Quick, can you name the national holiday that occurs every year on the first Sunday of September after Labor Day? (Hint: it was designated by the US government in February 1977.)…Nothing? Don’t feel badly if you don’t know the answer; most Americans don’t. Yet, statistics show this holiday honors a very important group of people, who make up one-third of the US population: grandparents.
They’re important, not just because their families love them, but also because their numbers are increasing by 1.7 million every year, according to the American Grandparents’ Association. What’s more, as of 2015, 50-million American households were headed-up by grandparents.
You might hear nothing but crickets on National Grandparents’ Day, but does that mean this significant part of the population isn’t being honored in the form of greeting cards and gifts? Probably not. With roughly 70% of grandparents reporting that they give cash to their kids for day-to-day expenses and $52 billion spent by grandparents on their grandchildren each year, odds are most families are honoring their grandmothers and dads in the spring or early summer of the year on what is traditionally considered Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day.
Sugarboo
So, is the market directing enough greeting-card and gift collections at grandparents as the recipients? Point-of-purchase indicates that the answer is no. So, The Trend Curve has some trendy ideas for this group:
- Let cards and gifts take them back to the carefree days of their mid-Century youths with inscriptions like: “Your Flower Children will always Love You” “No generation gap between us!”
- Put emphasis on the greatest accomplishment of their generation with phrases that relate to the moon race and the space program: “It’s not rocket science: we just love you.” “Call Mission Control – aka Grandpa!”
- Ceramic casts of grandkids’ feet read, “One small step for man, one giant leap for Grandma!”
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