Wendy Wu Tours appoints rhc advantage

Wendy Wu Tours, the specialist tour operator, has appointed mature marketing agency, rhc advantage, as its retained brochure design and marketing agency.

Wendy Wu Tours is the UK’s leading independent specialist tour operator to China and a leading operator to Indochina and India. It has appointed rhc advantage to manage the design and marketing of all its brochures, which include separate brochures for China, India and Indochina.

rhc advantage is the UK’s only creative marketing agency to specialise in older, more mature, audiences. Formed by marketing consultant Mark Beasley and creative director Richard Collyer, the agency has recently been strengthened with the appointment of Tom Wright CBE, Chief Executive of Age UK, as non-executive Chairman.

Manuel Mascarenhas, managing director of Wendy Wu Tours, commented: “Most of our customers are aged over 45 and have the time, money and interest to invest in the fantastic travel experience and great value that only Wendy Wu Tours can provide. It is crucial that our brochures reflect the authentic and unique nature of our brand in a way that really inspires our customers and our travel trade partners. We were genuinely impressed with the customer and brand insight that rhc advantage demonstrated – but what really turned us on was their creative vision for the brand, which will be manifested in some of our most stunning brochures yet.”

The first project that rhc advantage will carry out is a ‘mini-brochure’, promoting selected China holidays for 2011, with a ‘fixed price guarantee’. This will be inserted with a number of national consumer titles, and also distributed via the travel trade.

Richard Collyer, creative director of rhc advantage, commented: “We are thrilled to be working with such a great travel brand as Wendy Wu Tours. Many UK operators claim to offer authentic travel experiences, but only Wendy Wu Tours can claim to be owned by someone born in China, with all the unique local knowledge, contacts and access that this implies. This is a brand which can really deliver on its promise and our work will reflect the inspiration, insight and stunning destinations that Wendy Wu Tours can offer. ”

-Ends-

For more information please contact:
Mark Beasley, managing director, at rhc advantage:
T: 0771 213 7603
E: mark@rhcadvantage.co.uk
W: www.rhcadvantage.co.uk
Available for comment and interview.

Manuel Mascarenhas, managing director, Wendy Wu Tours:
T: 020 7939 9576
E: Manuel.Mascarenhas@wendywutours.co.uk
W: www.wendywutours.co.uk


Note to editors
1. Wendy Wu Tours is the UK’s leading specialist tour operator to China, and a leading specialist tour operator to Indochina and India. The company specialises in fully-inclusive escorted tours, offering proven itineraries to spectacular and well-known tourist attractions, as well as hidden gems in more remote rural areas.

The growth and success of the business have been propelled by the founder, Wendy Wu herself. Wendy grew up in China, moving to Australia where she sent her first group tour to China in 1994 and set up her own company in 1998. The UK office was opened in 2004, growing in size and influence with the recruitment of travel industry professionals like Mascarenhas, and winning a number of industry awards. Further information is at www.wendywutours.co.uk

2. rhc advantage is the UK’s only independent marketing agency specialising in adult, older and more mature audiences. Launched last year, the agency provides marketing consultancy (research and planning) and marketing communications services (branding, design, direct and promotion). The directors are: Mark Beasley (managing), former marketing consultant and planning director of a WPP agency; Richard Collyer (creative), successful creative consultant and designer; and Tom Wright CBE (chairman – non-executive), who is Chief Executive of Age UK. Further information is at www.rhcadvantage.co.uk

3. ‘Marketing and Mature Audiences’ is a research report produced by rhc advantage. It provides a comprehensive review of more than 200 data and research sources, in order to provide an introduction to the subject of the UK’s ageing population and the role of marketing. A presentation of the main findings, together with a copy of the full report document, is currently being offered to interested client companies on a complimentary basis. Further information is at http://www.rhcadvantage.co.uk/insight

Age Myopia. What can we learn from the UK care home crisis?

It has taken a financial crisis at Southern Cross, one of the largest operators, to bring the UK care homes sector to the front pages – which is where it should have been many years ago. At the heart of the media coverage is the alleged ‘unsustainable business model’ of Southern Cross, driven by 'unacceptable' private equity and financial engineering practices. However, perhaps of greater significance is the underlying ‘perfect storm’ affecting the care home industry, which exemplifies a number of massively signficant trends related to the UK's ageing population.

The perfect storm
First of all, I make no apology for spelling out the components of the ‘perfect storm’ surrounding the care home sector. It is clear that for many years, some sort of ‘age myopia’ has ensured that individuals, organisations and society as a whole have been unaware, or chosen to ignore, the following realities.

• Demographics. An increasing number of people will require the services of a care home, as the UK’s population continues to age.
• Who pays? Care and nursing home care is means-tested - the state will only pay if your total assets fall below £23,000. For many individuals, this means the gradual loss of their assets to pay for care.
• How much? When the state does pay, the amount that they will pay care home operators (most of whom are in the private sector) falls below what is required to operate profitably.
• Individual responsibility. It is clear that – as with pensions – most people have failed to make sufficient provision for their old age. However, this argument assumes that (a) most people can afford to save the sums involved, and (b) that they knew it was necessary to do so.

All of this adds up to a situation where demand is increasing, while supply is not. The current mantra has been that most people prefer to stay in their own homes: however, this a little like saying that most people prefer to live forever. We do, but we can’t.

The Southern Cross crisis has increased awareness of these issues, fast. The Government has reacted too, with an independent review into the care system, led by economist, Andrew Dilnot, which is expected to lead to significant legislation later this year. As Paul Burstow, the health minister, has said: ‘Years of sticking plaster solutions have failed to fix social care’.

For social care, read pensions and healthcare.

Age myopia
The main root cause of these problems can be termed ‘age myopia’ – the individual and collective refusal to face up to the realities of age and an ageing population. The UK suffers from it more than most countries: recent research suggested that the UK is the most ageist country in Europe. We also have the highest incidence of family break-up and the lowest level of religious belief. Add to all this a deep-rooted cultural fear of age, ageing and death and, again, you have a perfect storm.

Age Myopia is sometimes manifested as ageism or age discrimination. This is inevitable: when old age is culturally unattractive, youth will be the default option, whether we are employing a TV presenter, hiring a front-desk employee, or selecting models and actresses for advertising work. However, on a more ‘strategic’ level, age myopia means that, individually and collectively, there has been a certain amount denial and inaction regarding age, ageing and what to do about them.

It’s all rather depressing – but it’s not entirely bad news.

Seeing beyond age myopia
Many businesses have yet to adjust to the realities of the ageing population. While no conclusive research exists to prove this broad assertion, my own experience is that all too often, marketing – the GPS of business – continues to be a function carried out by the young, with the young in mind. Yet older people are also consumers and increased alignment by businesses and brands with the needs, wants and preferences of older people would be to the benefit of all involved.

The current median adult age is 45. Taking everyone above that age as being ‘older’, there is a wealth of data (see below) to demonstrate the size and value of the ‘older’ population. This is a complex and diverse group, which requires more sophisticated marketing strategies than are currently used.

Face the Facts
For the facts on the UK’s ageing population, and its implications for marketing, please ask for a copy of our research report. This draws upon more than 200 data sources and is available at no charge to suitable applicants. Further information can be found at www.rhcadvantage.co.uk/insight.

To discuss how your business could improve its alignment with the UK’s ageing population, please contact us for a discussion. Further information and contact details are at www.rhcadvantage.co.uk

News update: all about us, for a change

A client recently pointed out that whenever we met, it was inevitable that we would always talk about the clients’ business, and never our own. This is of course good manners and what consultants are supposed to do. However, she argued, it also means that no-one knows anything much about us. To rectify this damage to our egos, we thought we’d take advantage of the current extended break to bring the world a news update – something about us, for a change. This news update will: remind you who we are; tell you how to get our recently-updated research report, at no charge; and tell you what we’ve been doing lately.

Who did you say you were again? Launched ‘officially’ last September, rhc advantage is the UK’s only independent creative marketing agency to specialise in older, adult, more mature audiences. The directors are: Mark Beasley, marketing consultant and former WPP group agency planner; Richard Collyer, creative and design consultant; and Tom Wright CBE, Chief Executive of Age UK (non-executive Chairman). We’re supported by a small account management, creative, design and production team based in our converted coaching inn in Hampshire.

We’re here to help our clients deal with the implications of the UK’s ageing population. We believe passionately that improved alignment between business and this large and growing group is long overdue and will benefit to everyone. We work in two complementary areas: marketing consultancy (research and planning) and marketing communications (copywriting, design, direct, digital and promotion).

What do we know? Research report available at no charge
There are now more adults aged over 45 than there under 45. People over 50 account for 80% of wealth and 60% of per capita expenditure. They’re particularly important to a number of consumer markets. Yet there is no easily accessible starting-point for anyone wanting to learn more about this complex and diverse group. That’s why we have produced a research report providing a comprehensive introduction to this important subject, in collaboration with two Professors. This regularly-updated report is available for download or presentation to our clients, friends and other interested parties, at no charge. For more information, visit our website (www.rhcadvantage.co.uk/insight) or reply to this email.

What have we been doing?
Adults come in all shapes and sizes! Here are some of our recent projects:
- Educational technology. Research-based proposition development led to campaigns targeted at maths teachers, via direct mail, a website and web video.
- Health clubs. We are researching and planning a new strategy regarding branding and targeting. Not every health club user is young, sleek and photogenic.
- International examinations board. We are using a range of qualitative and quantitative research techniques to help plan and re-define global brand strategy.
- Long-haul tour operator. We are busy designing and writing brochures and mailings. Most long-haul customers are aged over 50 - but reject the Saga stereotype.
- Retirement development. New brand identity, followed by the design, writing and production of a website, a suite of web videos, a brochure and other collateral.

Sponsorship of veteran rock band
We’re pleased to announce our sponsorship of veteran rock band, Route 66. The band performs at the Royal Wedding this Friday (well, a local street party) and further prestigious bookings are lined up. To book the band, please contact us.

Talking ‘bout my generation? Talk to us first…
For more information about us, please visit our website www.rhcadvantage.co.uk, subscribe to our blog http://rhcadvantage.blogspot.com, follow us at twitter (@rhcadvantage) or request our online credentials document.

If you – or anyone you know – would like to discuss a specific marketing problem or project, or to see our research report and presentation, please contact me - Mark Beasley - mark (at) rhcadvantage (co.uk). Unlike most of the UK, I am working this week!

An update on rhc advantage: business is a marathon, not a sprint

Tom Wright CBE completes Virgin London Marathon
First of all, many congratulations are due to Tom Wright CBE, who finished yesterday’s Virgin London Marathon – his first – in a little over 5 hours. In the process, Tom raised £7,500 for Age UK (the organisation of which he is Chief Executive).

rhc advantage – helping you take a more strategic view
rhc advantage is here to help businesses who have - or wish to have - a strategic view of the challenges and opportunities presented by the UK’s ageing population. We are the UK’s only independent creative marketing agency to specialise in today’s older, adult, more mature audiences. The directors are: Mark Beasley, marketing consultant and former WPP group agency planner; Richard Collyer, creative and design consultant; and Tom Wright CBE, Chief Executive of Age UK (our non-executive Chairman). We’re supported by a small creative, design and production team.

Why we’re here
The UK population is ageing. We’re here to help our clients deal with the implications of this dramatic change, working in two complementary areas: marketing consultancy (research and planning) and marketing communications (copywriting, design, direct, digital and promotion).

What do we know? Research report available at no charge
Traditional assumptions about age and ageing are inappropriate and ineffective as the basis for marketing planning. Complexity and diversity rule. As a starting point, we have produced a comprehensive, recently updated, introductory research report which can be presented or supplied to our clients, friends and prospects upon request at no charge. For further details about the report, please visit our website (www.rhcadvantage.co.uk/insight).

How can we help you?
For more information about us, please visit our website (www.rhcadvantage.co.uk) or follow us on Twitter (@rhcadvantage). For a grown-up conversation about a specific marketing problem or project, to see our research report and presentation, or to see our credentials, please contact Mark Beasley (mark@rhcadvantage.co.uk).

Many businesses have already made the strategic change that an ageing population requires, others have not. Whether you are running the Marathon, or still engaged in a series of sprints, we can help.

Tom Wright CBE to run the Virgin London Marathon for Age UK

Tom Wright CBE, Chief Executive of Age UK, is running in the Virgin London Marathon this Sunday (April 17th).

Along with over 100 other runners, the oldest of whom is 72, Tom is raising funds for Age UK, the charity for 'a better later life'.

We are keen to support Tom for two reasons. Mainly, because we are committed to the cause ourselves and endorse the work of Age UK. But also because Tom is our (non-executive and unpaid) Chairman.

We're not sure how Tom has managed to fit in any sort of training schedule, given his relentless schedule of early starts and late finishes. However, we are very confident that he will finish, if not within three hours then certainly the same day. Tom is well on the way to his personal fundraising target of £7,500. To sponsor him, please go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/tomwright1

Why on earth are the elderly so happy?

Over the years, a number of research studies have reported that, contrary to what might be expected, happiness tends to increase with age. Details of some of these are in our research report, currently available upon request(1). The most recent research findings along these lines are contained in a book by Professor Lewis Wolpert of University College, London, called ‘You’re Looking Very Well’. This contains many fascinating and sometimes personal insights (Wolpert is himself an octagenarian) amongst them the finding that “from the mid-forties, people tend to become ever more cheerful and optimistic, perhaps reaching a maximum in their late seventies or eighties.” One is forced to ask: why? Aren’t our expectations of the ageing process associated with financial problems, health worries, loneliness and the increasingly imminent arrival of the grim reaper? Not to mention the dismal way in which the elderly are treated by many business and organisations.

Reasons not to be cheerful. 1,2,3
Just yesterday morning, our local BBC radio station carried an interview with an elderly lady who had apparently spent much of her weekend lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor, awaiting attention. This confirmed the recent findings of Ann Abraham, the Health Service Ombudswoman, (February 2011) who found serious failings in “even the most basic standards of care” for the elderly in our hospitals. She also noted an “attitude – both personal and institutional – which fails to recognise the humanity and individuality of the people concerned.” This will resonate with the personal experience of many of us. Because the ‘attitude’ detected by Ms. Abraham is not unique to hospitals – it is endemic in most organisations, where employment, procurement, marketing and customer service continue to discriminate against older people. Here are not three, but four examples:

1. Unemployment amongst people aged 50-65 is much higher than it is for people under 50 and continues to increase. The chances of re-employment are low – yet organisations as diverse as McKinsey and the OECD state that a longer working life is essential for individuals and society. But why extend the retirement age when most people will have ‘retired’ involuntarily long before it?


2. In January, the Department of Work and Pensions released research pointing out that 10 million Britons now alive (that’s 17% of us) can expect to live to the age of 100. For many, this will mean relying on an inadequate pension for more than 30 years, with the fear of joining the 2.3 million people aged over 65 who (according to Age UK) already live in poverty.


3. And as longevity is increasing faster than disability-free old age, there is a very good chance that more and more of us will need to move into a care or nursing home. If you live in England, you will have to fund this yourself if you have assets of more than £23,250. As care can easily cost between £800 - £1200 per week, your assets will rapidly go into freefall.

Customer service in many organisations fails to make any allowance for the basic ageing process. As ever, the lack of Godliness is in the details. The bank which asks an 88 year old lady who had been admitted to a nursing home on the point of collapse to ‘just pop into your local branch’ to verify her change of address. The call centres which conspire to confuse, with their impenetrable telephone menus and accents. The confusion pricing strategies of energy and telecoms suppliers. Happy? Elderly people have every reason to be furious!

It’s not simply about age

The answer to the conundrum is to be found in the fact that, as our own research report (1)repeatedly finds, age alone is an unreliable variable in just about any aspect of consumer attitude or behaviour. People do not conform to stereotype and resent being defined or targeted by age. In fact, age accelerates the impact of other variables, which are almost certainly in place long before ‘old age’ becomes a fact. The main variables are these: education, income, occupation, social class and disability. It is safe to assume that their impact is at least as powerful as that of age, although the importance of psychological factors should also be noted.

For while the elderly may be happy on average compared with other age groups, that happiness is almost certainly not evenly distributed within each age band, in the same way that (say) wealth and expenditure are not evenly distributed. So it is not too surprising to find that more extensive and thorough research (2)(as opposed to, say, the facile ad hoc surveys used by Financial Services companies to generate media coverage) finds that happiness is closely associated with wealth: itself directly related to education, income, occupation and social class. For example, the ELS (2) reported that, based on tracking 10,000 people since 2002, ‘more affluent individuals have fewer depressive symptoms, greater life satisfaction, better quality of life and lower levels of loneliness.” It is a sobering but not altogether surprising fact that happiness is as much associated with wealth as it is with old age.

Mark Beasley, 7th April 2011
1. ‘Marketing and Mature Audiences’ is a research report published by rhc advantage, with the input of two University Professors, drawing on more than 200 research sources. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the subject of marketing and older people in the UK. The full research report is available upon request to appropriate applicants. Further information is at www.rhcadvantage.co.uk/insight
2. The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing is an interdisciplinary data resource on health, economic position and quality of life as people age. ELSA is the first study in the UK to connect the full range of topics necessary to understand the economic, social, psychological and health elements of the ageing process. The aim of ELSA is to explore the unfolding dynamic relationships between health, functioning, social networks and economic position. It is in effect a study of people's quality of life as they age beyond 50 and of the factors associated with it. Further details are at: www.ifs.org.uk/elsa.

Today’s Budget. WPP to join rhc advantage?

WPP to return to UK?
Martin Sorrell, founder and chief executive of WPP, is widely quoted as saying that today's Budget could pave the way for WPP – the world’s largest marketing, advertising and research group - to return to the UK. WPP relocated its tax base from London to Dublin, Ireland in September 2008, following a hike in the rate of UK corporation tax to become more than double that of Ireland’s.

This is good news all round - not least for Sir Martin, who is surely now destined to become Lord Sorrell.

A great place for your marketing budget
Of course, rhc advantage – possibly the UK’s smallest marketing, advertising and research group – has remained in the UK since we opened our doors last year. And we very much look forward to being able to pay UK corporation tax, as it will mean that we will have declared a profit.

With this laudable objective in mind, may we remind the world that now would be a very good time for potential clients to contact us. More and more people are realising that marketing for an ageing population is something that applies to most businesses, not a few. And we now have an impressive track record of research, insight, creativity and copywriting to support our claims on client budgets!

Ageism in marketing? Not at rhc advantage!
On a separate note, the Institute of Practitioners of Advertising (IPA) also cautiously welcomed today’s Budget. It noted that advertising and media agencies, “being people-based businesses with a high proportion of young staff”, should welcome the easing of the personal tax burden at the junior end, stipulated in the Budget. As their own annual survey shows, around 50% of IPA agency staff are aged under 30, with just 5% over 50. This is somewhat at odds with the realities of an ageing population and this youth-centric approach could help explain why ageism in marketing continues to be an issue.

Prospective clients should note that a more balanced approach to employee age is taken at rhc advantage. With an MD the wrong side of 50, and our first graduate recruit in her early twenties, an age neutral approach rules - exactly as you might expect.

www.rhcadvantage.co.uk