Internet rushes to the elderly interest community, aiming at the next 50 trillion blue ocean market.

By 2025, one in five people will be over 60 years old.

China will enter the stage of moderate aging, which means that "aging" is not an empty concept, but something closely related to every family life.

The huge population base means potential future market possibilities, and the participation of social forces supported by policies is also accelerating the development and changes of the silver-haired economy. Among them, a series of internet products such as education, socialization and consumption have emerged around topics of interest to the elderly.

On June 5438+ 10 this year, Korean pine, an interest community for middle-aged and elderly people, received a billion-dollar A+ round of financing from White Capital, Jingwei Venture Capital, Chuangshi Partner Capital and Lanchi Venture Capital, which put the topic of interest for middle-aged and elderly people on the stage again.

With the post-70s gradually stepping into retirement, people who have plenty of time, are willing to spend money for themselves and have their own hobbies and pursuits have gradually become group portraits of a new generation of elderly people who have grown up in the reform and opening up.

As early as around 20 15, a number of internet applications with square dance as the highlight appeared intensively, trying to further explore the possibilities behind the interests of middle-aged and elderly people. Among them, represented by sugar beans, it started from the online service of square dance in the early days, and under the scene line, spontaneous communication between users was formed through the "leading dancers" of square dance. Later, we began to remove the label of square dance, trying to expand the interest content of middle-aged and elderly people, and at the same time adding elements such as e-commerce consumption to seek commercialization.

However, the exploration of the middle-aged and elderly market is not smooth sailing. Two years later, on 20 17, Qin xiaoxiao, the founder of the square dance track "Star Dance", mentioned in an interview with Nanfang Daily, "In Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, there are more than a dozen peers who have withdrawn, and most of them who are alive have obtained financing before, and their peers have fallen into the dilemma of realizing. From the perspective of profitability, there is no winner in the whole industry, and there is no head and tail, because all companies are not profitable. " The C-round financing of Candy Bean was still in 20 19, and the investors included Tencent, the absolute head player in the social field, and then revealed less to the outside world.

Despite this, based on the huge elderly population and the market scale behind it, the middle-aged and elderly track is still full of imagination.

According to the data of the seventh census, the silver-haired population aged 60 and above in China accounts for 18.7%, reaching 264 million, and it is expected to reach the peak of 487 million in 2053. At the same time, according to the research group of the National Social Science Fund "Research on Pension Consumption and Pension Industry Development", by 2050, the scale of China's elderly market will reach 48.52 trillion yuan, and the scale of the elderly consumer market will reach 60 trillion yuan.

In the Internet age, according to QuestMobile 202 1 data, silver-haired people spend more than 4 hours on the Internet every day on average. On this track, there are short video platforms such as Tik Tok and A auto Faster, which take the lead in occupying a place in the social interests of the elderly; There are also internet communities that focus on the elderly market, such as sugar beans and small rice cakes.

In the field of silver-haired economy, education is an unavoidable central topic. Since the birth of the university for the aged with retired cadres as the object of education in 1980s, the education for the aged in China has been dominated by the government for a long time, and "public university for the aged+community activity center for the aged" is a common model.

Under the background of lifelong learning, education has become the entry point for middle-aged and elderly people to enjoy life. 202 1, Qi, vice president of Gaotu and head of Gaotu College, the adult business section of Gaotu College, publicly introduced that 25% of the paying users of Gaotu College are people over 50 years old. The middle-aged and elderly interested learning brand "Mingchun Society" has also recently obtained tens of millions of yuan of independent financing. Singing bar based on offline KTV has also noticed the active needs of middle-aged and elderly people, and launched the online platform "Peanut Classroom" to provide vocal music courses.

Whoever catches the interest of silver-haired people first may gain an advantage in the next 500 million people market.

Education for the aged with social life as the core.

At present, the main content of education for the elderly is still mainly about their interests, life and socialization.

In terms of curriculum, traditional projects such as dance, vocal music, painting and calligraphy are still the mainstream projects of online and offline education for the elderly. Compared with the educational function, the "University for the Aged" at this stage is more like taking interest as the starting point, providing social places and the same topics for silver-haired people to meet the spiritual exchange needs of the elderly.

From consumer goods to the track of providing for the aged, Wang Huainan, founder of Micha Commune, told Mustard Heap that from "getting old" to "recognizing old age" often happens after retirement, and the silver-haired people have to face a series of problems such as weak social ties, shrinking living radius and lack of cut-in between people.

Compared with young people who play the Internet, silver-haired people have a higher threshold of trust and rely more on social scenes based on acquaintance networks and KOL (key opinion leaders).

On the one hand, some interest communities for the elderly are built on the social chain of WeChat and appear in the acquaintance groups of middle-aged and elderly people in the form of small programs. The initial positioning of "Little Rice Cake" is an electronic photo album tool. After the launch, a number of photo albums were forwarded in groups such as Comrade WeChat, attracting the first batch of middle-aged and elderly users. Mei Wen, who started as a graphic tool, had a similar experience.

Compared with downloading the App, the lightweight and easy-to-use WeChat applet seems to be more popular among middle-aged and elderly people. According to official WeChat data, in 20021year, more than 450 million people used applets every day. In the logic of "connecting everything", applets may give the elderly more social possibilities.

On the other hand, like jelly beans, finding "dancers" in square dance and creating KOL among middle-aged and elderly people are also being considered by many elderly interest groups. The popularity of middle-aged and elderly anchors such as Grandma Wang and Grandma Tian has also made the public re-recognize the ability of silver-haired "big brothers" to carry goods.

In Korean pine school, users connect through small stations. Similar to Douban, users join different stations according to their own interests, such as vocal music, painting and calligraphy, photography and so on. Communicate with friends who have the same interests in the station. The webmaster is often the person who initiates the topic actively, which may be in the form of pictures and texts, or it may be a live course that lasts for a long time. At the same time, the webmaster will also have the income of rewarding and bringing goods in the sharing in the station.

In addition, offline scenes are also an indispensable part of middle-aged and elderly people's social interaction. In recent years, many commercial offline universities for the aged have emerged. For example, in the golden year of providing offline education for middle-aged and elderly people aged 55 -70, more than ten "golden universities" were established with Guangzhou as the core, supplemented by offline activities such as study tours, local eating, drinking and club activities. According to the report of Ta Kung Pao in 2020, there are more than 10000 paying users in good years, and each user spends about 6000 yuan a year, and 80% of the students come from "bringing the old with the new".

A * * * knowledge about middle-aged and elderly people is that they are more sensitive to price. How to realize traffic conversion on the Internet platform around the birth of the elderly group is a long-term problem.

According to the interface news, the sugar beans that entered the interest track of middle-aged and elderly people from the square dance tried to achieve it through e-commerce mode and knowledge payment, but the results were limited. When the unit price of the course was in 9.9 yuan, sugar beans attracted 50,000 to 60,000 paying users, but when it rose to 49 yuan, it lost more than 80% paying users.

For the Korean pine faction, commercialization is not the focus at this stage. "Middle-aged and elderly people are conservative in consumption decisions and cautious in social interaction. It's hard to have impulsive consumption like young people. More is to pay for trust, pay for emotion and pay for the spiritual world. Therefore, to do middle-aged and elderly business, we should improve the average LTV of users, rather than pursuing ROI and GMV. LT (user life cycle) is long and V (total value) is definitely high. " Li Qiao, the founder of Korean pine, once said.

In the long run, with favorable policies, the silver-haired economy still has great potential. Expressions such as "actively cultivating the silver-haired economy", "integrating the education for the elderly into the lifelong education system" and "supporting social forces to hold universities for the elderly" have been repeatedly mentioned in relevant policy documents.

It is worth noting that under the background of aging population and delayed retirement, the demand of silver-haired people for career planning and continuing education also follows. "Provide job introduction, vocational skills training and innovation and entrepreneurship guidance services for the elderly who are willing to work." The Opinions of the Central Committee of the State Council on Strengthening the Work of Aging in the New Era mentioned that the elderly should be encouraged to continue to play their roles.

Take Japan, where the aging problem is serious, as an example, IT Orange's "China Senior Education Market Research Report 2020" mentioned that Hiroshima University, Meiji University and other universities offer academic education for people over 50 years old, including economic, management, psychological and other professional courses, and issue qualification certificates after graduation. On the one hand, it provides self-study channels for middle-aged and elderly people, and on the other hand, it provides support for their re-employment.

How to grasp the interests of middle-aged and elderly people and how to realize the long-term value of silver-haired track, a campaign against middle-aged and elderly people has started.

# Old age # # Silver hair economy #