Companies Gain Empathy – Seniors Gain Product Satisfaction

Meet AGNES – Age Gain Now Empathy System. She’s your friend in creating a life filled with products and experiences worth aging into. Developed by researchers and students at MIT University’s AgeLab, AGNES helps product designers and marketers better understand senior citizens and develop innovative products just for them. 

AGNES is actually a bodysuit worn by students, product and packaging developers, designers, engineers, marketers, planners, architects, and others to gain appreciation of the physical challenges associated with aging. AGNES’s experiences in the real world reach far and wide into retail, public transportation, home, community, automobile, workplace, and various environments where researchers aspire to advance their understanding of how seniors encounter different products and services. 

AGNES’s creators attuned her from head to toe, to approximate the motor, visual, flexibility, dexterity, and strength of a person in his or her mid-70s. Although she may not appear to be on the fashion forefront, AGNES certainly is on the cutting edge of research in this area. 

Watch this New York Times video about AGNES:

(Side View of AGNES)

Companies have already begun to see the value that deeper understanding of the senior consumer brings to their bottom lines. AGNES helps them construct products that satisfy this audience by giving them a practical and real-world view of what it is like to be a senior. Corporate sponsors of AGNES include companies like Siemens (a company that provides technology and innovation in the fields of healthcare, energy, industry, and infrastructure), Daimler (the biggest producer of premium cars, Mercedes Benz) and Proctor and Gamble (a global company that provides consumer products in pharmaceuticals, cleaning supplies, personal care, and pet supplies).  This collection of sponsors shows that major corporations are focused on the consumer experience of the aging population and want to put the best possible products in the marketplace for seniors. 

Product developers and marketers come to AgeLab to gain insight on how to improve the interaction that their target markets have with their products and services. Often, corporate visitors learn a hard truth at AgeLab: many older adults don’t like products that telegraph agedness, for instance, big-button phones. “The reality is that you can’t build an old man’s product, because a young man won’t buy it and an old man won’t buy it,” Professor Joseph F. Coughlin, director of AgeLab, says (New York Times, 2011). Even though Baby Boomers are now turning 65 at the rate of one every seven seconds, they are not especially ready to admit that they want or need to purchase products just for seniors. The challenge then is to create a product that makes sense for the aging population without being so obvious that it is meant for the senior. AGNES can help.

1. AGNES has been used by the lab to determine the accessibility of products in the supermarket for older adults. For example, from opening packaging to putting together the ingredients for a box cake mix. Wearing AGNES during exercises like this one builds understanding of consumer choices and why these decisions change as we age (AgeLab, 2011).

2. AGNES is a snowbird. Her grandchildren live in Boston and she is coming to visit them. She goes through airport security with her knitting and all her prescriptions. The metal detector goes off because she had a hip replacement. How can we make it easier to get her through airport security? If we can use the suit to build empathy, either by having engineers wear it or even the security staff, AGNES will get through security smoother, and there’s a trickle-down effect to that. If it’s easier for AGNES, it’ll be easier for all of us. Potential projects in this scenario involving AGNES include following the system through a trip to the airport via car, shuttle, or public transportation. Time and ease of travel could be studied so that older travelers have a better understanding of their options (AgeLab, 2011).

Seniors are a large target market with a lot of buying power and are only getting bigger because Baby Boomers are now turning 65. Colin Milner, CEO of the International Council on Active Aging said, "Because of the sheer numbers alone, companies will be focusing more on this demographic. To be successful, they will have to change their perceptions of what aging means."

"Seniors equal big money," said Mary Alice Rountree, Executive Director of the Caddo Council on Aging. "This is a huge market, and we are excited about the potential." She adds that Baby Boomers and their parents are fiercely independent and will try anything to hold onto as much of that independence as possible. The number of companies who are addressing this need has grown exponentially.

Whether or not companies use the “swagger” of AGNES to understand the senior market, it is clear that companies are striving to create better consumer experiences for seniors.

For example, Ford Motor Company is utilizing the researchers at AgeLab to study the stress levels of seniors who operate a hands-free parallel parking system that also offers blind-spot detection and a voice activated audio system. It will make it easier for seniors to back up given that they have more limited flexibility in their necks. Ford hopes that the attributes that make life easier for a senior will attract all drivers who enjoy smart technology (New York Times, 2011).

Another company who has made this paradigm shift in its marketing mindset is GolfTEC, the world’s leader in golf instruction. Because golfers over the age of 55 experience loss of flexibility, declining strength, and typically play with pain, resulting in loss of driving distance, GolfTEC decided to study how to address and support the aging golfer. Their findings proved that “lost distance can be recovered, and many times increased, with a comprehensive approach.”

GolfTEC Tampa, in Florida, has since launched their Baby Boomer program, which offers a “series of free Performance Clinics specifically designed to help golfers understand the issues of the aging swing and the most effective corrections available. The clinics address angle of attack, swing path, the best equipment for older swings, playing with pain, and golf-specific drills to increase flexibility” (www.worldgolf.com). The senior golfer benefits with a more satisfying golf game, and GolfTEC creates customer loyalty and increased sales.

AGNES is a valuable avenue for discovering empathy through science, and at the same time, helps companies create senior-friendly functionality of their packaging, products, and services. If done right, that same product and service offering can also appeal to all consumer age groups. Finding the right balance among functional, senior-friendly, and downplaying senior attributes, can be a challenging position for companies who are trying to make life better for seniors. However, it is certainly a nice change in focus – now they are catering more to a deserving senior market. It is one that will pay off in the end for the companies and the senior population as a whole.