February 17, 2023

Who Says Grandma Isn't Posting

Rick Less
Time Read
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mins

Too many health plan executives are suffering from status quo bias.  They believe that the woeful state of digital naivete affecting seniors – researched assiduously by Pew in 2012 --  persists to current day.  Here were some of Pew’s findings1:

  • 53% of adults over 65 use the internet or email
  • 34% of those over 75 have adopted the internet, with 21% of that group accessing home broadband
  • 69% of seniors own a cell phone
  • 33% are social networking

Today, seniors are the fastest-growing age group in social media adoption.  They depend on NetFlix, rely on Amazon shopping and deliveries, swap photos of their grandchildren, schedule home services, order groceries online, and plan all of their vacation travel with the Internet as their foundational utility tool.  

Nonetheless, there is still one feature of their aging lives that remains analog.  Downloading apps for their OWN health has been rejected by 56% of seniors, according to one survey. 

Perhaps there is a fear of HIPAA exposure or identity theft.  Maybe they don’t want to get on the wrong side with their physician.  Perhaps navigation through their health plan’s portal is more tortuous than going to the dentist.  Nonetheless, the Golden Years are not centered around a smartphone overloaded with health apps that don’t communicate with each other.   So why are there so many health care services built into apps that aren’t being downloaded by seniors?  I believe marketers are guilty of focusing on youthful consumers for product adoption.

Clayton Christensen in his landmark book published 25 years ago, The Innovator’s Dilemma, suggests that great companies must keep evolving, in order to thwart incursions from new products and services.  That was the mistake made by Sears.  I counter that Colgate’s marketing professionals, hoping to own a consumer for life by creating brand loyalty with newly married couples, have failed to acknowledge the 10,000 Boomers turning 65 every day.  And clearly toothpaste and toilet paper manufacturers are not the only guilty parties overlooking Senior markets.  

Marketers in Medicare Advantage, where half of all seniors have elected to obtain their health insurance, are guilty of not understanding their user base.  Why create an app for your health care solution for seniors if they won’t download it?  Why develop enrollment for an analog target population, when they are clearly comfortable with the Internet?  

At Healthrageous, we are intensely focused on what makes seniors tick?  We survey often.  We have no apps.  To our delight, our users’ dominant use of the Internet over snail mail and call centers is more efficient and less costly.  We have not taken a product like prepared meals and morphed its original intent of serving busy families into a whole new brand category – i.e., appealing to the taste buds of seniors. We acknowledge seniors put convenience over taste in every survey we’ve conducted.  Seniors also prefer living longer and independently; even if it means having to tamp down their youthful preference for salt in every dish.

Yes, Grandma is posting and immersing in many of technology’s newly minted solutions.  I doubt that Grandma will have ChatGPT compose her birthday card message to her favorite grandson (Oops, she’s not supposed to have a favorite, wink, wink!).  But when that does become a new tool in her tool chest, you can bet Healthrageous will have already planned for that day.

Find out how Healthrageous deploys the right tech to create a turnkey solution for MA members that is easy, delicious and healthy by visiting us at HERE to request more information!

1 https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/06/06/older-adults-and-internet-use/

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