7/30/2019 jma20123a

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/jma20123a 1/2

Book Review

Marketing to the ageing consumer: The secretsto building an age friendly business

Dick Stroud and Kim Walker

London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 264pp., d19.99, ISBN: 978-0230378193

 Journal of Marketing Analytics (2013) 1, 61–62. doi:10.1057/jma.2012.3

Ageing is a process that is accompanied

by many physical problems. In order to

run a successful business, these problems have

to be taken into account. This is the main

theme of the new book on ageing by DickStroud and Kim Walker. It treats exhaustively

the decline of the ageing mind, body and

senses and their impact on consumer 

behaviour. To analyze this impact, the authors

use the ‘consumer journey’ from becoming

aware of a product to its (regular) use as

a central concept. During the journey, the

consumer experiences several touchpoints

by which a company interfaces the outside

world. Such touchpoints may be advertising,

parking space in the environment of the

outlet, understanding of sales staff, packaging,

the user friendliness of the product itself,

user support and so on. The majority

of the book is a, rather depressing but

well documented, account of physical

inconveniences that are linked to ageing,

and the consequences they should have for 

the touchpoints during the consumer 

 journey. An example is the lesser known

fact that the sensitivity of the skin declines.

As a consequence it is recommended

that hot water taps should be limited in thetemperature of the water they dispense.

The size, spacing and profile of buttons of 

electronic devices should accommodate

the lesser sense of touch. When smooth

surfaces are part of the controls of a device,

for example, a tablet computer or a

smartphone, they should be designed in

such a way that it leaves sufficient room for 

errors by the user. In later chapters, this

analysis is repeated for the working

environment and the public sector. How

should employers behave to be age friendly

for their employees and the governmentsbehave to be age friendly for their citizens?

For many companies, this is a very useful

book. It contains many facts which are not

very well known. Moreover, it gives well

known facts of which the consequences are

seldom realized. Such a well known fact is

that hearing deteriorates with age, but the

consequences for noise levels in retail stores

or restaurants are often overlooked. However,

the book is one sided in the sense that it

conceives ageing people more or less as

robots, of which the parts gradually wear 

out. The book describes the world in which

these robots can still keep on functioning.

The fact that aging people also have a psyche,

emotions, goals, a sense of purpose and a

changing feeling about the meaning of life is

ignored. This in itself is no criticism; on the

contrary, it gives the book focus. By buying

the book you obtain a comprehensive guide

of the physical inconveniences of ageing and

their consequences for the private and the

public sector. However, the title is wrong.This is no book about marketing but about

creating an age friendly world. Sometimes

marketing is involved, sometimes not.

Moreover, marketing cannot ignore the

psychological side of the consumer. So the

subtitle ‘The Secrets to Building an Age

Friendly Business’ would make a better title,

but, given the chapters on work and

&

2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2050-3318 Journal of Marketing Analytics Vol. 1, 1, 61–62www.palgrave-journals.com/jma/ 

7/30/2019 jma20123a

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/jma20123a 2/2

government, ‘Building an age friendly

environment’ would describe the contents

even better. The reason for leaving out

psychology and not choosing the most

adequate title probably is the fact that the

authors have something to sell. They

developed an audit system for age

friendliness, which is described rather 

extensively in the book. In itself, there seems

little wrong with this. It probably is well

designed and the authors are competent

enough to use it to improve businesses.

However, it looks as if the authors, when the

book was finished, have asked themselves

‘how do we frame the contents such that we

sell it as much as possible?’. As a result, the

authors, marketing experts, have marketed

their very useful book not completely to the

right target group. The right target group

consists primarily of policymakers and not

marketeers.

Dirk SikkelUniversity of Amsterdam, Amsterdam,

The Netherlands

Book Review

62&

2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 2050-3318 Journal of Marketing Analytics Vol. 1, 1, 61–62