A study carried out in 2015 using Spotify data claimed that, on average, people stop listening to new music around the age of 33. From this point onwards tastes are fixed, and listeners have matured into ‘who they’re going to be’. This would certainly explain the flood of nostalgic retro music commercial radio stations in the UK in recent years.
Like an outdated hairstyle or decades’ old items of clothing, we signal our vintage in many subtle and unconscious ways. Our media behaviours also provide clues to our age, or so many advertisers assume. Teens and young adults are glued to smartphones all day, only catching fleeting glimpses of a TV screen, while older groups remain devotees of broadcast television — and so it shall always remain, right?
Changing with the times
Two recent studies gave us reason to question the theory that consumers take their media behaviours with them through life. Ofcom’s Media Nations 2024 report found a big upward swing (+43%) in broadcaster video on-demand (BVOD) consumption among over-74s, the most dependable of linear TV audiences. And the IPA’s superb Making Sense 6 paper, based on its ongoing TouchPoints survey, recorded a peak correlation in reach of commercial media among 16-34s and over-55s, reflecting increasing overlap in the two groups’ media choices. Of course, it can be tricky to track behaviour change as individuals progress from one age bracket to the next. Even Pew Research Center — one of the global experts in this field — recently admitted to the challenges of cross-generational studies.
An approach we used at WARC Media was to examine GWI data for a fixed age cohort — those born between 1959 and 1970 — and see how it changed over time (we published the findings in our latest Global Ad Trends report, Baby Boomers’ Big Digital Shift).
In short, while linear TV in particular continues to dominate media consumption among these consumers, those behaviours are in flux to a much greater degree than advertisers may assume.
In 2013, less than one-third (30.3%) of the group’s media consumption was with digital media — whether pure-play internet channels like social media and online video, or online extensions of existing channels, such as connected TV or online press. By 2023, that share has increased to over half (52.8%). While GWI data likely skews towards more digital parts of the population (its survey respondents must be internet users), the ten-year trend clearly points towards a growing centrality of digital media in their day-to-day lives.
Digital, with a difference
Before advertisers assume they can simply redeploy Gen Z and millennial media plans for the 55-plus market, it’s worth pointing out that the data suggests older consumers are developing their own distinct digital behaviours. Rather than spend ever-greater time with social media and online video platforms, that increase in time spent with digital media among Baby Boomers seems to be focused on the digital versions of professionally produced TV, audio and news content.
That’s not to say that social media doesn’t matter, of course. In July, UKOM registered huge year-on-year changes among 65-74s in their daily minutes spent with platforms including Snapchat (+43.2%), Instagram (+80.5%) and TikTok (+84.7%).
However, consumption of other parts of the digital media ecosystem is growing faster: online TV streaming by 55-plus viewers in the US is up 195% over the last decade, as older audiences embrace connected TV. That trend is shown in the IPA’s TouchPoints survey, where the share of total commercial media time in the UK among 55-plus consumers going to social media has increased by only one percentage point over the last decade.
Media habits are not preserved in a kind of aspic as we get older. On the contrary, they shift according to the times. While older consumers are unlikely to be early adopters of new channels and technologies, the data shows they are likely to catch up, sooner or later. Brands wanting to reach these affluent and influential individuals will need to be as closely tuned in to their shifting behaviours as they are for younger cohorts.
Read a complimentary sample report of WARC’s Global Ad Trends — Baby Boomers’ Big Digital Shift.
Featured image: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels