Generation Reinvention # 15: Boomers and the Future of Aging in Asia Pacific Countries

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Boomers across Asia represent a lucrative market opportunity. In the Asia-Pacific region – which includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, and China – 50+ spending power will hit US $2 trillion by 2015. The 50+ group is growing five times faster than overall population growth. They have been largely ignored by marketers and are therefore fertile ground for businesses to make inroads.

Asian Boomers are not the same as their Western counterparts, and even among Asians they differ greatly. The one thing they have in common is their relative wealth and the time to spend it.

Global brand marketers must understand that aging can create self-defining interest groups, but so too can ethnicities or countries of origin. Imagery can play an especially critical role in creating empathetic connections between a marketer and targeted consumers.

My guest this time is Kim Walker, founder of SILVER based in Singapore, the first strategic business and marketing consultancy in Asia Pacific focused on Boomers. Before founding SILVER in 2009, Kim held local and regional C-suite positions in Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, and Tokyo.

Most recently he was President and CEO for M&C Saatchi in Asia. He has been a senior executive with Carat Asia Pacific and Bates Worldwide. He has launched new operations or led acquisitions in most Asian markets.

Kim is also an energetic entrepreneur, having founded three successful start-up businesses. His Japan business was awarded “Ad Age Global Media Innovator of the Year 2000” for creating transparency in the Japan media marketplace. And, as you’ll hear during this program, Kim has a remarkable voice and song-writing talent.

VISIT KIM WALKER’S WEBSITE

http://www.silvergroup.asia/