Thanks, MarketingSherpa

For your generous review:

Baby boomers make up 25% of the US population, hold 70% of US assets and spend $2 trillion annually. It's time we discovered opportunities for infomercials, Internet ads and branding catered to the young-at-heart. 'Advertising to Baby Boomers' uses straightforward, jargon-free language to guide advertisers, business owners and agencies on how to craft campaigns successfully.

The author, Chuck Nyren, a veteran creative strategist, explains how to approach this important demographic. This second edition update is divided into three sections. The first part helps us understand boomers' self-image and desires; the second suggests how to market to them; and the third offers practical resources.

Nyren employs wit, helpful asides and experts' citations to refute stereotypes that damage campaigns. He reinstates respect for the demographic that's often insulted by well-intentioned- but-flawed advertising. Some of his suggestions include abstaining from poking fun of boomers' age (i.e., targeting them for cliché products). He also advises showing facts instead of using elaborate illustrations to explain why boomers need something.

So, if you want to avoid pigeonholing baby boomers and confusing or angering the demographic with your humor, check out this readable 182-page foundation for reaching them. We promise it will be filled with underlines.

MarketingSherpa

Baby boomers are smarter than you think

It seems as if I’m smarter than I think I am:

Baby boomers are smarter than you think
Researchers have confirmed what many mature people already know – intelligence actually gets sharper with age.

Yeah? Then how come I didn’t know this already?

… Oh, that’s right. Baby Boomers aren’t ‘mature.’ We think we’re still youngsters.

Wisdom increases with age, research says
Scientists have discovered that intelligence, instead of peaking in our youth, remains stable and in some respects gets sharper as we grow older.

And the New York Times is weighing in. When we think we're losing it, we're actually gaining it:

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain
When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit ...

"...Older adults, because they’ve retained all this extra data, they’re now suddenly the better problem solvers. They can transfer the information they’ve soaked up from one situation to another."

Hmmm. I keep hearing that 50 is the new 30. Now I’ll be hearing that 50 is the new 70.

Funerals Are For The Dead

As the old saying goes, “Funerals are for the living.” Not anymore. Now there’s a place where you can theme, decorate, and DJ from the grave (or wherever you happen to end up) – thanks to two Baby Boomers: Nancy Bush and Sue Kruskopf.

Plan your own funeral online
By Jackie Crosby
The generational cohort known as the baby boomers brought us the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement and the gay rights movement.

Could the death movement be next?

I talked a bit about this in my book. From Chapter Five:


My Wonderful Life's promotional video is very cute. I’ll embed it here not because I think it’s so brilliantly funny – but consider this: Would you have seen a spot like this for funeral services twenty years ago? One with even a hint of humor? We’ve had quite an impact on almost everything.



Of course, when I die I want a funeral procession with an old rickety horse-drawn carriage, open coffin, priests with long beards in long robes waving incense, and hundreds of women dressed in black and wailing.

But that’s just me. My personal statement.

Offer Ends Soon!

I stumbled upon a blog post. By a fellow I have a lot in common with and who’d probably be a friend of mine if I knew him.

Or we’d hate each other. Who knows.

Larry Jones has written about advertising, Baby Boomers – and you’d better listen because his sentiments are widespread:

Offer Ends Soon!
All my life I’ve been pummeled by advertising.
I have listened to and watched millions of 60-second spots. Over the years they have changed from live presentations by TV and radio personalities who have tried to cultivate my trust through a sort of pseudo friendship, into ever shorter and “punchier” 30’s, 20’s, 10’s and even five-second commercial messages delivered in MTV-style videos, no scene longer than two seconds, challenging my ability even to see what’s on the screen, much less understand what I think I’m seeing.

I’m not sure he needed the disclaimer. He must have friends like me he didn’t want to piss us off. At least too much. (Hey, Larry - is that a smudge on your sweatshirt or a Nike logo?)

Actually, he was just being nice. Yeah, we’re making a living - but a lot of us also enjoy it.

Even though I’d like to see campaigns that resonate with Baby Boomers – and he doesn’t really give a you-know-what – we both agree that they are, for the most part, pretty pathetic.

Larry also has a home studio and plays guitar. With a background in the audio industry, I know a bit about all this. He probably owns some equipment manufactured by a company I worked for seven or eight years ago.

And I was hired because the company knew that the largest age demographic for home audio and music equipment was take-a-guess. Since then, it’s become even a larger chunk.

Does the professional/consumer audio industry have a handle on this? Nope. It’s not a question of dumbing down technology for Baby Boomers (we invented most of this stuff) – but more a question of universal design, easy-to-handle knobs and controls, bigger fonts and correct color contrasts for audio software. Older hands and eyes are at the controls.

Enough. I have to go unwind after tossing up this post. Maybe I’ll plug in and play sloppy, cliché-ridden blues guitar. Even after decades of trying, and I still can’t play as fast as Alvin Lee.

Coming Boom in Boomer-Friendly Transport

BusinessWeek has a piece about new features in cars that take into account older eyes, older bodies.

No surprise to me. I suggested this years ago – in my book and during a long segment in 2005 on The Advertising Show.

The Coming Boom in Boomer-Friendly Transport
by Jim Henry
In part to aid the aging driver, General Motors (GM) is adding high-tech features such as blind-spot monitoring and lane-departure warnings, both available on the 2008 Cadillac STS and DTS models. "GM recognizes the importance of this sizable demographic group in the U.S. and globally," said Dave Rand, executive director, global advanced vehicles, in a written presentation.

Big Business is behind the curve, as usual. But better late than never.

My point three years ago was that Baby Boomers were buying up those mid-priced boxy cars (even though they were being marketed to college kids and twenty-somethings) because they were easy to get in and out of, easy to see out of, and some had large dashboards that were easy to read. So why not build cars with these and more features for older drivers? And market them as such?

Over six months later I read this.

But ageism is still rampant in the advertising and business world. More from the BusinessWeek article:

Etsuhiro Watanabe, an associate chief designer at the Nissan Design Center, was careful to point out that Nissan is not designing a car specifically for old people. "The improved ergonomics will benefit drivers of all age groups, young and old included," he said.

Pretty funny. Like I've said, I remember when those boxy cars were selling to an older demographic (they still are) and upsetting marketers because the predicted target wasn't being hit. “What are we doing wrong?” they asked themselves.

I certainly don’t remember any of them, upon launches, carefully pointing out that their cars were “Not specifically designed for young people” …

Dick Stroud also blogged this piece – with his usual trenchant comments.