The Same Old, Same Old Redux

As usual, nothing new in the news about marketing to Baby Boomers:

Tech giants target older buyers - and their cash
"Today's older generation is primed to buy and consume new technologies like no previous group of seniors," says David Kelly, president of technology research company Upside Research.

What fresh insight. Here's the pull-quote on the cover of the 1st edition of my book:

That's from late 2004.

Even my friend Matt, quoted in the USA Today piece, must be getting tired of saying:

"Any company wanting to grow their business in the next 10 years better have a strategy for marketing to those 50-plus," warns Matt Thornhill, founder of baby-boomer-focused market research company Boomer Project.

In 2005 I was a guest on The Advertising Show. You can listen to it - although it's pretty long. What's funny is that someone was on recently and simply repeated everything I said - as if it were all new stuff discovered by his company.

Merely the same old, same old - over and over again.

It's time to move on from the Why to the How. That's what I focus on in my presentations, consulting work - and the revised edition of the book.

Yuk, Yuk, Yawn

This is the stuff I rail about when consulting or presenting - a youth sensibility when your target market is supposed to be over fifty:

Tourism campaign featuring ugly, chatty aliens draws critics

For weeks now, a contentious debate has raged among tourism officials here over a new state-financed advertising campaign aimed at attracting vacationers. Instead of highlighting New Mexico's picturesque desert landscapes, art galleries or centuries-old culture, the ads feature drooling, grotesque office workers from outer space chatting about their personal lives …

… to increasingly vocal critics, the ad campaign is strategically clumsy and a possible threat to the well-being of the state's $5.1 billion tourism industry. In other words, while the ads may yield a chuckle or two, the joke is on New Mexico …

… Dale Lockett, president of the state's largest convention and visitors bureau in Albuquerque, addressed the issue at a statewide conference last month … At a keynote luncheon, Lockett told the creators of the ads ... that their handiwork, while innovative, appeals to the wrong audience. Why, Lockett wondered, was the state targeting its centerpiece ad campaign to a younger crowd at the precise moment when the bulk of baby boomers nationwide are reaching the age when they have time and money to travel?

Or maybe I've seen just one too many commercials in my life. I'm jaded. I think this one's dull and unoriginal. Aliens instead of Cavemen yakking it up as if they're just average joes.

Yuk, yuk, yawn.

Promotional Presentation Video

My colleague and great friend Brent Green brought along his video camera for our European Tour - and ended up making a fun, informative video about it.

Being the magnanimous fellow he is, in my mailbox the other day I found a small package from him. He'd tossed the takes of Yours Truly onto a CD.

Yesterday I cobbled together a video using Microsoft Movie Maker - so don't expect too much. It's simply a promotional tool for speaking gigs - to complement this. I purposely made it teasing - not giving much away:

Brokaw's Boom!

Tom Brokaw always made the news go down easy. Even uncomfortable clumps. Nothing was ever too prickly, made you bleed or gag.

So goes Boom! - a book about his experiences in (more or less) the 1960s. Mr. Brokaw was around a lot of influential folk from all over the cultural and political map. Most of it is insider stuff and fun to read. Early in his career he covered what is arguably the most important movement of the decade - Civil Rights - and his points of view and personal profiles of the individuals he knew were for me the most interesting and vital chapters.

Brokaw comes pretty close to defining the 'generation' (or at least the era that he's covering) the same way I do. As I state in the intro to this blog - it's a diverse, unwieldy group. After reading Boom! you'll consider that an understatement.

Boom! has been criticized for leaning too much on the remembrances and evaluations of famous and influential people - but those were the people Mr. Brokaw knew. It's what I expected. After all, the subtitle is Personal Reflections on The Sixties and Today. Perhaps the problem is that Boom! is being perceived and/or touted as the book about the 1960s. Of course it's not. It's one of many, with many more to come.

The more you know about your target market, the better. So I'll recommend Boom! to anybody interested in advertising and marketing to Baby Boomers - along with Len Steinhorn's The Greater Generation: In Defense of The Baby Boom Legacy. (And there are dozens of others.)

Janet Maslin's Review of Boom! in The New York Times.

Old Masters and Young Geniuses

On a website promoting a book I haven't read but should (Encore by Mark Freedman) is an interview with an author of a book I have read:

ENCORE LEADERSHIP INTERVIEW: David Galenson on Old Masters and Young Geniuses

It turns out the baby boomers who wanted to change the world in the '60s may not be the same ones who will change the world in their 60s. It is the persistent experimenters who are coming to the fore in the second half of their lives, and are emerging from the shadow of the fiery radicals and bold activists who defined the baby boomers four decades ago. Same generation, but different kinds of people.

I blogged about this book over a year ago. It parallels much of what I say in my not-so-brief A Brief History of Advertising Creatives section I usually include in my presentations. Most people are shocked when I explain to them (with loads of examples) that many, many of the great creatives did their best work later in life.

Will the advertising industry change their ways in order to reach Baby Boomers more effectively? Who knows. If they don't, it'll be the clients who will suffer.

Again, I'll leave you with a quote from Rosser Reeves:

"No, I don't think a 68-year-old copywriter can write with the kids. That he's as creative. That he's as fresh. But he may be a better surgeon. His ad may not be quite as fresh and glowing as the Madison Ave. fraternity would like to see it be, and yet he might write an ad that will produce five times the sales. And that's the name of the game, isn't it?"