Why Brands Should Be Targeting This Group

Imagine a retiree that is online-savvy, healthy, and keen to work past the age of 65… A group that wants to travel overseas annually, live better for longer and enjoy life and that has money to spend in support of these goals. A group with healthy incomes and small or no mortgages. It’s an advertisers’ dream, but it’s real and online.

Starts at 60 has introduced the an online cohort of over 60s with the results of its widespread survey, and advertisers and brands everywhere will no doubt be curious about what a previously unseen online-savvy over 60 looks like.

Until now, the Australian Bureau of Statistics couldn’t find an emerging, click-savvy cohort of over 60s online that regularly participate the way this group of more than 500,000 regular monthly users do. We at Starts at 60 have named the new group, The New Age Retiree, a 60-69 year old aspirational retired or working person, and they are taking a character set that has previously only been seen in the 50-59 year agegroup before the GFC hit – including life expectancy.

They’re living longer, and expecting more from life. The research, which was undertaken in conjunction with MacroPlan DiMasi shows that the New Age Retiree that has been found online by Starts at 60 is rewriting the history books by being mostly white collar (85 per cent) and increasingly wanting to stay in the labour force (40 per cent) and live the best lives possible.

They have money and assets – 50 per cent of households earned over $40,000 last year – 30 per cent earned more than $60,000.

In terms of assets only 25 per cent have a mortgage and only 30 per cent believe their house is worth less than $350,000 (similar to 70-79). And they are healthy. In fact 95 per cent of the 3450+ people surveyed consider themselves healthy. The cohort that has been found by Starts at 60 of over 530,000 unique visitors per month, makes up 10 per cent of the Australian population of over 60s, and 50 per cent of the people surveyed said they were retired. And in line with the Government aspirations, 60 per cent of the working population want to work to at least 65 years of age while 30 per cent of the working population are not sure how long they have to work (this compares with the ‘Traditional Retiree’ (70-79) where only 10 per cent of persons are still working).

“The New Age Retiree (60-69) has more similarities with the 50-59 age group pre-2000 than with traditional retirees,” said Brian Haratsis, chairman of Macroplan.

Eighty-six percent of New Age Retirees have less than $100,000 in their individual superannuation portfolios (79 per cent of 70 to 75 years). Their wealth sits in their homes in this generation and that can be seen through the welfare dependence declining for the first time in this young group of the older population, with only 35 per cent saying they receive the pension, and 11 per cent citing that they receive rent assistance. And they are more than proficient on technology. Some 61 per cent call themselves competent or very competent on technology, 33 per cent say they can “get by”….

That’s 94 per cent using technology with comfort. Some 40 per cent of the over 60s surveyed plan to travel overseas in the next year, 70 per cent eat out at least monthly, with 40 per cent eating out at least fortnightly . Around 80 per cent use a mobile website or tablet to access Starts at 60 and 26 per cent shop online at least once per month. “If you line up a 20-30 year old and tell me about their spending power compared with the averge 60 year old in our country, you have to ask yourself who is more compelling. I’d pick the cohort in which 75 per cent are not paying a mortgage if it were me,” said Rebecca Wilson, founder of Starts at 60.

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