Category: Fresh Perspectives

DRAGON: Divorced, Rich, Aged 65+, Overseas traveler, Networker

If you were to ask an aging services provider what his or her ideal potential resident looks like, you’d find many different definitions. In most cases, leads are qualified based upon income-producing assets, home value and, perhaps, some additional savings and/or investments. These people are ideal leads because they meet all of the financial criteria for moving into a community.

For this reason, they are prized candidates, often being competed over by several different aging services organizations. From the point of view of prospective residents, they are evaluating the amenities and floor plans that communities offer. But, at the end of the day, the biggest determining factor for choosing a community is culture. This is where understanding the DRAGON can help you convert those high-quality leads into residents.

The idea of the DRAGON coalesced around 2014, as marketers began to identify trends in the Baby Boomer demographic. For retirement communities, DRAGONS are ideals candidates because of their demographic profiles. They are wealthy, usually working with two retirement incomes. Being aged 65+, they meet the age requirements for community entry. As frequent travelers, they like the maintenance-free lifestyle that many campuses offer and, for the same reason, are less reliant year-round on on-campus amenities, such as restaurants, wellness centers and programming. Last, as natural networkers, they become excellent word-of-mouth marketers for your organization and can sing your praises to their friends and family, who may also fit the DRAGON demographic.

Identifying DRAGONs, and understanding why they are especially important leads for retirement communities, is just the start. How do you win them over and make them choose your community over all of the other options? The answer is simple — culture. As noted earlier, individuals make their retirement choices based heavily on the culture and feel of a community. Making your community physically appealing to DRAGONs is the first step. The harder step is getting the culture right. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes and look at what might be appealing to DRAGONs.

First, they may look to more open and accepting cultures, especially in light of being divorced. Obviously, the community needs to be well-appointed and include many options and amenities. These work best in a community atmosphere where DRAGONs can spend time with friends and neighbors, where their natural networking talent shines. As travelers, they desire easy access to transportation, whether that is a train station or airport (but probably both!). Obviously, issues like location and access to transportation aren’t easily addressed by providers. In those cases, organizations should be ready to demonstrate what kind of accommodations they can make to ensure DRAGON needs are met, or alternatives offered that may better suit their lifestyle.

Take a few moments to put yourself in the shoes of a DRAGON and look at your community through his or her eyes. By doing so, you might be able to adjust your sales & marketing strategies, even if only slightly, to make a big difference in your appeal.

Recently, I had the honor of participating in the Global Aging Network conference. It was held in a simply amazing location — Montreux, Switzerland, known best, perhaps, as a mecca for jazz music. I came away from my visit to Montreux inspired and energized by simply seeing the sights in and around the beautiful city.

The conference experience represented a unique opportunity to freshen my perspective around opportunities to enhance the aging experience on a global scale. Leaders from around the world traveled to Montreux, with their own biases shaped by how their particular cultures view aging. I certainly came with my own preconceived notions about how successful aging looks, based upon my narrow worldview.

What inspired me as the conference progressed was the ever-increasing ease I saw as people from different points of view came together to solve similar issues of aging, regardless of the culture in which they lived. There are nuances within any society — and family — about how aging occurs; however, as we simply share our stories openly with those from other corners of the world, it quickly becomes evident that we are all working toward solving issues of frailty, loneliness and the ultimate commonality of our collective mortality.

Our opportunity, as aging service professionals, is to work collaboratively to enhance the aging experience for those entrusting their lives to us. I believe we can do that more effectively if we openly entertain ideas that may seem distinctly different from our own. I recognize cultural and societal differences require flexibility, but our ability to secure a global perspective on aging has never been easier.

I left Montreux with a fresh glimpse of aging in the 21st century, and I must admit — it’s invigorating to network with people who envision far more engaged aging adults, embracing life to its fullest, as they are being served wherever they call home. There are countless aging services professionals around the globe innovating the aging experience, and it is our responsibility to leverage the intellectual capital that makes this market sector so special.

My challenge to colleagues is rather simple: Don’t underestimate the power of sharing your ideas; seriously consider those ideas that seem just a bit outside your comfort zone, and find ways to rekindle the passions that drive the mission behind your everyday work. Let’s seize the opportunity before us to make aging experiences better for those we serve.

As LeadingAge wraps up another very successful annual conference, the Varsity team took a step back to discuss what we heard throughout the various presentations and our discussions with colleagues. Our list contains seven items that we believe are going to be critical as we forge into 2018 and beyond.

1. Welcome to information overload! As professionals in the field of aging services, we are being provided with more data than we have ever been before. Not only do we have to be able to understand what the data represents, but we must also be able to apply it in a way that leads to growth for our partners. This means knowing what data points to focus on as key performance indicators, and which to ignore as white noise that can only serve to distract our plans.
2. The continuum is changing rapidly and becoming more complex to manage. As residents enter into more skilled levels of care — and remain in those beds longer — we are learning much as a field. Of course, with this additional knowledge comes a change to best practices and regulations. The speed at which these adjustments are occurring is faster than ever before. This, coupled with all of the moving parts of the care continuum, is really forcing providers to react in the moment rather than plan a measured response.
3. Aging services is an aging field. If you take a look across the country, many of the most successful and longest-serving C-suite office-holders are nearing retirement. They made excellent careers in aging services and stayed at their employers for decades. Now, as they near retirement, their organizations are concerned about what a change at the top might mean. Succession planning and internal training are top of mind for many LeadingAge members as they begin to wrestle with who will fill the shoes of leadership in the future.
4. What a retirement community looks like is changing. Anyone working in aging services is familiar with the biggest player in the field: The Villages, in Florida. This community changed what it meant to retire. Then came along NORCs – naturally occurring retirement communities — where individuals of similar age found themselves living in close proximity, creating a little community all their own. The next evolution of this model, dubbed “Boomtown,” places emphasis on intentional intergeneration communities that bring together people of all ages to the benefit of the whole. Focusing on the entire spectrum of wellness, the Boomtown model works to seamlessly integrate senior living spaces into existing communities.
5. Life Plan at Home extends community reach. The Life Plan at Home model is quickly becoming the next big thing in retirement marketing. By enabling potential residents to enter the system without actually moving the community, the Life Plan at Home model creates a revenue stream now and ensures new on-campus residents in the future. By partnering with third-party program providers, aging services providers are growing their scope and reach, engaging with potential residents and working them into the sales funnel earlier than ever before.
6. Communities must know their place in the market. Every community is unique because of the residents and team members that make up the campus. Knowing the core values of your community is important to your marketing message — do you understand how you are perceived in the marketplace?When a potential resident is shopping around for aging services, he or she often visits many different campuses and talks to people with deep field knowledge. As shoppers discuss their choices, they are given feedback, with perceptions on what a community is like. What are people saying about you? Are you “luxurious and cultured” or perhaps “rich and snobby”? It’s amazing how quickly others will ruin a reputation by twisting a brand identity.

7. Consumers are loyal to authentic organizations. What does it mean to be authentic? In short, it means that your organization actively acts ethically and according to your mission and values. In aging services, this is accomplished through a strong and distinct sense of identity that goes above and beyond the business. It means that all of your actions align with your mission and help advance your cause.At Varsity, our signature brand odyssey process directly relates to authenticity. We help you identify how your brand is perceived, how the mission aligns with that perception, and what actions you can take to become more authentic moving forward. Check out our Services page to learn more!

One of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of being involved in the aging services space is the ability to look around the country (and the world) at how different organizations are applying trends in design. From the upscale, fast-paced communities of the Northeast to the eco-friendly, fitness-focused communities on the West Coast, communities are applying innovations in new and creative ways — all in an effort to appeal to potential residents and earn their business.

The most ubiquitous design trend to hit senior living in the last five years has to be the bistro — every community seems to have one. Whether it was designed from the ground up and newly installed or an existing space that was repurposed, the bistro has become as common as the dining hall of old. This has caused us to wonder: What’s the next bistro-type amenity that every community is going to have to build?

We believe that the answer is a wellness center. New residents aren’t happy with an exercise bike and a treadmill stashed in a closet being labeled as a “workout room.” They want a bright, airy space, with dedicated and trained staff members, wherein they can attend to their wellness needs, which go far beyond exercise. Progressive communities are offering the latest in high-tech fitness gear, supplemented with wellness practitioners from across the spectrum, such as yoga, Reiki and acupuncture. It is our prediction that, in five to 10 years, those communities that have failed to funnel resources into their wellness amenities are going to struggle to find residents.

As Baby Boomers continue to age into the retirement community marketplace, they bring with them a hallmark of their age group — the “Me Generation.” No longer will potential residents review a property and say, “Well, I guess we can make this work.” Rather, they are demanding the ability to customize and personalize their new living spaces. And two options just won’t do it! They want to see the gamut of materials, styles and finishes enabling them to feel like their new home is truly their own. Marketers have to adapt to these desires at a rapid pace. Where once facilities could flip an apartment for resale in a week, now it may take several months to bring a space up to the standards of its new owner. Finding creative ways to enable flips to occur quickly and economically is sure to be a growing trend.

In many parts of the country, residents are also becoming more environmentally conscious, demanding that their homes reflect their values. Recycling, the use of low-energy appliances and lights and sustainably sourced food products are just the tip of the iceberg. Communities are now looking to the installation of solar panels for energy production — not just for homes, but also for common areas. Resident gardens are also increasing in size, as dining services teams are being challenged to include the ultimate in fresh ingredients: those grown by the residents themselves, on-site. Some organizations are looking to these trends as opportunities to grow and improve, while others are struggling to keep up and find their place in the market.

As we work with our clients around the country, it always intrigues us to see who is pushing the boundaries of the current trends and who is taking extra time to evaluate what others are doing and put their own, unique spin on it. Whichever type of community you may be in, it’s our opinion at Varsity that these trends are going to be major factors in senior living design into 2018 and well beyond!

Viagra. CIALIS. Levitra. ADDYI.

Surely you recognize some of these brand-name drugs. They all have one thing in common: They are designed to help with sexual dysfunctions that disproportionately affect Boomers and seniors. When these drugs rose to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s, communities found themselves confounded by a problem that they had never encountered before — the sexual activities of their residents. Fast forward to today, when campus administrators are all too aware of the challenges that come with residents’ sexual expression.

Sexuality is a private matter, but with any large group of people living in close proximity, human nature cannot be overcome. Retirement communities are not magical places where people move after their sex drives turns off. Studies continue to show that adults are remaining sexually active longer than ever before — and are becoming more adventurous than previous generations.

According to the Longitudinal Study of Aging, 31 percent of British men aged 80 to 90 are still sexually active. That number grows to 60 percent for those 70 to 80. Aging women are also sexually active, with 34 percent of women aged 70 to 80 regularly engaging in some form of sexual expression. In fact, the National Council on Aging has found that women over the age of 70 find sex more physically satisfying than when they were in their 40s or younger!

The reason behind the increase in sexual activity in older adults becomes obvious if you ponder it for a moment. First, people are living longer, healthier lives! With an emphasis on wellness, fitness and nutrition, older adults are now in physically better shape than they were at similar ages in previous generations. Then, we have to factor in the pharmaceutical sexual revolution that was created by the drugs mentioned at the beginning on this article. They enable sexual activity to continue to occur far longer than nature may have provided for. Lastly, the current generation of Boomers also happens to be the generation that came of age in the 1960s. The Summer of Love and the Age of Aquarius may still be holding sway today, half a century later.

These changes are having direct effects on the day-to-day management of communities. Relationships developing between residents are common — and now more than ever, probably include a sexual component. Women outnumber men on campuses significantly, leading to a situation of supply and demand between the sexes that can cause interpersonal conflict to arise. These conflicts may not be limited to your community, either! As family members learn of these relationships, they may look to staff to intervene on their behalf; however, residents are adults and can make their own decisions, even if their children aren’t happy with them. This puts administrators and managers in precarious situations, dealing with sensitive topics that they might have never thought about before.

Let’s face it — sexual activity is more than likely occurring between residents on retirement campuses nationwide. The statistics don’t lie. As professionals in the aging services industry, it’s our job to understand the trends we’re seeing in our residents and respond appropriately to protect their well-being. Sex is just another aspect of wellness that is coming to the forefront and is one that we all must be aware of.

In senior living, branding can be particularly challenging because many of the amenities and offerings, can, on the surface, run the risk of sounding a bit similar. The community that hasn’t identified the most unique aspects of its culture may miss out on an opportunity to truly tell its story.

That’s why it’s important to find unique qualities that the community can hang its hat on: What is it about the residents and the staff that can be used to identify a brand that stands out in the marketplace?

To differentiate among communities, we need to look beneath the surface. How do the residents live? How do they interact with staff? What led them to choose this place over their other options? What happens organically within the community that gives it life? It could be a special group that maintains the trails or goes out into the community to volunteer. It could be the difference between a library and an active book group led by residents.

Delving into the details is critical because branding is not about assigning a personality to your client, it is about discovering the one that already exists, then helping the client to own it, live it and encourage others to become a part of it. It’s not just about a logo or a tagline. It’s a promise that a community that can make to its prospective residents that no other competitor can deliver on.

For me, as a designer by background and a creative director by trade, design and advertising are definitely part of the expression. They are the face of the brand seen in the website, the outdoor board along the highway and the sign out front. This face helps define the brand’s personality and its values. It expresses the brand in a way that is meaningful and a source of pride within the community.

But the advertising and design are only meaningful if they come from a place of truth. It’s important to dig deep into a community’s stories, identify genuine benefits that everyone can recognize as authentic, and then work consciously to expand on them to set the community apart.

The reward of finding that niche and having management, staff and residents embrace it is watching energy and excitement permeate the community as its brand comes to life.

How can marketers reach more Boomer shoppers this season? For answers, let’s turn to the blizzard of holiday shopping surveys out there.

First of all, will 2014 be dominated by Santas or Scrooges? The National Retail Foundation has tidings of joy: For the first time since 2011, holiday sales will increase more than 4%. However, a short selling season of just 27 shopping days doesn’t leave a lot of time to capture Boomer customers. So, what’s the best way to reach them? Although different surveys reached different conclusions, some common themes emerged.

The FIVE W’s of Boomer Holiday Spending

For WHOM are Boomers buying? According to the 2014 Mintel Holiday Forecasting Study, the purchase of most categories of gifts declines with age. However, women aged 55 and older are very likely to buy food to entertain the extended family at holiday meals. 82% of women aged 55 plus also buy gifts for family members, many of them earmarked for grandchildren. In fact, according to a recent Forbes article, Boomers spend a collective total of $35 billion a year on their grandkids.

WHAT are Boomers buying?
The generation that marched on Washington now leads the country in purchasing small, rectangular pieces of plastic. According to the Shullman Research Center, Boomers buy more holiday gift cards than any other demographic. 62% of Boomers purchase gift cards, more than Gen Xers (57%), Millennials (38%), and seniors (18%). Boomers are right on target with their gift choices: According to a National Retail Foundation study, gift cards are the most requested gift item for the eighth year in a row.

If your business doesn’t already offer gift cards, the holidays are a good time to start. If you already offer gift cards, consider offering them electronically. According to Pace Perspectives, electronic cards are gaining in popularity since plastic gift cards are so easily lost. In fact, 40% of 18-29 year olds admit to having lost at least one gift card.

WHERE are Boomers shopping?
According to Mintel, Boomers’ number one source for researching holiday gifts is the Internet, but many still prefer to make their purchases in the store. 43% of men ages 55 and up, and 38% of women in that age group, say they research items online, then wait to find them on sale in stores. How can you capitalize on their shopping habits? Mintel suggests offering online coupons that shoppers can redeem in the store.

WHEN do Boomers shop?
According to a recent PunchTab survey, Boomers are the least likely of any demographic to shop on Black Friday or in the entire month of November. They spread out their shopping throughout the season: 22% in September, 20% in October, 34% in November, and 21% in December. In contrast, Gen. Xers and Millennials do the bulk of their shopping in November.

WHY are Boomers buying?
During the holidays, it’s important to look at Boomers’ life stages, not just their ages. That’s because Boomers in larger households tend to spend significantly more than empty nesters in 1-2 person households. Another surprising fact reported by Mintel: Affluent Boomers do not necessarily spend more than their less-wealthy counterparts, unless they have children at home.

HOW do Boomers choose gifts?
According to PunchTab, Boomers are influenced by a number of sources. 62% ask friends and family for input, 61% browse in person, 50% check recipients’ wish lists, 39% browse brand websites, 38% read online reviews, 30% check flyers or catalogs, 24% open emails, 17% browse online magazines or blogs, 14 turn to Facebook, and 9% log on to PInterest.

Are Boomers motivated by price? Not as much as Gen Xers, according to the CFI Group Holiday Retail Spending Report. Only 23% of 55-65 year olds are influenced by sales and coupons, versus 40% of 25-34 year olds.

One final idea from Mintel to get cash registers ringing: Since only 11% of grandchildren currently give presents to their generous grandparents, how about leaving something for Boomer Santas under the tree? Art or photography classes, books for Kindle, or restaurant gift cards are all possibilities.

It’s not a return to 1960s idealism, but it could signal a new model for senior living. We’ve talked about “intentional communities” prior, and specifically, a concept known as Cohousing. Now, the idea seems to be catching on as an attractive option for single Boomers.

A bit of history: The cohousing idea originated in Denmark, and was brought to the U.S. by two architects in the early 1980s with the idea of “improving the world, one neighborhood at a time.”

Cohousing communities are usually developed as small neighborhoods, with similar features: single-family or detached homes along pedestrian-friendly streets or clustered around a courtyard with as few as 10, or as many as 100 residences; and a “common house” that serves as a social center. Communities can be developer- or group-driven, and have even found ways to integrate into urban settings.

Neighborly interaction is encouraged, and often takes the shape of community meals, clubs or even businesses. Members say that collectively taking care of common property helps build a sense of trust, the feeling of working toward a common goal, and group decision-making.

The concept seems tailor-made for Boomers, many of whom live alone by choice, and are beginning to plan for a future that will keep them active, engaged and out of a nursing facility or a traditional CCRC (which, as we have found through research, are not currently meeting their needs or expectations) for as long as possible.

Boomers have also been the innovators of a number of living arrangements. “To [the older generation], living alone is the only measure of success, but the Boomers’ comfort with interdependence means there are many options,” Dr. Bill Thomas, an influential geriatrician and author, told the Boston Globe. “Aging in community, rather than all alone, is going to make the Boomers’ experience of old age different than anything that ever came before.”

MARKETING INSIGHT: Watch for new alternatives for independent living that provide more options, including intentional communities built around causes, religions, lifestyles or locations.

We like the idea of cohousing as a way for an existing senior living provider to further integrate itself into the greater community, or for an entity such as a homecare agency to expand its offerings. The best aspect of this concept is that it brings back the idea of “neighbors helping neighbors.”

Regards,

The Varsity Team