Confine Discounting of Seniors’ Ages

To attract new customers with a price promotion, consumer research suggests you set a range of 15% to 35% for the discount. With an older adult assessing their felt age, the optimal range for discounting is more like 15% to 25%.
     Most seniors shave between 11 and 21 years off their chronological age when thinking about how old they feel. The gap is about 20% of the chronological age. This tendency is found worldwide. The lowered subjective age is both a result of the elderly person’s positive feelings as well as a facilitator of physical, intellectual, and emotional health in the elderly person.
     However, a pair of University of Toronto researchers document negative reactions by those around the senior if the senior seems to drop off too many years in their self-perception. The researchers provided study participants ages 18 to 55 years with a description in the format “Imagine a 65-year-old man who feels like he is 45.” For different groups of participants, the description read “woman” instead of “man” and “25” or “65” instead of “45.” Each participant was then asked to report their estimate of the 65-year-old’s emotional warmth, competence, and attractiveness for interaction.
     Analysis of study data showed that seniors described as feeling subjectively younger were overall rated as more competent, and the middle-aged raters (ages 35 to 55) expressed greater interest overall in interacting with the senior than did the younger raters (ages 18 to 34).
     But both the middle-aged and younger raters were critical of the 65-year-old who felt themselves to be 25 years old, rating that senior lower on warmth, competence, and attractiveness for interaction.
     The researchers’ explanation, based on their other studies, is that people become irritated toward seniors who fail by a large amount to act their age. The lower ratings were associated with raters’ agreement with statements like “This person does not know when to make way for the younger generation in the workplace,” and, “This person is a big burden on the health care system.”
     The implication for marketers is to encourage and assist older adults in feeling somewhat younger than their actual age, but to discourage extremes which would become visible to others. If you’re a plastic surgeon, limit what you offer to pull up in the face lift in order to pull off the benefit to the patient. If you’re a fashion retailer, discourage dressing too far down.

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