25 June 2012

From The UK: Scoring A Half Century

A fellow New Millennium Tales Pilgrim is now penning for the online magazine high50 via Campaign.  (And he’s done and does plenty of other things.)

Advertising: scoring a half century
As John Tylee writes in Campaign this week, there are more '50-just' consumers than ever, but most ad people are too young to understand them…

http://cached.imagescaler.hbpl.co.uk/resize/scaleWidth/126/?sURL=http://offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/NewsAuthors/OMC/John%20Tylee.jpg… While the average age of the UK population is rising, the reverse is true of the marketing communications business. Forty-five per cent of agency staff are under 30, while fewer than six per cent are over 50. It’s a similar depressing picture among advertisers. An estimated four out of ten marketing directors are under 35 and only one in ten is over 50.
http://www.high50.com/wp-content/themes/high50/images/new/header_logo.png
Yet the fact is, marketing communications need more wise old heads than ever before.

Sounds about right to me.  On this side of the pond I’ve been screaming about it all since 2003:

HR/Brain Roll
Truth is, you can analyze marketing fodder all day and night, read countless books about marketing to Baby Boomers, attend advertising and marketing conventions around the world, and soak up everything all the experts have to say. Much of what is out there is valuable and useful, some practically required reading, others instructive and illuminating. But if you plan on implementing a creative strategy, and turn it over to a different generation of advertising professionals—you'll forfeit the natural sensibilities required to generate vital campaigns.

Collected posts on the subject:

The Human Resources/Brain Power Posts

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/_hbi_ui/_CMP/_images/logo.gifArticles by John Tylee:

John Tylee in Campaign

18 June 2012

A Series Of Miniatures

No overarching theme this post.  Often, life is a series of miniatures.

Boomers represent an untapped niche market
imageRetiring baby-boomers, who have travel high on their list of priorities, represent a major opportunity for hoteliers.

Catalog the above as No News News.  I’ve been screaming about this for years

Tech savvy?  What a surprise.  Marketers will probably screw it up, however.  There’s a big difference between someone using the web to fashion a vacation, and advertising on social media

NostraChuckus predicts the future again and again:

Your Home: Boomer Build
"When we're building for people 55 and older, we're finding that this particular client comes in knowing exactly what they want. They're transitioning to a new lifestyle. They're coming from a home where they may have raised a family in a bigger house in suburbia," said Frank Barbera, custom homebuilder.

Barbera's development, reserved for "active adults, 55 and better", caters to the boomer generation and allows the prospective buyers to customize virtually every aspect of their home to suit their new lifestyle.

NostraChuckus years ago:

Selling Universal Design To Baby Boomers/Aging In Place  (PDF)
imagePast generations tended to get excited about modern conveniences that would make their lives easier. They'd walk into a planned housing unit and exclaim, "Look! It's got this and this and this and this!" The more features, the better. The more 'planned,' the better. It was time to start a new life. Time to be rewarded for all the hard work, and relax.

Not so with Baby Boomers. We take most modern conveniences for granted. And we don't want to start new lives, but continue the lives we already have.

Baby Boomers will be anticipating a seamless transition. Instead of "Look! It has this and this and this," we'll be sniffing around for friendly, useful spaces. You'll want us to say, "Look! There's a perfect place for my pottery wheel," or "There are plenty of windows and sunlight. My house plants and indoor herb garden will do fine in here," or "Good. I can put up big, deep shelves for my books and CDs," or "Here's the perfect room for our side business on Ebay," or "Here's a place where I can soundproof a recording studio or entertainment center," or "This oversized back door is great because I can roll my bicycle in and out without squeezing and jerking it around - and the extra-wide hallway means there's plenty of room so I can just lean it against the wall and we won't bang into it every time we walk past it."

The Venza…

My PhotoMis-marketing to Boomers: Toyota
by Matt Thornhill

  • For the 11 months immediately preceding the campaign launch, Toyota sold 36,051 Venzas.
  • For the 11 months since the launch, Toyota has sold 31,535 Venzas, a sales decline of 12.5%
Targeting Boomers and consumers over 50 can work for you, but you have to get it right. There may be other issues with the Venza that are affecting sales volume, but this campaign isn't helping.

Yup.  My take from last July:

Non-Diversity = Solipsism
Spots that star Millennials but, at least from what you tell me, are targeting Baby Boomers.  I guess if you want to target Millennials, you should get a bunch of Baby Boomers to star in the ads, and have them talk about their kids.

You should take a look at this – Dr. Joseph Coughlin at his best (which usually is always):

Dr. Joseph Coughlin

05 June 2012

For The Elderly And Beautiful

The-best-exotic-marigold-hotel

We went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel the other night. Fun flick.

To get the “only okay” stuff out of the way…  

All the main characters have  life-changing epiphanies.  That’s a lot of epiphanies.  After the first few you’re so emotionally drained you don’t care anymore.  I was hoping  the last four or five wouldn’t ‘see the light’ – and slog on as miserable beings.  Oh, well.

Except for the wacky, cyclonic Sonny Kapoor (Dev Patel),  the Indian characters seemed like caricatures to me.  His personal story (girlfriend, girlfriend’s brother, domineering mother) was likewise a bundle of clichés.

I ignored the above and immersed myself in the brilliant acting and (for the most part) writing and directing. 

One of the kickoff scenes: a husband and wife visit a bland, cheesy retirement flat full of hospital-like Universal Design amenities.  The wife is horrified.  It mirrors a piece of mine from a few years ago:

Selling Universal Design To Baby Boomers/Aging In Place  (PDF)

Another subplot involves a Call CentreJudi Dench’s character teaches a bunch of young adults how to talk with (not to) potential customers. 

Thinking about hiring expensive sales trainers?  A ten-dollar movie ticket will do.  Or, wait for the DVD… 

When it’s available I’ll be illegally showing these two segments in my presentations.   If you’re in the Universal Design or Call Centre industry (and have no scruples), so should you.