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Sex appeal aside, market analysts agree that the singles have more "discriminatory buying power" than any other group. "They are not tied down by mortgage payments and insurance policies," points out Advertising Executive Kenneth Gorman. Thus they offer a rich bonanza for sellers of sports cars and flowered vests, stretch pants and elaborate lingerie, costume jewelry and queenly cosmetics, ski weekends and Florida vacations, and other amenities that, without being absolutely essential, contribute to the joy of living.
The statisticians, in their computerized wisdom, figure the singles as a $60 billion market. To those who object that the young marrieds after all buy more of the solid things of life, from houses to dishwashers, the merchandisers briskly point out that the young marrieds are an ephemeral market, imagewise. As soon as they conceive a child, they become conservative and budget-minded, and "disposable income" suddenly evokes not vacation trips but diaper service. While the young wife is still working and before the baby is born, they are, in effect, "singles together."
While the image to sell is singledom, the real focus is on youth and glamour. This idea' was classically exploited by Ford's highly successful sales strategy for the Mustang—aiming at the single as a way of bagging many a married. "Youth is the key to the market," says Grey Advertising's Murray W. Gross. "Everything is on a youth trend—even products for the man or woman of 65." Dean Acheson, 74, former U.S. Secretary of State, touched neatly on another side of this point recently when he said that "today only the blunt" refer to the middle 60s as "old age."
Where to Meet
Along with their freedom, the singles have discovered that their habitat—the big city—is an assembly of strangers. As strangers, they need a place to meet, some social mechanism that is the equivalent of the high school dance or the corner soda fountain or the church young people's group, where boys and girls can meet, measure, consider, examine, sample, negotiate. Across the nation, entrepreneurs have found a demand for housing complexes catering specifically to the singles, with organized cocktail parties, dances, fun and games. Chicago's Sandburg Village comprises six high-rise buildings, offers a single-minded supermarket of activities: bridge and ski clubs, touch football, excursions, painting classes and parties on the sun deck. The Los Angeles area's South Bay Club apartments, which started with $1,000 capital three years ago and is now capitalized at $11 million, has 933 apartments jammed with singles and a waiting list, will add 1,500 apartment units next year. Atlanta's Peachtree Apartments puts out a Towne Crier that advertises the merry events in the life of "PTA" dwellers, reports marriages among the clientele, and invites newcomers to parties where, says the Crier archly, "prizes are awarded to the drunkest" and "we never call the police."