About
People ask me: "Alec, why later-life brands?"
Fair question. Stairlifts, mobility scooters and riser recliners aren't anyone's idea of sexy. They're not mine either.
How I started
But I've never been about making cool stuff. I started in off-the-page advertising, the classified ads at the back of the papers. Every square centimetre cost money, and you were judged on every pound it brought back. The thrill was beating a control. The first time something I wrote beat one, I was hooked.
I learned early that the people making pretty ads lost to the people who understood the reader. Direct response is salesmanship. The more I studied the best in the game, the more useful I became to brands. What I do isn't about what I think. It's about what your audience does.
Then it got personal.
My dad has Parkinson's. I've watched him lose things he used to do without thinking. I've watched the people around him adjust too. My mum became his carer. My siblings carried the stress. Meeting up and eating out got harder. Dad got less involved. He started to feel he was in the way, so he stopped coming to things because it was easier.
He fought it. He fought with himself about what he could and couldn't do. It took a long time and a lot of struggling before he let mobility products make his life easier.
Did he want any of it? No. He wanted to spend his money on boats.
Here's what got me.
The brands selling to him marketed like they were selling a new car or a holiday. How good they were. How many showrooms. How many happy customers. None of that was his problem. His problem was accepting a new reality.
If someone had shown him the value in terms he cared about, he'd have made the change sooner. He'd have had an easier, more comfortable life, earlier. So would the people around him.
There are a lot of people like my dad. Nearly half of UK pensioners live with a disability, and for two in three of them it affects how they get around. Behind them are 5.7 million unpaid carers, and the people they care for most often are their parents. Many are stuck working their way to acceptance on their own. Some never get there.
Now imagine you're one of the few brands that gets this. You stop talking about you and start talking about them. You show value in terms they understand. How much more persuasive would you be? How many more people like my dad would you help?
It's not about how good you are. It's about how well you understand their problem.
Brands fall into this for a reason. The only people who care about the brand are the people paid to judge its communication. So the brand talks about itself, and the customer doesn't see themselves in it. I call that the Value Trap. Your customers only feel the value of what you sell after they've bought it. My job is to make them feel it before.
What I believe
- 01Value starts with the customer's problem.
- 02Prove it.
- 03Test which problems make the best arguments.
Who I'm not for
If you don't care about the people you sell to, I'm not the right fit.
Is your brand in the Value Trap?
Source: DWP, Family Resources Survey 2024 to 2025.