Ergonomic Design: Booming Business

Here's a good piece in The Las Vegas Review Journal:

Ergonomic Design: Booming Business
By JACK BULAVSKY
To help homeowners remain in their homes as they age and their mobility becomes more limited, manufacturers such as JACLO offer conveniences such as decorative grab bars.

I talked about this, had a slightly different take on it, in 2006 at the NAHB Building for Boomers 50+ Housing Symposium - and wrote an article about it around the same time:

Selling Universal Design to Baby Boomers
ERGONOMICS. That’s not such a negative word to Baby Boomers. We’ve been the fodder for the ergonomic revolution. We almost feel as if we invented it. The concept resonates.

But an ‘ergonomically designed home’ sounds rather cheesy. Using the word sparingly (but using it) in any marketing/advertising collateral is a good idea.

Ronni Bennett to Wall Street Journal

Well, she's not really going there -  but will be penning a semi-regular column from her cozy condo in Maine.

Ronni created the #1 blog for people over fifty: Time Goes By.

Last year she interviewed me.

Here's Ronni's first piece for The Wall Street Journal:

Put It in Writing
Blogging often is seen as a young person's game. But I think it's a near-perfect pastime for me and others who have retired or are approaching retirement -- and our numbers in the blogosphere are growing daily.

It's all part of a major section of the WSJ: Encore.  Other writers include Kelly Greene.

Keep Ronni's contributions on your radar. 

Henry Stewart Talks

I've just signed a contract with Henry Stewart Talks:

Henry Stewart Talks publishes animated audio visual presentations by world leading experts - advanced content in a user friendly format. We cover biomedicine, life sciences, advertising, management, marketing and finance. Every talk has been specially commissioned with informative visuals and synchronized narration.

This is thanks to Dick Stroud.  He's putting together an audio visual presentation package and asked me to jump on board. I'll be one of a half-dozen or so contributors:

Henry Stewart Talks Series
Latest thinking in marketing
to the older consumer
Series Editor: Dick Stroud 

There are 20 million people in the UK aged over 50 years old. That’s over 7 million more than in the marketer’s favourite 18-34 age group. In ten years time the 50-plus will outnumber this group by 10 million. When this fact is combined with their huge levels of wealth (over £5 trillion) they become, without question, the most important group of consumers that marketers must understand. The situation is the same in other European countries, the US and Japan.
 

Executive Session With Rance Crain

Rance Crain has been helming a series of video podcast interviews on the Ad Age site.  As befits his position in the industry, he doesn't do much slummin':

DDB Chairman Emeritus Keith Reinhard contemplates the ways creatives and CEOs go wrong in today's rapidly changing marketing industry. The tendency of many young creatives, he says, is to veer into the "weird" rather than the "relevant" in advertising ideas. He also notes that many CEOs hurt their brand by failing to be its ultimate steward in an age of revolving-door CMOs.

Is the internet only a communications utility or is it an effective venue for building brands? That question is a central issue in this nine-minute video interview with BBDO Chairman Emeritus Allen Rosenshine.

Much (but not all) of what they talk about reflects what I've been saying for years in this blog, in my book, during consultations and presentations. 

As I've said about Mr. Crain: If you don't listen to me, listen to Rance. Now you have two advertising legends you can listen to instead of me.

My Blog Was WOMMed!

It's been WOMMed before but not so deliciously as this time.

The irony is that I've been railing about WOMM lately - yet the WOMMer had no idea because the post WOMMed wasn't about WOMM.  He/She was probably flying around cyberspace searching for places to leave his/her droppings.

Here's what happened:  I blogged about the Jitterbug phone recently.  A comment showed up in my inbox. I moderate comments before publishing.  Instinctively I knew it stank. 

Usually I don't publish obvious anonymous shilling.  But since I've been talking about WOMM so much - why not use it as the perfect example of such shenanigans?  I clicked the publish button.

Read the first comment - and my comment:

It's from the GREAT CALL IP - the company that owns the Jitterbug phone. Someone who works at the company left the comment - and here's the most egregious part - trashed their competition (The Pantech Breeze phone).

This exemplifies the darkest of the dark side of WOMM.

As an exercise, I tried to track down a way to report this incident to the proper authorities (whatever they are).  I know the Federal Trade Commission is keeping an eye on the WOMMers.  Here's a funny, astute comment on their site.

Then I went to the Church of WOMM: The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA).  Surely they'd have an online form where you could report incidents of WOMM abuse.  That's because they're so very concerned about abuse of their new-found faith.  They want to know about any and all vile misdeeds.

Tell me I'm just an incompetent slob - but I could not find a complaint form on their site.  If there is one, let me know.

In England it's all becoming illegal.  Good for them.

I have a few other stories/examples of WOMM and this blog - but I'll save them for another time.