Automobiles

We still buy them, we still want to know all about them before we buy them.

A few posts ago:

13 December 2017
We’re always sick.
… I googled the car and it’s a pretty good car. But the spot tells me nothing about the car. Of course, why would I want to know anything about the car? All I need to know is that it has healing powers …

I won’t take you on a whirlwind of moldy posts about cars and advertising and the 50+ market.  The first was in 2005, there have been dozens since then, here’s just one:

03 May 2012
67% Of All Sales…
… Those age 50 and older are buying more than three of every five new vehicles sold, or about 62% … For the Detroit Three, boomers now account for 67% of all sales …

Today:

Ford’s Facelifted Van Aimed at Baby Boomers Reliving Glory Days
By Keith Naughton
Ford Motor Co. is looking to revive an aging workhorse with a facelift, technology injection and appeal to baby boomers looking to relive their “magic bus” days …

Somehow I doubt that, Keith. It probably has more to do with grandkids, dogs, short vacations, trips to Costco and Home Depot. Unless they’re offering a model in day-glow colors with a built-in bong in the back seat. 

For many, grandchildren are the glory days.

What about accessories for us? (Do they call accessories accessories anymore? I’m sure there’s a new, cutting-edge techno-term for them, but I don’t know what it is.)

Essential New-Car Features For Baby Boomers
by Jim Gorzelany

1. Push-Button Entry/Start
2. Tilt/Telescoping Steering Wheel
3. Extendable Sun Visors
4. Digital Speedometer
5. Head-Up Display
6. Rear Backup Camera
7. Parking Proximity Alarms
8. Self-Parking System
9. Navigation System
10. Automatic Day/Night Mirrors
11. Adaptive Headlamps
12. Adaptive Cruise Control
13. Blind Spot Warning

No bong? Oh, well.

I’m one of those old fogies who thinks less is more. Give me a big windshield, some strategically-placed mirrors, a comfy seat, and I’m gone like a cool breeze.

An accessory is a cup holder.

Women

Let me get this out of the way…

I love older women:

Going Nutty Over Older Women’s Bodies (Huffpost)
… With younger bodies ... they’re the same from top to bottom. Same shape, same skin, same rubbery feel. Nothing much there. Unfinished, incomplete. Like they were just hatched from pods - smooth and slippery, no essence yet. And only a few curves and barely any crannies. Bland and simple. Uninteresting.
Older bodies are complex, real.

Ten, twelve years ago there were older women. Now there are older women younger than I am. Weird. It’s some strange time/space warp I’m living in.

One of the first advertisements targeting this demo featured in a 2005 blog post by Brent Green:

A Heroine for Our Time 
… Fidelity Investments recently unveiled a 30-second television commercial that presents the biography of a Boomer woman. In this frenetic, flowing montage, augmented by rapid cuts of iconographic images such as the "peace sign," Fidelity has effectively captured powerful elements of the Boomer zeitgeist.

Marketing to these lovelies was written about by Marti Barletta over a decade ago, wisely updated years later:

16 April 2014
Marketing to PrimeTime Women
… Great move by my publishers – releasing an updated paperback edition of Marti Barletta’s Marketing to PrimeTime Women …

And there was BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer by Mary Brown and Carol Orsborn.

Worthwhile articles by a slew of others followed, including over one hundred posts by yours truly.

Lately, there’s a renewed interest in mature women. In Joseph Coughlin’s The Longevity Economy, a huge section is dedicated their power and influence.

JWT in the UK has put together a fancy-schmancy PDF slide presentation:

The Elastic Generation – Female Edit
Women in their 50s, 60s and early 70s are active, engaged and involved. Pillars of family, community and society, nothing they do is motivated by their age. It’s time for brands to take age out of the equation …

Give JWT a name and email address and you can download it.

I was entertained, enjoyed the over-the-top pics, didn’t enjoy the over-the-top copy (while I love long copy, this was long, long copy).

Click through at a fast pace - and it’s a good show. 

Super Bowl 2018

There are never too many news articles, blog posts, and podcasts about Super Bowl commercials right after the Super Bowl. Except for today. Now there’s one too many.

As everyone will tell you, the Tide (something like Every Super Bowl Ad is a Tide Ad) was clever and I fumbled my dip-dripping Dorrito and the mess spilled all over my sweatshirt while watching it.  And, I imagine, I’ll flash on the commercial the next time I’m stumbling around in the detergent aisle.  What more could an advertiser ask for?

And as everyone will tell you, The MLK/RAM truck spot was tone-deaf embarrassment. Just think: He coulda’ been a crackerjack car salesman instead of wasting his life away in and out of jail and meeting a violent death. Sad.

The bleeping commercial was bleeping too long.

An M&M was funny when it turned into Danny Devito, but after watching him beg to be eaten, then swirling around in a flat vat of chocolate (it looked like a vat of something else), I don’t think I’ll ever put an M&M in my mouth again.

Finally, there was an E-Trade commercial with old people still working when they should be retired. I think that was the takeaway. The problem was that most of the geezers looked like they were having loads and loads of fun and being productive. Of course, having fun and being productive aren’t things we want old people to be doing. 

There’s something unnatural about it.

2018: The Year of Big

That’s my prediction. Advertisers will finally follow simple common sense, something a certain seer has been urging for years:

18 April 2011
The Flat-Screen Rectangle of Common Sense

Good piece by Steve Weaver of ThinkTV Australia:

Size does matter: how ad size and screen coverage affect audience attention
… In real life, TV commands 58% active viewing, compared to only 31% for YouTube and just 4% for Facebook … TV’s relaxed, ‘lean-back’ viewing environment is not to be confused with passive ad attention …

An ad on Facebook averages 10% screen coverage. An ad on YouTube averages 30% screen coverage and on TV – where the ad plays full screen with no scrolling and no clutter – screen coverage for ads is 100%.
So, in simple terms, size matters.

Now factor in the size of smartphones vs. the size of televisions. An advertisement you hold in your hand is about as big as a large piece of confetti. And I’ve noticed that often they scurry around like tiny bedbugs. Sometimes I try to squash them.

NostraChuckus’ thoughts through the years:

May 2010:
Foretellings
… That silly retronym “traditional advertising” will remain the premiere force for introducing people to a product or service, along with sustaining its shelf life. Television, radio, and billboard ads will continue to have the visceral power they’ve always had – if only for their sheer size, simplicity, and cutting-edge audio/visual qualities ...

06 March 2012
Digital Distractions
Advertisers are getting wise to the drawbacks of marketing in the digital nest…

12 March 2012
Digital Distractions II
There are so many digital distractions that it’s difficult to be distracted…

22 September 2015
Marketing Miscellanea
… Baby boomers also had a highly negative response to mobile ads ... Fewer than 8% said they were likely to purchase a product advertised on their mobile phone … Overall, just 5.2% were interested in receiving ads on their phone at all …

28 November 2017
Smartphone Ads = Silly Graphical Doodads

NostraChuckus’ Crystal Ball of Common Sense is getting hazy now…

What a year.

Not for advertising but for everything else.

In my corner of the ether, no progress by ad agencies targeting this unwieldy, diverse demographic.  Looking over my posts the last twelve months…

It’s always a treat to get up, make some coffee, open the newspaper (pixels or pulp) and read nothing new.

The three most popular posts of 2017:

Black Ops Advertising by Mara Einstein

The Age of Portmanteau
If I may coin a phrase, we’re living in the Age of Portmanteau, what with Bromance, Sexting, Frankenfood, and dozens of other blends bandied about – even by reputable news sources (if there are any anymore).

Smartphone Ads = Silly Graphical Doodads

My pick for must-read post of the year:

The Interminable Death of Television
Nothing I can think of is as lively and chipper as television in its final throes.

If we all began dying as happily, healthily, slowly, and painlessly as TV, we wouldn’t fear the process - but welcome it.

My favorite post of the year:

Something Old, Something Old, Something Borrowed, Something Old
Along with Google Glasses, you'll also be wearing Google Nose and Google Mouth.

Back in January if the world is still around.