Abstract:

The aging of the population currently constitutes one of the most important social and economic phenomena in Spain. In 2004, people over 65 years of age represented 16.9% of the Spanish population, a figure expected to increase by 6% in the next three decades. These data place our country fifth in the European Union as regards the number of over-65s, after Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom (IMSERSO, 2006).

Elderly people, with growing demographic and economic importance, present an attractive market, consumers whom it is necessary to know in order to be able to explain their attitudes and behaviour. “As the number of elderly consumers grows, new questions emerge as to their importance, for which there is no past experience” (Moragas, 1991).

Within the literature on information processing there exists a broad body of theory that has tried to analyze and model the relationships occurring among the variables of response to publicity. Numerous studies within the field of marketing have studied the causal relations between the attitude to the advertisement and other measures of efficacy such as the brand attitude (MacKenzie, et. al, 1986; Mitchell and Olson, 1981). In this sense, this study considers whether the biological transformations (loss of vision and hearing, slowing down of the central nervous system, etc), psychological transformations (problems of attention, memory and learning), economic transformations (loss of purchasing power) and social transformations (loss of roles, isolation, loneliness) affect such relations. We will analyze the validity of the dual mediation model (MacKenzie et. al, 1986) as an explanation of the antecedents and consequences of the attitude to the advertisement in the case of the elderly.

In the design of the study the study population consisted of a total of 751,762 persons aged over 65 years resident in three Spanish cities: Castellón, Valencia and Alicante. The randomly selected sample was reduced to 509 cases following a cluster analysis, with a sample error of 4.4% for a confidence level of 95.5% and a p=q=0.5.

For the measurement of the study variables, attitude to the advertisement and brand attitude, we resorted to those adjectives and procedures most used in the literature, gathering the information by means of a structured questionnaire.

The data analysis began by determining the quality of the measurement scales used, by means of a confirmatory factor analysis using the structural equations models (SEM) technique through the LISREL 8.3 statistical program. This gave a valuation of the overall fit of the data, as well as determining the convergent validity, divergent validity and the reliability of the scales. Subsequently we proceeded to test the causal relations posited in the dual mediation model by means of path analysis, which allowed us to demonstrate the validity of the dual mediation model in explaining the antecedents and the consequences of the attitude to the advertisement in the case of elderly people.

Keywords:

older adults, attitude to the advertisement, dual mediation model.