Direct marketing is the key to improving the reach to the over 50s sectors, according to new research by marketing agency Millennium.  Apparently nearly 60% of people in this age bracket felt that advertising to their age group was patronizing and that the most popular channel for this sector was found to be online marketing.

Marketers need to change their approach in marketing to this particular group if they are to cash in on the ‘grey’ pound.

For further comment, read our article about the baby boomers.

A rash of seemingly conflicting online marketing stories caught our eye. First came the news, as reported in Marketing Week and many others, that the European Parliament is considering restricting the use of online behavioural targeting (BT).

The tracking of the online behaviour of individuals and the selling of data to advertisers raises difficult privacy issues, according to the European Parliament, and the strengthening of existing EU legislation hasn’t been ruled out. Jack Jia included some interesting comments on privacy in his blog, as well as a rundown on the pitfalls of BT, particularly looking at how much Facebook really knows about its users’ intents. Meanwhile, Matthew Finch at e-consultancy tells us that use of behavioural information can boost your marketing success by up to 600%.

Then we heard that no less a brand than Vodafone is launching – you’ve guessed it – a new behavioural targeting campaign. So which way is the confused marketer to turn?