It was recently drawn to my attention that there is an Infographic on “The Elderly and The World Wide Web” which explains the U.S. seniors’ relationship with digital technology and how they increasingly rely on the internet to seek healthcare solutions. The infographic at https://medalerthelp.org/elderly-the-world-wide-web/ was developed by medalerthelp.org, a U.S. website that helps seniors differentiate and choose among the many medical alert systems that are available to them in the marketplace. The infographic is very creative in terms of colourful and user-friendly graphics illustrating evidence-based research and content.

Key findings, drawn from different reliable sources including the AARP, Pew Research, and other surveys, include the following:

• Studies show that educated seniors with higher incomes tend to use the internet at higher rates
• 82 percent of boomers/seniors use search engines to gather information on topics of interest
• Baby boomers spend about 27 hours per week online
• 70 percent of internet users aged 65+ use the internet on a typical day
• 66 percent of information accessed by the mature population online is access to news and weather; 57 percent of usage is related to shopping; 44 percent is accessing food information and 43 percent is to play games and related activities
• 71 percent of older internet users go online everyday or almost everyday
• 11 percent go online three to five times a week
• 25 percent of grandparents use email to communicate with their families; 75 percent of seniors use the internet to communicate with friends and family; and 55 percent of seniors follow a group or organization on social networks
• 40 percent of seniors are viewing online videos to stay up-to-date with the latest news
• 53 percent of seniors use the internet to learn about healthcare or medical issues
• 54 percent of seniors watch online video for entertainment
• 26 percent of the mature population say that mental sharpness is an extremely important reason for playing games and 50 percent say it is very important

The top three internet usage by category among American boomers and seniors are: getting health or medical information (66 percent); visit a local, state or federal website (58 percent) and doing banking or financial activities (55 percent).

Other interesting facts include 63 percent of 50 to 59-year-old Americans now access TV content via the internet and baby boomers are 19 percent more likely to share content on Facebook compared to any other generation.

In Canada, a recent study from Media Technology Monitor (MTM) also found that boomers and seniors are enthusiastically consuming content via digital media. Smartphones have found a comfortable home with the boomer demographic – 78 percent of younger boomers (aged 51 to 60) and 66 percent of older boomers (aged 61 to 71) report ownership. Younger boomers are more likely to own tablets and a healthy number of the younger demographic also have gaming consoles.

Canadian boomers’ desktop computer usage is similar to our American counterparts (56 percent vs 58 percent among American boomers). They also don’t appear as interested in wearable technology. The vast majority of older Canadian boomers still have a TV subscription (86 percent), compared to 91 percent of seniors over 72 years old and 65 percent of millennials. While 21 percent of millennials say they have no TV subscriptions but watch that content online, only five percent of young boomers say they have done so. Meanwhile, 21 percent of younger boomers are very or somewhat likely to cancel that subscription.

Around 55 percent of older boomers watch TV exclusively on a traditional TV set, and only one in 20 boomers reported watching TV exclusively online. Seniors over 72 years of age demonstrate the stronger affinity for traditional TV, radio and news platforms. More than nine out of 10 pay for conventional TV, nearly half have newspaper subscriptions and 83 percent report heavy viewing of news specialty channels.

Device use is also predictably lower among older Canadians – 18 percent say they access the internet via a TV set and 24 percent own a smart TV. Another 68 percent own a computer, with laptops surprisingly edging out desktops (47 percent vs 44 percent). Smartphone ownership tops out at 36 percent of seniors aged 72 and above, with tablets appearing in roughly as many senior households (33 percent). Another 25 percent of seniors report owning a “basic” or feature phone. Of the 91 percent of seniors who have a TV subscription, 11 percent were identified as being very or somewhat likely to cut the cord.

According to a TD Bank Group survey titled “Too Shy To DYI,” Canada’s baby boomers are comfortable with the Internet for most things, but a glaring exception is investing online through discount brokerages.

Almost four in five baby boomers (79 percent) use the Internet for banking, but only a meagre 16 percent are online do-it-yourself (DYI) investors, say the poll of 2,000 Canadian adults conducted in July 2017. TD Direct Investing said this behaviour can be attributed to the fact that many say they are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with online investing tools. The survey also found that boomers would invest online if they had a human being to hold their hands in the beginning and ask them investing questions.

According to a Financial Post article, the issue isn’t so much technological savvy as confidence and knowledge about investing. It’s obvious that baby boomers have already integrated technology into their lives in a variety of forms. They can set up a broker account or robo account and transfer money in and out. But many are confused, intimidated or fearful about making the right choices from the thousands of investments available to them.

TD found that 50 percent of boomers spend at least 15 hours a week on the internet, only a tad  less than 58 percent for millennials. Ninety-four percent of Canadian boomers use the Web because it’s convenient and 84 percent find it easy. Seventy-seven percent use the Internet to read news online, 66 percent to shop via Amazon or its rivals, and 64 percent stay connected with friends and family through social media such as Facebook or Twitter.

The main reason for low boomer use of online investing is lack of investment knowledge. TD says 79 percent of those surveyed don’t manage their money online because they simply don’t know enough about investing, while 22 percent say they don’t have enough time to invest on their own.

Unfortunately, when compared to our American counterparts, Canadian boomers are less likely to adopt digital health technology, according to a 2017 study commissioned by Telus Health. According to the survey, Canadians in the boomer (aged 52+) and senior categories (aged 71+) reported that they are most likely to access a healthcare provider (78 percent). However, while 58 percent in this demographic agree that digital health tools would help them connect with their healthcare provider, this group ranks the lowest to use them (20 percent). Further, Canadians aged 52 years and over are 10 percent less likely than younger generations to agree that digital technology empowers them to take control of their health.

While these findings highlight the need to educate and engage all Canadians on the role of digital health technologies, a supplementary survey of Canadian healthcare providers uncovered tremendous support for the role that digital technology plays in staying connected with patients and other healthcare providers.  Whether it’s to book appointments or send an alert when medications are low, three in four healthcare providers report using digital technologies to communicate with patients. Of those healthcare providers surveyed, 80 percent reported using digital technology to communicate with other healthcare professionals; and six in 10 believe that this integrated health team interaction improves patients’ overall wellness.

It looks like that although Canadian boomers and seniors are increasingly comfortable and versatile with technology, they might need more education on the important role digital solutions can play in their financial investments as well as their overall health and wellness.

Photo Credit: Ottawa Citizen

2016 was full of bad news, so let’s hope the new year is going to bring more good tidings, particularly for us boomers! Based on some of the developments last year, here are my anticipated top 10 good news for the new year:

1. Canada Continues to Be The Shining Light Of the World: Canada graced the October 29 cover and feature story of The Economist magazine last year. The publication said that our nation is uniquely fortunate in many ways – but its liberalism and tolerance hold lessons for other Western countries and went on to explain why Canada is still at ease with openness. Under Justin Trudeau’s leadership, we might not be perfect, but Canada will continue to be a champion of immigration, open trade and the fight against climate change. For 2017, I have to quote retired Global TV journalist, Tom Clark, as he said farewell to his career on December 31, “For all of our troubles, all of our scandals and disagreements, we should try to keep things in perspective. In global terms, our problems are small. Our country works better than most, perhaps better than any other. We should always aim higher. But let’s remember how blessed we really are.”
2. Canada officially kicked off our 150th Anniversary of the Confederation on December 31: In addition to a special commemorative 150th Anniversary coin series produced by the Royal Canadian Mint, there will be numerous special celebratory events and festivities in local communities and urban centres across the country throughout the year. Under the umbrella theme of “Diversity, Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, the Environment and Youth,” the Department of Canadian Heritage has budgeted $180 million for a variety of initiatives across the country and $20 million for special events such as the New Year’s Eve party on Parliament Hill.. According to a recent government-commissioned poll, nearly nine in 10 respondents expressed a lot of pride in being Canadian, and they felt strongly attached to their country. Nearly the same number said they would visit a national park in 2017 or attend a Canada 150 event. But, as of last summer, few had heard much about what the government was doing to celebrate. Looks like the government has a lot of marketing and promotion work to do on upcoming celebrations.
3. From brain drain to brain gain for Canada in a Trump presidency: Canada’s tech firms are hoping Donald Trump will help keep Canadian graduates from skipping town for Silicon Valley and perhaps lure some of the talented expats who have gone south for work. According to CTV News, Canadian companies large and small have quietly bemoaned the exodus of talent for decades, and agencies like Communitech and the City of Toronto have been trying to woo them back. That’s why billboards have been placed on well-travelled Route 101 in Silicon Valley promoting “GoNorthCanada.ca,” a website extolling the values of tech jobs in Ontario. Communitech said that the site has seen spikes since Trump’s victory. “People are reaching out and letting us know they are ready to come home,” said Communitech’s vice-president Heather Galt. With the growth of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry and the important research role that Canada has been playing, the nation can further benefit from a brain gain. Last year, Google has announced that it is investing $4.5 million in the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, the latest sign of Google’s growing interest in AI. As part of the deal, Google will open an AI research group in Montreal. The company believes the city has the potential to become a “super-cluster” of machine learning knowledge. Some large companies have also recently moved their AI divisions to Toronto, including Thomson Reuters and General Motors, with the intention of hiring hundreds of data scientists. According to The Globe and Mail, many of Canada’s largest companies have also stated a desire to hire thousands more data scientists in the coming years. Demand for talent already outstrips supply, and the gap will only grow. Now is the opportune time for Canadian AI companies to spread their recruitment net wider to include the U.S. so that we can benefit from a larger pool of AI research talents.
4. The Paris climate change agreement was signed by 194 countries and ratified by 121 members, including the U.S. and China, by the end of last year: In spite of what Donald Trump said, it would not be easy for him to repeal this accord. With the enforcement of this agreement, nearly 200 governments will become obliged to meet emissions-cutting pledges made before the deal. The agreement would also commit the countries to aspire to keep temperatures below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. The agreement went into effect on November 4, 2016, which means that 2017 will see a lot of countries starting to move in the direction of reducing greenhouse gases. In Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau and most of the premiers (except for Saskatchewan and Manitoba) signed a historic pan-Canadian framework last month to fight climate change and meet the country’s 2030 emissions reduction targets.
5. Self-Driving cars from science fiction to science fact: after the first series of successful pilot-tests of self-driving vehicles in both the U.S. and Canada last year, these autonomous cars will hit the street in larger numbers in 2017. Last month, Alphabet, the owners of Google, spun off the research and development of self-driving technology into a separate company with the name of Waymo. The company has partnered with Chrysler to develop self-driving Pacific Hybrid minivans. Test units will hit the road over the next several months. According to technology news website Dice.com, expect Uber and Tesla to speed up with making their autonomous-driving offerings as advanced as possible in 2017. This development will drastically improve the quality of lives for aging populations across North America.
6. On the health front, 2017 will be a breakthrough year for the fight against Ebola. An Ebola vaccine developed by Canadian researchers and considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be the first effective treatment against the virus has already started a new phase of clinical trials. The vaccine’s safety and effectiveness were tested on volunteers infected with HIV, starting in Ottawa and Montreal last November, and followed by trials in the new year in Senegal and Burkina Faso. According to the principal investigator Cecile Tremblay, “It is particularly important to study the effectiveness of this Ebola vaccine in vulnerable populations, such as those living with HIV. These populations can often be most at-risk during outbreaks, because of their compromised immune systems.” The Ebola vaccine, originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada, provided blanket protection in a field trial in Guinea in 2015. Health Minister Jane Philpott said that the next phase of clinical trials in 2017 is an important milestone in the development of the world’s first proven, effective vaccine against the Ebola virus.
7. A revolutionary blood test that can detect cancer can become part of an annual physical in five years. Liquid biopsies, as the blood tests are known, can give physicians a telltale sign of the presence of the disease in almost all types of cancer mutations. For cancer patients undergoing treatment, liquid biopsies could spare them some of the painful, expensive and risky tissue tumor biopsies and reduce reliance on CT scans, which must be limited because of the danger posed by overexposure to radiation. Medical experts say that the liquid biopsy has come a long way in the past year and a half. According to CNBC, doctors and medical researchers are excited by the prospect that liquid biopsies would be a way to help people already fighting the disease. The new year will bring even more research and development in cancer centres across the U.S. on how a non-invasive blood test could be appropriate in many cases to identify the DNA mutation driving cancer forward.
8. New eye drops can dissolve cataracts with no need for surgery. We’ve all read about a new study that used eye drops to shrink cataracts in dogs may have made an important step in overcoming them. According to Professor Kang Zhang, from the University of California San Diego, whose research team developed the eye drops, this new drug could play an important role in the prevention of cataracts in those showing early signs. Although at this stage eye drops have the potential to overcome a number of limitations of surgery, they won’t be able to replace it yet. According to Dr. Manuel Datiles, a senior investigator and attending ophthalmologist at the U.S. National Eye Institute in the National Institutes of Health, eye drops will become key in treating cataracts, as surgery will not be able to cope with the growing needs of the world’s aging population. The new year will also bring more research and development to investigate whether there can be more medical breakthroughs in this area.
9. On the arts and culture front, we could not have asked for a better year than 2017 when Canadian musicians took the Grammy nominations by storm and two Canuck male lead actors were nominated for the Golden Globe Awards. After a year of Canadian dominance on the international music scene, Drake, Justin Bieber and The Weeknd were nominated for many categories in the 2017 Grammy Awards. Drake leads with a whopping eight nominations while Bieber fares well with four. Other Canucks on the list include R&B singer Tory Lanez, Vancouver-formed and now Brooklyn-based duo Bob Moses, jazz musician and composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Toronto-based record producer Nineteen85, and the renowned classical music conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin in the Best Opera Recording category. We all look forward to awards night on February 12 when we will see how much hardware these artists will bring home! On the big screen, two Canucks will go head-to-head in the best actor category for a musical or comedy. Ryan Gosling, from London, Ontario, was nominated for his lead role in La La Land while Vancouver-native Ryan Reynolds is also up for his comedic performance in Deadpool. (Gosling eventually took home the Golden Globe and will, almost for sure, be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar!)
10. Canada tops The New York Times‘s 52 Places To Go in 2017. On January 4, The New York Times put Canada number one on its annual list of places to go in the new year. According to the publication, Canada has it all – from cosmopolitan cities to barely explored natural wonders and everything in between. It also mentioned that all of the country’s more than 200 national parks and historic sites are offering free admission through our 150th Anniversary year, “from the turquoise lakes and mountain peaks of Banff in Alberta to the rolling dunes and red sandstone cliffs of Prince Edward Island along the Atlantic Coast to the newest reserve, the glacial-rounded Mealy Mountains in Labrador.” Looks like Tourism Canada did a better job in marketing our country as a travel destination to our neighbours down south than to fellow Canadians!

With all these good news, let’s move forward into the future with more positive thinking and cast away all the bad news of 2016. A new year is always a new beginning with new hope!

Photo Credit: mobile-commerce-press

The furor over Hillary Clinton’s use of emails has subsided but will certainly continue to haunt her during the U.S. general elections, particularly in the upcoming Presidential candidates debates.

But I have to agree with The New York Times which mentioned, on July 24, 2016, that “in all the failings hurled at Mrs. Clinton at the Republic National Convention – venality, murder and reckless disregard for national security – there was no mention of her internet ignorance.” She was far more obsessed with protecting herself from prying reporters and Republicans than enemy hackers. According to the publication’s report, when a State Department deputy chief of staff for operations suggested in a 2010 email that she use the government system to avoid spam, she declined, writing, “I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

There was speculation that one of the personal secrets she was hiding was possibly her discomfort with the digital revolution. There were also tons of evidence if you buy this argument. On July 24, 2010, Hillary Clinton had trouble using her iPad. She wrote an email to a close aide, “I don’t know if I have WIFI. How do I find out?” On October 7, 2012, she again emailed that aide, “Do you know what channel on the TV in DC is the program listing? And specifically, what channel is Showtime?” She added that she wanted to watch Homeland. In fact, Clinton acknowledged her own weakness with what she wrote in the subject line of the Showtime email, “stupid question.”

There were also signs that Clinton acknowledged her weakness in technology and wanted to improve. She asked her former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, to lend her a book called “Send: Why People Email So Badly and How To Do It Better.” But would her admission of her technological ignorance lead to even more Republican attacks or mitigate the distrust in her by a huge number of Americans? I am not sure.

It is important to bear in mind that not every baby boomer or senior citizen is a Hillary Clinton. There is still a huge misconception out there that baby boomers are technologically challenged. But this is a myth that needs to be debunked. Contrary to popular belief, mature adults are incredibly active on social networks and more tech savvy than most younger people realize. A Forbes article on January 29, 2013 pointed out that while baby boomers are not always the first adopters of new technology, it’s more out of a sense of being thoughtful about purchases than about being unwilling to engage with the latest devices.

Also, boomers are interacting and shopping online at a rate that definitely outstrips most marketers’ conception of what they are doing. A Nielsen study of baby boomers in 2012, for example, found that baby boomers make up a third of all internet users, and that a third of those boomers describe themselves as “heavy internet users.”

According to Tech.Co, a media company focusing on tech and startups, while many people complain today about being tied to their phones, baby boomers have a different attitude about their smartphones. Eight-two percent of boomers and seniors who own a smartphone described their phones as representing freedom rather than a leash! Because boomers use their smartphones for tasks such as actually speaking to fellow human beings and sending some text messages, they are not on their phones as often as younger generations. Nowadays, God forbid that the Millennials will ever be caught talking on the phone! Constant texting and use of social media are the rigueur du jour for the younger generations.

Although the inventor of email, Ray Tomlinson, passed away in March 2016, emails will never die! According to another Nielsen study, while 38 percent of people aged 15 to 20 annoy their parents by staring at their phones while dining, 45 percent of GenXers and a whopping 52 percent of baby boomers engage in this behaviour as well. Different generations just use technology differently. For baby boomers, email may still be the way to go although most of my boomer friends text and What’sApp as often as I do (which is quite frequently)!

Coming back to Hillary Clinton’s traits of technological ignorance, at least she had admitted in private that she was having problems and was willing to learn. My advice to marketers targeting baby boomers is never to mock or talk down to them about their technological knowledge and savvy. Focus on customer service and quality content and treat them with respect. As older generations are more used to having one-on-one interaction with the people they are making purchases from, consider having a live chat on your website or encourage older customers to get in touch with you on Facebook with questions and concerns.

To my fellow baby boomers, I would encourage you to constantly learn how to better use technology. When would-be retirees ask me how they should spend their time after retirement, my first advice would be to encourage them to enroll in technology classes to upgrade their knowledge of the Internet and social media. People who have kids risk losing touch with the younger generation if they are ignorant in technology and become irrelevant to society. We will never be technologically savvier than the younger generations, but a better understanding of the use of technology will not only draw us closer to the rest of the world, but will, above all, help enrich our own lives.

Photo Credit: Getty Images

As a staunch supporter of Uber, I was overjoyed to hear that Toronto finally joined Edmonton and Ottawa in legalizing Uber. Kudos to both Mayor John Tory and Uber’s own tireless efforts to rally all loyal supporters, riders and drivers. After months of protests, turmoil and, at times, violence, Toronto city council approved new rules in a marathon meeting last week that finally allowed a legal, regulated UberX to continue operating in Canada’s largest city.

Mayor Tory convinced council to vote 27-15 in favour of the following new rules:

• Allow private transportation companies like Uber to operate in Toronto, booked only through a smartphone app, with a $3.25 minimum fare (Uber will pay $0.30 per trip as a “city fee”) and “surge” peak-time pricing.
• Allow taxis to adopt a “surge” peak-time pricing for rides booked via smartphone app.
• Uber cars are not allowed to be hailed on the street. Taxi rides that are hailed on the street, at a taxi stand or ordered over the phone, still face regulated rates set by the city with no “surge” pricing.
• Taxis will continue to be required to have cameras, and flashing emergency lights, but not for Uber. Have city staff report back next year on whether private transportation companies like Uber need cameras.
• Ensure Uber and taxis have insurance of at least $2 million on all drivers for bodily injury, death and damages to people or property.
• Undo 2014 reforms that would have phased out ownership of “standard” plates as a commodity and ensure all cabs be accessible for disabled by 2014.
• The city will eliminate its requirements for drivers to take training programs in order to get a licence; and taxi and limousine drivers will no longer have to take CPR and first-aid training.

As a consumer who frequently relies on taxi and Uber rides, I believe the city has struck a right balance. We continue to have value-for-money ride-sharing services and with the new rules, passengers’ safety is safeguarded with the stipulation of insurance for Uber. While most passengers do not like “surge pricing,” we still maintain the option of calling a cab by phone or hailing one on the street.

Of course, the new legislation is not perfect and grey areas continue to exist. I would prefer Uber vehicles to be mandated to install cameras in order to ensure safety for passengers. There does not seem to be tightened legislation on criminal background checks on Uber drivers and this still puts thousands of ride-sharing passengers in some sort of danger.

Taxi drivers are obviously not happy because they now officially face stiff competition. While Uber’s spokesperson in Canada said they can live with the new rules, they also expressed concern that higher expenses would discourage part-time drivers to join Uber as it would be challenging to maintain a sound livelihood with the new system.

But, all in all, this is a good, solid confirmation of democracy and a freedom of choice for the fourth largest city in North America. Mayor Tory and city council should be lauded for listening to consumers and embracing new technology; striking a reasonable balance between taxi companies and ride-sharing services; paving the road for the advent of more ride-hailing companies such as Lyft; and making a commitment to review and adapt the rules and legislation pertaining to ride-sharing in a year’s time.

Photo Credit: southeastdiscovery.com

I was both frustrated and pleased to read the article Older Consumers Will Reshape The Business Landscape in the April 9th edition of The Economist. I was pleased because I was flattered that an esteemed publication like The Economist shares pretty much the same insights as mine some nine years ago when I first started this blog. In 2007 on this blog’s home page, I wrote, “Very few companies have fully realized the immense opportunity that baby boomers present for their businesses. As marketers, we must consider the needs of this demographic now, more than ever, as the aging population increasingly grows in importance.” The British magazine echoed the same sentiments: “Yet companies have been relatively slow to focus on this expanding market – certainly slower than they were to attend to the youth-quake (a term coined by Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue in 1965, to describe how baby boomers were shaking up popular culture).”

The Economist now replaced this term with a “grey-quake” instead. The potential of baby boomers as a marketing target is huge, not just in Canada, but worldwide. According to the publication, those over 60 constitute the fastest-growing group in the populations of rich countries, with their number set to increase by more than a third by 2030, from 164m to 222m. Older consumers are also the wealthiest and the over-60s currently spend some $4 trillion a year and that number will grow.

But I was frustrated because it seems like marketers have made very little progress in targeting the greying population. The publication pointed out that The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) calculates that less than 15% of firms have developed a business strategy focused on the elderly. The magazine’s sister organization, The Economist Intelligence Unit, found that only 31 percent of firms it polled did take into account increased longevity when making plans for sales and marketing.

I’ve always said that one of the main reasons for this lacklustre progress is because marketing to older people is not perceived as sexy. The other reason, as pointed out by The Economist, is that young people dominate marketing departments and think that the best place for the old is out of sight and mind. Apparently, Britain is no different from North America. A study by fast.Map, a marketer, and Involve Millennium, a consultant, found 68 percent of British 65-74-year-olds “don’t relate” to advertising that they see on television.

Because most greying baby boomers consider themselves at least 10 years younger than their age, the surest way of alienating them is to talk down to them or treat them as old. When Procter & Gamble repackaged some of its dental products as “selected for aged 50-plus consumers,” its sales plunged. In the U.K., Bridgestone made a mistake by promoting a new line of golf clubs as one for pensioners, thus producing poor sales.

However, The Economist said that “change is in the air.” A report by the Mckinsey Global Institute (MGI) points out that older consumers are one of the few engines of growth in an otherwise sluggish global economy. While BRIC countries are drastically slowing down in growth and millennials around the world suffer from the twin burdens of student debt and the lingering impact of the 2008 financial crisis, the older demographic seems to be the only hope for despondent marketers. MGI calculates that pensioners in the developed world spend an average of $39,000 on consumption compared with $29,500 for the 30-44 age group. The publication pointed out that “the old are becoming the new new thing.”

In Japan, NTT DoCoMo not only produced a phone with large keys and a big display screen, but also redesigned its marketing, promoting the new phones during bus tours for pensioners and providing classes in shops to explain the ins-and-outs of apps. Electronics manufacturers are also producing devices that are designed specifically for old people. For instance, Independa, based in the U.S., manufactures a monitor that sends an alert if something goes south for an elderly person, making it easier for the frail senior citizen to stay in their own homes rather than to move to nursing homes.

New, innovative ideas appealing to older consumers also appear to be on the rise in Canada. I’ve posted on this blog on November 11, 2014 about the launch of a Canadian venture, Blaycation (www.blaycation.com), a bucket-list travel adventure company providing customized, curated luxury-focused travel for baby boomers. Since its launch, the company has been doing well as an online travel planner for baby boomers and mature adventure seekers. Its website features over 20 personally-designed tours that include many exotic travel destinations and bucket-list adventures including an Irish Castle Aristocratic Experience hosted by the 7th Earl of Erne.

Although I remain skeptical about how long it has taken marketers to focus on the mature population, it is encouraging to see that companies around the world are making an effort to take the older population more seriously. Marketers should really take heed when one of the most influential publications in the world is hopeful that baby boomers will continue to change everything they’ve touched, including retirement!