The conventional wisdom that the 18-49 year old demographic is the most attractive to mass-market advertisers has been challenged by a survey carried out by US market research group InsightExpress.
In what InsightExpress claims is the largest media buying study in the history of television, advertisers chose 25-54 year old adults over the 18-49s as the single most important demographic when buying commercial television airtime.
The survey questioned over 1,000 top media professionals from US companies, advertising agencies and buying firms. It found that the 25-54 demographic emerged as the leading age segment that advertisers target in their media plans, with 30% of the respondents specifying either Adults, Women or Men 25-54 versus just 21% specifying Adults, Women or Men 18-49.
The ‘ageing population’ phenomenon is partly responsible for this trend: 58% of respondents agreed that the ageing population will have a significant effect on their media purchases. Almost two thirds of the respondents found the ‘Baby Boom’ generation to be an extremely valuable target market versus just 47% for Generation X.
InsightExpress says that the study shows that planners and buyers understand the preeminence of the Baby Boomer market and have been adjusting their targets as the members of this generation have begun moving into their fifties.
“We, as an industry, have been prey to this fallacy that all advertisers care about is reaching the 18-49 demographic and this study completely refutes that theory,” said David Poltrack, executive vice president of research and planning at CBS Television.
