Marketing the 'silver bullet': the online perceptions of mature consumers in the UK

This paper set out to uncover how ‘Silver Surfers’ use the Internet. Based on Szmigin and Carrigan (2000) theory that the over 50s are set in their way and un-open to change, the study’s main objectives were to uncover the attitudes the over 50s have towards the Internet. Questionnaires were designed utilising previous research scales (Vuori & Holmlund-Rytkönen 2005; Eastman & Iyer 2004) and similar sample sizes were used to set a desired response level of 150 questionnaires. 139 people over the age of 50 completed the questionnaires from several different locations across the UK. The questionnaires were analysed and results of the three tested hypotheses were presented.