News
The Rise of Super Parents
Recent shifts in both economic and demographic trends in the UK have led to the rise of the Super Parent. A Super Parent is a baby-boomer, aged between 51 and 75 who typically has children and more often than not, grandchildren. What marks Super Parents out is their pivotal position at the centre of their families in terms of the emotional and economic help that they are providing for their families.
The harsh economic realities of the last 7 years have been felt by the British population in a number of ways, but perhaps their most interesting manifestation has been the return to the safety and security of the parental home by an increasing number of family members. As baby-boomer parents are providing homes and financial support for their own children (and often grandchildren), they are becoming more involved in the purchase decision-making processes for many of services and products which their families are contemplating. These baby-boomer parents, or Super Parents, are becoming an increasingly interesting target audience for advertisers who need to reach the real seat of influence amongst these modern, tight-knit families.
**Click here to read a blog on Super Parents by Rosemary Gorman, Ad Director Mail Newspapers**
Click on the image above to launch the infographic
In 2013, 3.3 million 20-34 year olds were living at home with their parents - the highest number ever recorded by the Office of National Statistics. The reasons for this are pretty clear - increases in the cost of renting together with a housing market spiralling out of control has meant that it has never been more expensive for children to leave the parental home. The recent high levels of unemployment amongst the under 30s has amplified this effect, leaving adults in their 20s and 30s even less able to afford to leave home. Add to this the fact that grandparents are providing increasing amounts of childcare for their grandchildren on behalf of their working children (they contributed £7 billion worth of childcare in 2014), and the reasons for this return to the family core become clearer.
Super Parents are providing the 'glue' which is keeping their families happy and healthy and reasonably solvent. They are pretty realistic about the change in family dynamics and almost half of them agree that they expect their children to be dependent on them for far longer than they were dependant on their own families.
These parents are aware of the relatively lucky position in which they have found themselves, (the owners of valuable properties and the recipients of relatively generous pensions) and are keen to help out their families. As well as relative wealth, Super Parents also have more leisure time than their stressed-out, time-poor children and have the luxury to be able to spend time thinking about their family's health and well-being from a broader perspective.
Being well-informed is very important to them and they spend time and effort to ensure that they are up-to -speed with the subject areas which they consider to be most important to their families - finance, travel, health, food, leisure and technology. They rely on newsbrand content to keep themselves updated and to give them new ideas to deal with their families' issues imaginatively.
Super Parents help their families out financially, but even when they aren't buying goods for their families directly, they are utilising their knowledge to influence the purchasing decisions which their families are making. Giving out advice is an important part of the role of a Super Parent, and it is given across a wide range of product and interest sectors (entertainment 76%, travel 69%, technology 64% and health and beauty 55%).
They want to help and are happy to help. In terms of helping out with the biggest purchase decision many of us will ever make, 42% of Super Parents are planning to help their children to get onto the property ladder. But their financial muscle doesn't stop there - and they are particularly involved in purchasing on behalf of their grandchildren. Almost 7 out of 10 of all Super Parents regularly purchase clothing for their grandchildren, with 67% contributing to their educational costs, 51% paying for meals out, 41% regularly buying games, 19% contributing to their holidays and almost a quarter paying for their sporting expenses.
So when we're considering how to influence the real decision-makers within families, across a wide range of product sectors, we need to think about targeting Super Parents. They are cash and influence-rich.
