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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CONSULTANTS ASSOCIATION
59
T
he adage “never judge a book by
its cover” is definitely true with
the well-written and interesting
The Grandparent Economy: How
Baby Boomers Are Bridging the
Generation Gap
, by Lori Bitter. Just based
on the title and cover photo of a grandfa-
ther and grandson boating, I had thought
this would be a one-dimensional story
with little that would be relevant, new, or
useful to my qualitative research prac-
tice, but I was definitely mistaken. Bitter
uses an engaging writing style, many
interesting examples, and colorful, infor-
mative charts to explain why grandpar-
ents are a mega and multi-dimensional
demographic intertwined with purchase
decisions and behavior across multiple
age groups.
Raised by her grandparents and cur-
rently a grandparent herself, Bitter has
spent her entire career focused on
understanding and marketing to the
mature market. She is a former president
of J. Walter Thompson’s Boomer divi-
sion, which focused on mature market-
ing, and she currently consults with
many Fortune 100 companies and has
spoken at over 200 conferences on this
topic. Bitter is currently the publisher of
GRAND Magazine,
the digital magazine
for grandparents.
With 70 million grandparents in the
U.S., and with 50 being the average age
of a person first becoming a grandpar-
ent, it is very important to understand
that the grandparent demographic is
multi-dimensional, as is its economic
power. Bitter makes her argument and
advances it well in her book: “that most
of our collective knowledge about prod-
uct positioning and advertising strategy
worked when the median age of the
United States was much younger”—28
versus 38 in 2013 (and climbing)—so
now that mindset needs to be rebooted
to better incorporate the integral roles
grandparents play in the economy.
Using U.S. Census data and other pri-
mary research data, she explores how the
2008 Financial Meltdown necessitated
grandparents to play a much stronger
economic role in the lives of even their
middle- and upper-middle class children
and grandchildren and that the grandpar-
ent economic role is growing. In addi-
tion, she explores the growing sense of
“agelessness,” where grandparents no
longer “act their age” and don’t follow
traditional “old people” stereotypes.
When discussing grandparenting life
stages, Bitter uses the imagery of a
three-legged stool to explain these life
stages and their different economic,
marketing, and positioning implication:
•
First Leg –
Everyday grandparents
who fit a “typical” grandparents’ ste-
reotype—of doting grandparents who
live separate from their grandchildren.
•
Second Leg –
Grandfamilies, where
the grandparents are taking an active
role in raising the families. This
ranges from grandparents babysitting
once in a while to the grandchild
being raised full-time by the grand-
parents without the parents’ involve-
ment. There is also a sub-segment in
which grandchildren and their parents
are taking care of ailing grandparents.
•
Third Leg –
Grandparents alienated
from their grandchildren through
divorce or other family issues.
She then overlays this three-legged
stool with six different stages of grand-
parenting, starting with first-time
grandparents and ending with
great-grandparents.
An integral component of the grand-
parents’ economic power is the “complex
purchase path,” which is upending the
classic marketing target approach. In the
“complex purchase path,” the grandpar-
ents are not the traditional end user or
gatekeeper to purchase for a product,
but they still play an essential role in
whether a product is purchased or not.
One of Bitter’s examples of this “complex
purchase path” is when a grandchild
wants a cell phone, the parents feel that
this is a good idea but cannot afford it,
so the parents reach out to the grand-
parents who realize that putting the
grandchild on the grandparents’ cell
plan translates to only a small upcharge,
so the grandchild gets the phone.
Her last chapter—“The Last Word on
Grandparent Spending”—looks to the
future and provides opportunities for
how products and services could be
better marketed and positioned to
include the grandparent economic factor.
Anyone who wants a better understand-
ing of this huge, growing, and multi-dimensional grandparent demographic
will find this book very informative.
n
BOOK
REVIEWS
n
The Grandparent Economy: How Baby
Boomers Are Bridging the Generation Gap
Lori K. Bitter, Paramount Market Publishing, 2015
Reviewed by Susan Fader
n
President, Fader & Associates
n
Teaneck, NJ
n
susanfader@faderfocus.com