Marketing Day 2014

Senior Menus: Who Really Wants Them?

The 2nd foodRegio Marketing Day at Lübeck's Media Docks focused on the "Best Ager" consumer group.

The industry network of the North German food industry invited visitors to the 2nd Marketing Day at Lübeck's Media Docks on Tuesday, 28 October 2014. The fact that 120 registrations were received in advance of the event demonstrated that the organisers had struck a chord with their chosen topic.

The venue was full to bursting and, after a brief welcome by foodRegio's Chairman, Jochen Brüggen, and the Chairman of the co-organising IHK Nord, Friederike C. Kühn, the event kicked off with a quiz. "It soon became apparent how quickly we resort to outdated stereotypes whenever we think about older generations," reflects Jörg Ahrens from foodRegio.

The quiz broke the ice, the atmosphere was good and the stage was taken by the first speaker. Prof. Dr. Ute Rademacher from the Hamburg-based COLIBRI Research Institute used her key note speech on "There's Always Time to Get Older Later – A Psychogram of Best Ager Consumers" to deliver some interesting insights into the world of this highly complex and anything but homogeneous target group.

The coffee break was followed by a talk by Thomas Kirschmeier, Head of Corporate Communications at Cologne's prestigious Rheingold Market Research Institute, in which his response to the question of whether we really want senior menus was a resounding ‘no'! His institute undertakes qualitative, in depth psychology-based market research and has been looking into businesses working in the food industry for many years.

Both talks delivered plenty of input for the animated discussion which followed. The chosen topic was clearly of great interest to all those present, both young and old.

"Today, we are growing older in a completely different way than our parents did," underlined Jörg Ahrens, who belongs to the baby-boom generation himself. His conclusion on the positions and issues discussed was very positive: "The visitors were great, the speakers were fantastic and we are looking forward to the 3rd Marketing Day".

The 2014 Marketing Day was supported by Schleswig-Holstein's Ministry of Energy, Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Areas and IHK Nord - Arbeitsgemeinschaft norddeutscher Industrie- und Handelskammern e.V.