ow many Alices—insecure, disenchanted, frequently depressed middle-agers, who are not significant in discretionary markets, irrespective of their income picture—are there? A study by J. Walter Thompson USA in 1989 projected this group at 8 million consumers. Referring to this group as Mature Singles with a mean age of 45, "they tend to be divorced or separated and 81 percent have been so for ten years or more. The group, far from being stereotypical career climbers, is instead insecure, pessimistic, alienated, and indifferent to work. Marketers will face the toughest hurdles reaching this audience, but Club Med and other vacation spots could benefit from repositioning themselves toward this group," according to JWT.
If there were eight million Alices in 1989 when J. Walter Thompson did its study, there could well be more than 12 million now because of the explosive growth of the middle-aged population since 1989. That adds up to a sizeable customer segment. Of course, not all of the people whose psychographic profile is similar to Alice’s are single or female by a long stretch. There are men and women, both married and unmarried, who are living through their middle years hoping against hope that something good awaits them in the future. Their numbers would be added to the 12 million Alice-types.
If our view that the most effective marketing is marketing that helps people process their lives, then people like Alice represent a bigger market than current statistics on their consumer behavior might indicate.
Before he died, the prominent American psychologist Erik Erikson sympathetically mused about all those people, men and women, whose paths through life have left them without children to give them grandchildren in their later years. For sure, many people make a conscious choice to not have children in the first place and do not regret their decision. Then there are others who wanted children but were not able to have them. Leaving those two groups of childless adults aside, Erikson expressed concern for the many millions of people now moving into their later years who will feel the absence of grandchildren in their lives as they see friends of their own age drawing pleasure from their grandchildren.
An American Express Financial Services advisor told me that she had inadvertently found a solution that would work for older people without grandchildren who wish things were otherwise. She had an unmarried client named Rosemary who entered later life without children to bring grandchildren into her life. Rosemary was unhappy about this, so she did something about it. She helped fund first one then another neighborhood child through college. They became family to her and, as she was in good health with the prospects of living many years more, she stood a good chance of someday being a surrogate great-grandmother. The financial advisor friend went on to help other clients emulate Rosemary, thus taking a proactive role in helping clients process their lives in fulfilling one of Jung’s seven tasks of aging—finding meaning in one’s life.
Don’t write off the Alices of the world. By understanding the scenario of her life, a marketer can connect with her where her needs are most keenly felt. Whatever has prevented Alice from achieving satisfaction earlier in life, there are still ways in which she can find a better life than she now feels she has.