Cruise lines and travel companies can improve the way they use digital tools to sell to the mature market.

That was one of the headline topics of discussion at the Mature Marketing Summit, held in October in London.

Jasman Ahmad, planning director, Accord, spoke about how Facebook is losing its younger audience, with the 55+ market the fastest growing demographic for the social network.

This opens up opportunities for cruise lines and travel agents to proactively market their products on the platform, particularly when it comes to imagery and video content, as Paul Harrison, Carve Consulting, highlighted.

Harrison told how companies need to fight hard to be heard on social media, to generate “cut through” among the audience. One effective route is through videos, as, according to Harrison, the mature demographic is likely to spend longer interacting with such content. The key takeaway: that social media isn’t just for kids.

Of course, this type of content is often viewed through handheld devices such as mobile phones and tablets.

Issy Chappel and Ambah Simpson, Google, explained that, on average, people spend three hours a day on their device, creating huge opportunities for companies.

The Google duo stated that the “general perception is that over 50s aren’t part of the digital revolution”, however, “75 per cent of the 50+ demographic is online at least once a day”.

In a nutshell, consumers are ageless. Therefore, the ‘messaging’ has to be different at particular moments of the process, for example, when someone wants to book a holiday.