We have a very audience centric approach to PR here at Wildfire. So I was interested to read some research from Physorg.com reported in The Telegraph which could make interesting reading for anyone looking to reach more mature audience. The key apparently is to say nasty things about the young:

“Participants were given an online magazine to read containing a mixture of obviously positive and obviously negative stories, each clearly illustrated with a picture that showed the story was either about young people or older people.

“Researchers found that over-50s were more likely to choose to read negative stories about young people over positive stories. Furthermore, those who chose negative stories about young people reported higher self-esteem afterwards than those who had read positive stories. In other words, if you’re over 50, bad news about young people makes you feel better.”

When it comes to younger readers it seems that all they want to read about is their peer age groups, they couldn’t give a monkey’s about anyone older!

So, possibly not the most enlightening research, but hey, you can’t argue with science!

But they love social media

But while we are on the subject of the over 50s, other research out this week shows that their use of social media is on the up. eMarketer found that 47%, of 50 to 64-year-old internet users and 26% of seniors aged 65 and over indicate that they use social networking websites, compared to 13% and 25%, respectively, last year.

Knowing what we know now however about how the young feel about the old, eMarketer suggests that the move could signal a move away from social sites by the younger generation “Already hyper-vigilant about their privacy and what they share, young users may stop considering social networks cool when their parents join – let alone their grandparents.”

photo credit: antrophe