The steady glow of the Boom tube

Eric Deggans has a top-notch piece in The St. Petersburg Times:

"… A mountain of assumptions: Older consumers don't change brands easily. Older consumers are too savvy to be swayed by peer pressure or fads. Older people aren't interested in consumer items such as fast food, fashionable clothing, electronics or entertainment. Older consumers will watch advertising messages targeted to young people, but young people won't reciprocate."

"Such presumptions led major advertisers to target young people decades ago, building a media establishment that valued, over all others, consumers ages 18 to 49. And nowhere was this disparity worse than in the TV industry, where older adults spend more time watching television, but still are valued less."

All echoing themes in my book, my presentations, this blog. Here's one more:

"Researchers always asked 'When will the boomers become old and start acting like their parents'" said Sarah Zapolski, of the Knowledge Management research division at AARP. "But we were asking the wrong question. In many ways, boomers are behaving the way they've always behaved: They've always been less conservative about shopping and entertainment and fashion."

But it was the lede that really hit home:

It's something Linda Ellerbee can feel, like a cold breeze on the back of her neck, every time she meets with somebody from Madison Avenue.

No kidding. Wait until you start preaching to Madison Avenue about this stuff. It's less like a cold breeze and more like being dumped headfirst into a cryogenic freezer...

Visit Linda Ellerbee's Lucky Duck Productions.