Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/43042
Marketing Retail COUNT the people Demographics can be used to answer many questions and make useful predictions. by Richard Lehnert "We're the only industrialized nation in western culture that had kids." —Kenneth Gronbach I f you're looking for answers to perplexing questions—like what's the future of Social Security, will China dominate the world, or how many apples can we grow and sell in the future—the first approach is do the math. The answers, interestingly, are that Social Security will get finan- cial support from a huge new generation, China will weaken rapidly in the near future, and apple sales will be vigorous and rising. And, by the way, the future of Walmart is dismal. Apple industry leaders were captivated as they listened to a presenta- tion by demographer Kenneth Gronbach during the U.S. Apple Associa- tion's Outlook and Marketing Conference in Chicago. Gronbach operates Connecticut-based KGC Direct, a marketing con- sulting company that does pretty much what the title of his best-selling book suggests. The title is The Age Curve: How To Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm. While individual behavior is not easy to predict, he says, groups of peo- Kenneth Gronbach is optimistic about the future. ple are more predictable. And they tend to group into generations of like-minded people. "To predict the future, do the math," he said. "Count the people. More is more." All people go through the same life cycle, he said. They're born and nurtured, get jobs, raise families, reach their peak earning power at 40 to 60 years (the "heavy lift- ing" age), then retire, later to move into old-age homes, and then die. How many people are doing any of those things at any given time determines the size of the market for apples, motorcycles, medical care, rest homes, and coffins. Many people don't realize that the United States has the highest population growth rate of any industrialized nation. In fact, the country is not "graying." Gronbach is optimistic about America's future and the emerging Generation Y. Generation waves Much attention has been focused, for nearly 70 years, on the postwar baby boomer generation, a huge genera- tion that created waves, ripples, and crises from diaper and school shortages to a soon-coming huge demand for medical care and retirement income. In the wake, diaper demand crashed and communities faced agonizing choices over which schools to close. In this huge generation, 78.2 million Americans were born between 1947 and 1966. In the GI Generation, born from 1905 to 1925, 56.6 million Americans were born, and the next generation, the Silent Generation, was smaller still. Between 1925 and 1945, only 52.5 million Americans were born. Following the baby boomers came Generation X, smaller, at 69.5 million. These folks, born between 1965 and 1985, came into a booming Boomer economy where they could choose any job they wanted. But Generation Y, born from 1985 to 2005, is huge—100 million in size. Now age 7 to 26, they are looking for jobs that aren't there, kids can't find summer work, and the economy is slowly adjusting. One adjustment made during the people shortage of Generation X, which left menial jobs begging, was the immigration—legal and illegal—of some 40 million Latino people. We automated our factories and sent menial jobs to China, spurring its rapid development. A fan of America Gronbach is extremely optimistic about the future of the United States and, in fact, all the countries on the North and South American continents. 14 OCTOBER 2011 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com richard lehnert