management blog

Frédéric Dalsace would like to pick your brains. An associate professor of marketing at France’s HEC business school, Mr Dalsace is looking for examples of brands that have grown older with their consumers instead of focusing on a fixed age group, such as 20-35 year olds.

Mr Dalsace believes that some marketers would profit from following this unconventional strategy – just as JK Rowling did. He contends that part of Harry Potter’s appeal was that he aged between books in a process that mirrored the ageing of his readers. To back up this idea, Mr Dalsace primarily cites examples from his native France. But as he develops his “Harry Potter marketing” theory, Mr Dalsace is looking for foreign brands that also fit the model.

I met Mr Dalsace at HEC’s campus on the outskirts of Versailles last Friday. To realise how passionate he is about his Harry Potter metaphor, you only need to talk to him about other children’s books whose characters didn’t age. For instance, he seems to feel betrayed that Calvin doesn’t alter during a decade of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons (don’t get him started on Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, known in France as Le Club des Cinq).

Brands in the media, travel, food, car, healthcare and clothing industries might benefit from maturing alongside a cohort of die-hard fans instead of trying to remain immortal, he says. The Guide du Routard, the French travel guide, is a favourite example. When it was set up in the 1970s, it targeted hippyish young people and the backpacker depicted on the cover was appropriately earthy. “You could see that the guy smelled bad,” says Mr Dalsace. Over the years, however, he cleaned up into something more conventional – just like Routard’s audience. Mr Dalsace says the lodgings featured in the book also became more upmarket as the cohort got older and richer.

Harry Potter brands wouldn’t have to go through the risky business of recruiting fickle youngsters to replace the loyal customers who are abandoned when they hit the upper end of a conventional brand’s target age range. But what can be done about the fact that the brand that ages will eventually die? Nothing, says Mr Dalsace: the trick is to have a changing portfolio of brands. He cites the example of Radio France, which launched a youth-oriented station called Le Mouv’ as a counterweight to its ageing audience.

I’ve been trying to come up with examples of brands that have chosen to age with their audience but I’m finding it difficult.  Perhaps the wave of London musicals based on pop groups of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s fits the theory – but these are based more on nostalgia than an evolving connection with an audience. Indiana Jones? Sure, he runs less in the latest film and but its appeal is still skewed towards children.

I hope readers of this blog can do better!