on cliché to say that members of this famous generation won’t easily give up re-defining every life stage they enter to match their youthful perspective. Hot buttons for these buyers are self-expression, entitlement, vitality, adventure, and rule breaking. But what’s not such “old” news is that there is often a lag between what builders say and do and how they tell their story to the marketplace. It’s time for builders to communicate that they understand the 50-plus market. History won’t help them much. Understanding and research will. Never before has an older generation been so different from its predecessors.

Marketing as a Brand

Here’s where marketers come in. It’s their time to shine. Their role should extend beyond executing the ideas of others in their organization. Effective communication with consumers requires collaboration, so that every business function speaks with the same voice to establish and distinguish the builder’s brand. In fact, a bigger and better role for marketing is not just better promotion of a builder’s brand; better marketing makes for a better brand. It becomes part of the brand. It’s a great, competitive differentiator.

Builders should look to marketers as strategic players in building and selling homes for the 50-plus market. For starters, it’s their job to understand how and in what ways the 50-plus age cohort has changed. It’s their job to develop a language that connects with those changes. Older consumers want to hear about their pep and not their presumed decrepitude.

But reaching them is not a slam dunk. Like most consumers, their resistance to marketing as usual is growing. Chief complaints are that it is intrusive, pushy, loud, and irrelevant. Two studies conducted in 2004 and 2005 by Yankelovich, a nationally recognized market research and consulting firm, paint a sobering picture of major disconnects between what marketers think and what consumers think. Consumers ages 50 and older are aligned solidly with the younger population.

What’s ahead? There’s little question that marketing resistance will accelerate because marketers fail to acknowledge there is a problem reaching this resilient, booming market. Further technological advances, such as ad blockers like Tivo, and direct marketing restrictions can make it even easier to filter unwanted marketing. On the bright side, out of trouble comes opportunity. Superior marketing practices and experiences that resonate with these consumers can create a competitive advantage. How can this be done?

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Before her recent retirement, Barbara Caplan was a partner at Yankelovich, a nationally recognized research and consulting firm. An expert on consumer trends, Caplan is one of America ’s foremost authorities on the food, retail, fashion, housing, and personal care industries. She has spoken before diverse client, industry, and government groups and has published numerous articles and essays.