The elusive American grandparent

American Demographics, July, 1996 by Christy Fisher

Grandparents can be hard to find.

An abundance of print media and direct-marketing lists are available for marketers who want to target older Americans, but fine-tuning to reach grandparents is more of a challenge. "Grandparents are very hard to find," says Mary Jo Romeo, advertising director for KIII Media's American Baby magazine. "You know intellectually that they are somewhere between the ages of 50 and 100. But you can't target them with seniors magazines because a lot of seniors may or may not be grandparents. Also, some marketers may only want to target grandparents with grandchildren who are a certain age."

Database developers are attempting to come to the rescue of frustrated advertising professionals with a cache of new grandparent lists. Earlier this year, Database America Companies of Montvale, New Jersey, introduced a grandparent file with 550,000 names. Lifestyle Change Communications, Inc. of Atlanta also has a new grandparent list, this one derived from a sweepstakes promotion aimed at new parents.

"Marketers are always looking for new ways to sell their product, and grandparents are an important secondary market for anyone interested in selling children's items," says Greg Thistle, marketing support manager at Database America. "We had a demand for the list. It's something marketers have been asking for."

Other companies are also offering grandparent lists, including Focus USA of River Edge, New Jersey; Caring Grandparents of America in Washington, D.C.; Market Street Lists Inc. of Stratham, New Hampshire; and the Polk Company of Detroit.

Existing grandparent lists range in size from 295,000 to more than 8 million, and each has strengths and weaknesses. Almost all have information on age, sex, marital status, household income, geographic region, and housing tenure of grandparents. But only some of these lists have information on ages of grandchildren, while others lack data on grandparents' purchase behavior. "Usually lists are limited in some way," says Harold Poliskin, president of Gifts for Grandkids, a Malvern, Pennsylvania-based mail-order firm that distributed 500,000 catalogs in its most recent mailing. "We want to know if the person is a grandparent, and if they are, do they shop by catalog."

Marketers have good reasons to seek out grandparents. The supply of grandchildren is abundant. About 69 million babies were born between 1977 and 1994, creating a baby boomlet that rivals the size of the 77 million-strong baby boom. In addition, the first baby boomer turned 50 this year. Delayed childbearing by boomers and their offspring may mean they become grandparents at an older age than previous generations. Yet when they do become grandparents, their sheer numbers should make them a large group of doting grandmas and grandpas.

Grandparents' generosity to their grandchildren is another reason why they are a hot commodity. Grandparents spent a median of $407 on their grandchildren for gifts, clothes, entertainment, and support in 1995, a 27 percent increase from 1992, according to a survey by Roper Starch Worldwide. "Grandparents are a very important market for us," says Laurie Strong, publicity specialist for Fisher-Price in East Aurora, New York. "Grandparents accounts for a little over one-third of all toy expenditures for children under age 5."

Fisher-Price has pursued a couple of strategies for getting its name and products in front of the nation's grandparents. One was a 1987 program with American Baby's Grandparents Today magazine that distributed the publication to expectant parents. Last year, it tried a more direct approach. Fisher-Price sponsored a special newsletter published by Washington, D.C.-based Caring Grandparents of America (CGA), a for-profit national membership organization. The newsletter was sent by mail to CGA members, with coupons for Fisher-Price products.

The CGA list gave Fisher-Price what it most needed--a targeted group of grandparents with grandchildren at the appropriate ages for Fisher-Price toys. "The age range for our toys is relatively narrow--birth through age 5 or 6," says Fisher-Price's Strong. "We don't want to add to the clutter by sending a direct-mail piece to a household whose grandchildren are teenagers."