Landing in Stockholm for the grand tour of Europe sponsored by the Bayard publishing group—featuring three American marketing-to-boomer experts—I was dumbstruck. All I wanted to do was find the one publication with an older woman on the cover, announcing that I had located Bayard’s newest member of the family: Plus Sverige.
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In America, this would have been a simple task—picking out from the sea of glamorous, young faces the occasional laughline of an Oprah, Martha Stewart or one of the consecutive series of models and celebrities on the cover of More Magazine.
But clearly, this wasn’t America. I counted 7 or 8 magazines with older folks prominently featured…and this from a much smaller collection of magazines. What’s more, these were not all magazines targeted to the “senior” market. In Stockholm, even TV Guide featured older folks on the cover.
Plus Sverige, Bayard’s entry, is the newest effort by the European publishing group—and is doing its best to elbow its way into the consciousness of the marketing community. The competition is formidable (who knew?) with the competitor “M” (remind you of “O”?) having already established a foothold. “M” follows the success of a magazine that made its European debut some years ago, when the publisher was in her 30’s. It was a great success. When she was in her 40’s, she founded another magazine, again for her peers, and again very successful. Now she’s in her 50’s—so voila! “M” for 50 plus.
What explains this sudden burst of energy? There’s a clue in a comment made to me by one of the attendees, the marketing director of a large financial institution. “When my parents reached 65, they defined success as having saved enough to pay for their own funerals.” Clearly, this generation is passing the 50 plus mark with much more on their minds. Like their American counterparts, they are the wealthiest, healthiest, largest generation in Swedish history. In my next blog: on to Norway.
Carol Orsborn