The Business of Aging

Caregiving in the U.S. 2009: New Report

Paula Span from the New York Times wrote a very good blog post today describing "Caregiving in the USA 2009", a new report from the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.  She writes:

"Every few years, the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP team up to survey the nation’s family caregivers and produce a massive, highly detailed study funded by Metlife. The first of these reports appeared in 1997, the next in 2004. The latest, released this week, provides an interesting picture of what’s changed in five years and what hasn’t."

Some interesting facts:

• Elder care remains primarily women’s work
  
• Most caregivers continue to juggle unpaid caregiving and paid work.
• In 2004, the proportion of elders over age 75 was 55 percent; now it’s 63 percent.
  
• Caregivers’ average age rose from 48 to 50.
  
• A higher proportion are caring for seniors with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
• The proportion whose older relatives had aides, housekeepers or other paid workers dropped to 41 percent from 46 percent; the use of paid help also declined among all caregivers. 
• Unpaid caregiving supplied by other family and friends has risen.

Download the full report here (PDF).

IPhone Apps to "Medical Homes". A Lot of Senior Care and Boomer News This Week!

We just sent out our weekly Business of Aging newsletter. The news stories covered in this issue are listed below and you can view the newsletter/details here. You can subscribe to this newsletter here.

I'm sharing the stories of this week's newsletter below because there are so many great stories - each one is a blog post itself :-) 

• HAPPYneuron releases iPhone Brain Game
• National Economy Threatened By Baby Boomer Retirement Boom 
• Medical home' concept may lead to better health care
• Intel Announces Increased Momentum for Personalized Care Management at Home
• Stages of Senior Care: Awareness is Key for an Industry Poised for Major Growth
• New Technology Drives Therapies For Older Patients, Those With Alzheimer's
• Study: Elders happier with long-term in-home care from families 
• CareMinds.com Announces CareSite, an Innovative Feature for Families and Friends to Manage the Care Needs of an Elder Loved One
• Why Long-Term Care is So Hard to Provide
• Baby Boomers boost tour bus business
• Not Taking 'Not Hiring' for an Answer
• Baby Boomers at Work: Met Life Study Finds Boomers Extended Working  Despite warnings, US companies remain unprepared for Baby Boomers' exodus

Technology and the Aging Population

Included in a recent issue of our Business of Aging newsletter was an article from Katie Kline titled Psychologists Suggest Ways To Include The Aging Population In The Technology Revolution.

Katie writes that for the aging population technological progress can in fact be more limiting, and the key to including the aging population in information technology is to adopt design principles that are age sensitive.

According to the researchers, there are several age-related changes that affect technology use in older adults, including difficulties with vision, audition, motor control and cognition.

Specifically, older adults experience reduced visual acuity, color perception and susceptibility to glare. They also encounter a greater difficulty hearing high-pitched sounds and perceive a greater interference from background noises. As for motor skills, ailments such as arthritis can limit a person's use of technology as well. Aging is also associated with a general slowing of cognitive processes, decreased memory capacity and attentional control, and difficulties with goal maintenance. It also takes older adults twice as long to learn new information compared to younger adults.

There is hope that some technological advances may ultimately be able to boost technological abilities in the aging population.

The source of the article is Katie Kline from the Association for Psychological Science. If interested read it here.

Caring.com Raises $10 million In 2nd Round. Total $16 million Raised Since 07.

In September 2007, Caring.com raised $6 million led by DCM and Split Rock Partners.

This week Caring.com announced a 2nd round funding of $10 million led by a new investor, Shasta Ventures, with participation from previous backers DCM and Split Rock Partners.

The company has raised $16 million in total.

Caring.com says it will use the money for new hires, as well as an expansion of the core Caring.com site, and Gilbert Guide, the eldercare services directory it acquired in October.

Caring.com runs display ads and sponsorships; co-founder and CEO Andy Cohen said about half of the site’s advertisers are pharmaceutical brands. As for the recent scrutiny by the FDA around pharma ads, Cohen said Caring.com was insulated because the Agency was focused on search ads and user-generated content—not display ads or curated editorial.

I know Andy Cohen and respect the work he is doing at Caring.com. Raising $16 million in three years is a LOT of money in any economy. But to raise $16 million in this economy is quite an accomplishment - almost unheard of. What this tells me is the investors -- who have had access to all the financials and web analytic data of Caring.com -- like what they see. Tod Francis, managing partner at Shasta Ventures, said the company’s traffic growth and ad performance were what attracted the investment (Caring.com says web site traffic has grown to over a million monthly uniques).

Laurie Orlov, a former Forrester analyst, wrote a post on her Aging In Place Technology Watch blog about Caring.com and their business model. It's quite good.   

She says……(I paraphrase - read the whole post here):

"
"

Like WebMD, Caring.com faces a lot of competition. Time will tell if they achieve the same level of success. 

Our Responsibilities When Marketing to Seniors

Boomer Immersion the corporate blog of boomer marketing firm Immersion Active, posted a blog "Marketing to Older Adults: More Than a Cheap Laugh and a Fast Buck"  which I thought was a well thought out post. 

I particularly liked this: 

"For the first time in history, adults over the age of 40 are the consumer majority. What countries like Singapore, Sweden, and Denmark, (ranked among the top five for Global Competitiveness and also countries with an aging population) know is that (to steal the words of Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology) “demography is destiny.

We have a responsibility as marketers. As targeting boomers and seniors becomes increasing popular, it is imperative that we don’t screw it up. There are all kinds of stereotypes that surround the elderly. Frankly, some of them are funny (and I’ll be the first to acknowledge the value of being able to laugh at ourselves). However, adults in the second half of life are more than a cheap laugh or a fast buck. There are many layers of wealth (beyond financial) that our country’s mature population possesses – something we need to keep this in mind as we increasingly focus our marketing dollars on them."

Well said Immersion Active.

Aging Population Faces Caregiver Shortage.

Lisa Gibbs from MONEY Magazine wrote a great blog post titled Aging boomers face caregiver shortage.

She begins her blog post with a mention of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, a provision in the health care debates to create a national long-term care insurance program that would allow people to pay an average $65 a month and, after five years, be eligible for between $50 to $100 a day in benefits.

In Lisa's words:

"While $100 is better than nothing, I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t cover very much. It would pay for about six hours of daily care from the home aides I hired recently to help my mother recover from surgery. It certainly wouldn't cover assisted living or nursing homes, which run into the tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Whether through private long-term care insurance or a public plan, it’s clear this country needs to do a better job thinking about how we’re going to care for ourselves (and our parents) as we get older and frailer. Few of us have saved enough money or bought insurance to cover whatever care we need in our later years. But there's another aspect of the long-term care problem that people have overlooked: A looming "caregiver crunch," in the words of Ken Dychtwald, a gerontologist and president of the consultancy Age Wave.".

Lisa nails it. She is absolutely right.

Census Bureau Provides First Profile of Baby Boomers in 13 Years

The U.S. Census Bureau has releases an outstanding PowerPoint presentation that provides a look at a variety of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the baby boom generation (the population born between 1946 and 1964 ), such as geographic distribution, marital status, educational attainment and income, and compares them with adults in younger and older age groups.

To access the PowerPoint presentation visit this page (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/age/general-age.html#bb) and near the top of the page under the Baby Boomer header you'll see a line "Selected Characteristics of Baby Boomers 42 to 60 Years Old in 2006 [PPT] | [PDF 2.3M]". Just select PPT.

The USA Today does a nice job summarizing the findings but I highly recommend you download the PPT. 

Enjoy.

7th Annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit Announced

Mary Furlong & Associates, the nation’s premier consultancy for marketing and business development strategies for the 50+ market, announced today the dates for the 7th Annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit. What’s Next, taking place on Friday, March 19, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, will focus on the most effective strategies for selling products and services to the post-recession baby boomer market.

Visit the event web site and REGISTER here.  We attended this event last year and I verify it is OUTSTANDING. If you sell a product or service relating to the aging population, go to this show.

Every year, What’s Next brings together the country’s leading baby boomer strategists and marketers at an event designed to introduce new research, products and services that truly represent what is next in the boomer market, and this year is no different. The 2010 event will emphasize integrated, social and mobile marketing; innovative distribution channels and will provide a profile of business segments that have moved into the rapidly growing sector of care giving, an $800 billion market 1.

The 2010 Summit boasts premier participants such as AARP, Abeo Partners, Caring.com, firstSTREET, Forum One Networks, HeartMath, iVillage, Microsoft Corporation, SeniorCareMarketer.com, Southwest Airlines and Zillow.com discussing their latest baby boomer marketing strategies. 

Confirmed speakers to date include:
    

•     Kevin Donnellan, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, AARP
•     Mark Graham, Senior Vice President, iVillage.com
•     Dr. Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow.com
•     Catherine Calarco, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, HeartMath
•     Andy Cohen, Founder and CEO, Caring.com
•     Steve Cook, Chief Marketing Officer, Abeo Partners LLC
•     Brandon Daniell, Chief Innovator, Abeo Partners LLC
•     Dr. Mary Furlong, CEO, Mary Furlong & Associates
•     Jody Holtzman, Senior Vice President, Research and Strategic Analysis, AARP
•     Bill Johnston, Chief Community Officer, Forum One Networks
•     Mark Miller, journalist and consultant
•     Gary Moulton, Aging Coordinator/Product Manager, Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group
•     Bud Myers, Senior Director of Merchandising, firstSTREET
•     Mark Willaman, Founder of SeniorCareMarketer.com and HRmarketer.com

The What’s Next Boomer Business Summit is an official post-conference of the NCOA-ASA National Aging in America Conference taking place March 15-19 in Chicago.

Related Posts:

Aging in America and NCOA 2009 Conference. Comments and Observations. Part 1.

Aging in America and NCOA 2009 Conference. Comments and Observations. Part 2.

Aging in America and NCOA 2009 Conference. Comments and Observations. Part 3

Business of Aging Newsletter

We updated the look and design of our weekly Business of Aging newsletter. This is a free e-newsletter from SeniorCareMarketer.com that covers the latest news in what we call the "senior" marketplace.  it is best suited for companies who market products and services relating to the aging population.  You may subscribe to it here
or access archive stories here.

Enjoy.

Companies that Ignore the Over-50 Set Do So at their Peril!

A great cover story article in Baron's titled Boomer Consumer discusses how companies that continue to ignore the over-50 set do so at their peril, as "boomer consumers" eat up a larger slice of the nation's spending pie.

I've blogged about this topic extensively the last twelve months (including related topics):

- Event Review: 2009 Silicon Valley Boomer Venture Summit
 
- Staying Relevant With An Aging Population. An Elderhostel Case Study.

- Recession Turns a Graying Office Grayer

Key points from the Baron's article:

• Increasingly, the 77 million [aging boomers] are being ignored by advertisers and marketers.
• By 2015, when all the boomers will be 50-plus, folks aged 50 to 75 will account for 40% of adult consumers, up from 36.8% now. And they will boast the most spendable cash. Yet advertisers and marketers still seem to devote about 90% of their energy to wooing the 18-49 group, and 10% to those 50-plus.
• Does it make sense, after all, for NBC's suits to judge a new TV show like Jay Leno's mainly on its appeal to 18-to-49-year-olds, as some published reports say is the case? Leno's advertisers include companies such as BMW, many of whose buyers are 50 or older.
• But while the aging boomers certainly will be a bonanza to health-care outfits -- they already account for two-thirds of the spending on pharmaceuticals -- they will be anteing up a lot more for other things.
• The 50-plus set already accounts for 45% of all U.S. consumer spending and, Francese predicts, the figure could ultimately approach 50% by 2015.
• One myth is that older Americans are much more interested in shedding furniture and housewares than in buying them because most are empty-nesters. The reality: Older consumers account for more than 40% of the money spent on new household furnishings and equipment in the U.S.
• Bottom line: Older consumers will keep trudging off to Bed Bath & Beyond,  Target,  Wal-Mart Stores and Ikea for years.
• Boomerologist Martin partly blames ad agencies for what he views as 
  " He says a disproportionately large number of advertising copywriters, account managers and art directors are young. "Ask them to do an ad targeting the 50-plus demographic, and they default to a gray-haired senior limping down a beach trailed by an aging golden retriever," he adds.
• Take 1965 (see chart on this blog post) when the oldest boomers were turning 18, then jump to 1995, when the very oldest were turning 49. Over these three decades, the number of U.S. residents aged 18 to 49 soared from 78.6 million to 125.9 million. In the same period, the 50-to-75-year-old cohort, many of them a product of the birth dearth of the 1930s, rose far more slowly.

Great article Baron's.