Unpacking Deloitte’s State of The Media Democracy Teaser

Last December I blogged Deloitte’s Third State of The Media Democracy Survey:

Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy Survey

Now there’s a press release and bits of info on the web about the Fourth edition:

Deloitte 'State of the Media Democracy' Survey: Recession Intensifies America's Love For TV

Deloitte's State of the Media Democracy Survey, Fourth Edition

The preliminary info released doesn’t always break down age demos – so with our knowledge of Baby Boomers, let’s bend and squeeze the stats and make some intelligent guesses:

More than 70 percent of survey respondents rank watching TV in their top three favorite media activities.

Bump that to 80% for Baby Boomers.

When watching their favorite TV programming, 86 percent of survey respondents prefer watching on their television set, enjoying the programming either live, via their DVR/TiVo, or using an "On Demand" feature.

Assume that would be around 96% for Boomers.

According to the survey, consumers are watching close to 18 hours of television programming on their home TV in a typical seven day week -- up notably from less than 16 hours last year. Millennials (ages 14-26) had the largest increase, to almost 15 hours from 10.5 hours.

But … Millennials don’t watch regular, ol’ TV.  (If you believe that I have a text message in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.)

Increased console ownership by Xers and Boomers has also driven increased game playing. Thirty-one percent of surveyed Boomers played a newly released videogame via a game console over the past six months, up significantly from 12 percent in 2008.

Baby Boomers will be a healthy market for video games.  But beware of this survey.  If you’d asked me if I’d played a newly released videogame on a game console, I’d have to say yes, yes, yes.  With my teenaged nieces.  At their house. Another relative, a Baby Boomer, actually bought a game console so these beautiful ladies would have something fun to do when they visit.  And, of course, there is the Boomer grandparent phenomenon.

Television continues to reign as the most influential advertising medium, with 83 percent of consumers identifying TV advertising as one of the top three media with the most impact on their buying decisions. Online advertising ranks much lower in impact than television. Less than half of those surveyed identify online advertising, which includes banner and video ads, search engine result ads and pop-ups, amongst the top three.

Again, bump “most influential advertising medium” to 93% for Baby Boomers.

The ability of ads on websites to move traffic to other sites has dropped from 72 percent to 59 percent over the past three surveys. Moreover, respondents articulate a decreased inclination to click on more Internet ads, even if the ads are targeted to their needs.

This is why I’ve said …

For the umpteenth time - The Most Effective Marketing/Advertising Model For Reaching Baby Boomers: What is now called traditional advertising pushing you to an age-friendly, informative product/services web site.

Some of the other findings seem a bit mealy-mouthed to me.   I’ll wait to comment after I see more of the survey.

The Era of Oversell is Over

Wet-blanket Chuck has been reading a few pieces lately that need to be read by all 50+ marketers and advertisers.  They remind me of something I wrote way back in 2005.

Boomers, Lifestyle Behaviors and Disability
Living a long life, but at what cost?
By Tamara McClintock Greenberg
Uncertainty is terrifying.  We all know this no matter what age we are.  But the boomers are facing unprecedented life expectancy and ambiguity.  They need our support for health and better lifestyle choices. 

The nirvana of aging in place and other age-related reality disconnects
By Laurie Orlov
Today, what is so cheerfully described as aging in place, with enough money in retirement or the ability to keep working, living in a one's own home, with the myriad of services that are needed -- THIS IS A MYTH. To make it a reality, we need some very new ideas to be fleshed out more carefully and new ways of lowering costs, redirecting innovation energy and funding of new initiatives, and I'm not talking about healthcare.

My piece from 2005 (when I was young and cute):

Don’t Paint Too Rosy A Picture
A recent article in USA Today asks us to “take a moment to journey forward to 2046, when 79 million baby boomers will be 82 to 100 years old.”[i]  A paragraph later, the reporter asks, “So just what kind of America will be forged by this crowd of geriatric goliaths?”

Excuse me for being an unassuming ‘David’ (or even worse, a genocidal Grim Reaper) but I doubt very much that all 79 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. will still be alive in forty years, swaggering like giants – unless the medical establishment is holding out on me.

The good news you know: many Baby Boomers will live longer, healthier lives – more so than in any previous generations. The bad news you also know: a huge chunk of Boomers will pass on, and another huge chunk will be dealing with acute diseases and afflictions.  

The problem is that well-meaning articles in the press like the USA Today piece, along with mountains of 50+ marketing fodder, are setting up Boomers for a psychological fall.  There will be a backlash.

Not being a therapist, I won’t diagnose – but if it were beaten into my head over and over that things were going to be just peachy for the next forty years, that my same-aged friends will all be around laughing and cavorting while leading meaningful, vigorous lives—then, shock of shocks, many of us become incapacitated and/or drop and die – I will feel cheated.   I will become depressed and disillusioned.  It will happen even if I’m one of the ‘lucky’ healthy ones.

Ask today’s 80+ year olds about this or that and you’ll probably find that many are surprised (but relatively pleased) they’re still alive.  They believe they’ve beaten the odds, for whatever reasons.  Jump twenty-five, thirty years: if the myth of the non-dying, perfectly healthy Baby Boomer persists, folks in the aging industry are going to have millions of very angry octogenarians their hands.  They might even blame you for all those false promises.

How should this be dealt with by marketers and advertisers?  Contrary to popular myth, Baby Boomers do not believe that they are still teenagers or young adults. (Some probably do, but they need therapy.)  Boomers are slyly redefining what it means to be the ages they are.  Included in this new definition are some youthful attitudes – but the real change is that instead of winding down, many are winding up.  We’re not ‘looking forward to retirement,’ we’re looking forward to new lives, new challenges.  Only a small percentage will opt for pure retirement.  (I predict that in twenty years the word ‘retirement’ will still be in dictionaries, but followed by the modifier archaic.)

This is all part of redefining what it means to be the ages we are.  It may seem to some as  pathological, believing and acting as if we’re eighteen or twenty-five – but that’s because pundits and experts suspiciously eyeing this gargantuan, spirited, unwieldy and varied hoard of middle-agers have nothing to compare it to.  The only conclusion they can come to: Baby Boomers must a bit daft.

There is a big difference between thinking you are younger than you are – and not thinking that you are old.  This ‘night and day’ distinction may confuse many pundits, but it does not confuse most Boomers.

Much of this new, positive attitude about our future has to do with being the beneficiaries of so many fast and furious medical advances.  Some we have already taken advantage of, while others are ready and waiting for us – or right around the corner.  A good example is joint and hip replacement surgery.  The cane industry is in the doldrums, and we’re hoping it will never recover.

Another medical advance (still in its infancy, from what I’ve read) is pain management.  This promises Baby Boomers and successive generations freedom from a fear that haunts all as we age.

There has been plenty of press about Baby Boomers and their dread of Alzheimer’s.  Not much of a surprise.  Alzheimer’s affects many of our parents, we’re caring for them – and nothing frightens us more than not being in control of our own destinies.  However, from what I’ve read there may be some breakthroughs within the next twenty years.  That’s very good news.

Am I painting too rosy a picture here?  Isn’t this something I was railing against in the first few paragraphs?

Yes, but with a big difference.  All the examples above have to do with the quality of life – not the quantity.

If I were digging into a marketing/advertising campaign for a client in the aging industry, I would extract as much quality inherent in the product/service – and toss out any (or most) mention of longevity.  This would hold true even with basic nutritional and  exercise products.  A significant chunk of people who eat only healthy foods and  exercise regularly die of heart attacks, get cancer, are the victims of  all sorts of diseases and afflictions.  You can’t fool me.

But the quality of their lives in every respect will be superior to the ones who don’t take care of themselves, or avail themselves to what’s out there in the aging industry market.  

Nobody can promise you that you’ll live to be a hundred.  However, you can (more or less) make a good argument that healthy lifestyles and advances in modern medicine will offer you a quality life after sixty that no preceding generation had ever imagined.

I’m fifty-five.  I may die in five, ten, twenty, forty or fifty years.  If you promise Baby Boomers longevity, I will know at some point that you are not telling me the truth.  However, if you promise me a certain amount of quality if I take advantage of medical advances, lead a healthy lifestyle, and buy and use your products and services – I’ll probably believe you.

And I’ll continue to take your word for it until my dying day.

[1] 2046: A boomer odyssey
By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY October 27, 2005

_____

There’s nothing wrong with being positive and aspirational – you just have to temper it with dollops of reality so your marketing won’t be dismissed as pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

Television Still Shines Redux

I slobber on a lot.  It’s what’s fun about blogging.  Read almost any of my posts and they go on and on …

But sometimes I see something and have no value-added commentary.  It’s looks pretty good just sitting there, doesn’t need me oinking all over it:
 
 

 

The Death Watch Continues
From TechCrunch, November 2006 "Let's Just Declare TV Dead And Move On"

"...the writing is on the wall...at the end of the day, people want to consume content without the friction of having to sit down in front of a television at an appointed time....People want to see the whole show on YouTube. There is a fundamental shift in consumer behavior going on..."

Here at Ad Contrarian global headquarters we're still standing by, waiting for tv to go away and die.

It's been 5 years now.

Television Still Shines.

Your Brain on Games

Interesting project in Canada:

Brain games to help those at retirement age keep working
Toronto's Baycrest centre is staking a claim to a piece of the booming brain fitness market with a new company, Cogniciti, and a new generation of brain games aimed at helping baby boomers keep their minds sharp and boost their productivity in the workplace well into old age.

Brain-fitness industry grows as baby-boomers work to stay sharp.
… The games rely on two biological principles: the brain's ability to grow new nerve cells, called neurogenesis, and its ability to grow connections between different brain cells, called neuroplasticity.

Some very intelligent folk are taking Brain Games very seriously.  A business colleague is starting a company devoted to Brain Games implementation. It’s a bit early to talk about it, but I probably will soon.

What’s the story with advertising and Brain Games?  That’s been a problem.  Because of clumsy tactics, most advertising/marketing/PR is still doing more harm than good. A post from March:

The Brain Games Game
You certainly get the ‘hard-sell’ impression that if you don’t buy and play these games, eventually your brain will leak out of your nose and ears.  Why not just tell the truth?  These are high-tech, stimulating computer-generated exercises that will help keep your mind sharp - are structured, measurable to some degree (so they’re useful for medical research), and quite entertaining.  And there are a lot of them – so you won’t get bored just playing one over and over.

Dr. Gary Small agrees:

(Robert Lipsyte) Stop me if I'm wrong, but there just seems something a little hucksterish, opportunistic, snake oil about the brain gyms.

(Dr. Gary Small) It seems snake oil-ish because some of the marketing tends to suggest that it's going to do more than it really can, and there's lots of companies trying to capitalize on this, and a lot of these devices are merely toys.

Click the graphic below and you’ll be magically transported to Life (Part2) on PBS.org:

Then watch the show.  It’s a good one.

Microsoft & AARP Study: Boomers & Tech II

A colleague mildly chastised Yours Truly for being a bit rough on the ‘new’ Microsoft/AARP study:

I think the guy offered some thought-provoking possibilities about how we might adopt and adapt some technologies in the future: nothing earth-shattering, but slightly value-added.

Colleague correct.  Anybody interested should download the study.  It’s worth a read.

The article/press release on the AARP site.

What I said about it all:

AARP & Microsoft: Technology & Baby Boomers
… Let’s see how some of their findings stack up to what NostraChuckus has been prophesying for years …  NostraChuckus predicts that in a future post he will predict what they’re probably wrong about.

As the almost errorless Soothsayer predicted, here it is. 

Microsoft/AARP:

Digital Fitness. Boomers will wear sensor-equipped exercise clothing to keep track of their physical condition during workouts, their calories burned—and  upload it all to an online record. Even their running shoes will contain sensors and GPS to provide additional data. Their mobile devices may even be set to (gently) remind them when they're falling behind on their exercise routines.

I wonder if most of the above won’t get tired fast.  How biofeedback-onic do you really want to be while taking a walk in the woods or playing some doubles?    

And beepers going off to tell you you’re a lazybones?  It sounds like fun once or twice, but pretty soon some sweats or tennis attaire will be all you’ll put on.  Being wired like a android and having to perform at specific levels every minute while you’re ‘playing’ could cause a slew of new anxiety afflictions.   

Of course, there will always be a few obsessive-compulsives.

Microsoft/AARP:

Chip Me, Doc. Once Boomers are confident about security and privacy, they will be early adopters of electronic health records—many would even choose to have them implanted as tiny chips. And they'll start keeping their own records online, using digital diagnostic devices to upload their weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, even the results of a mini-EKG.

Is this news?  Already Boomers are all over Web MD and scores of other medical sites. I belong to one where I can keep track of the few drugs I take and lets me know of any contraindications.  (And, interestingly enough, the site offers to transfer my ‘medical history’ to Microsoft’s HealthVault.)

Actually, it’s doctors, hospital administrators, and generally anybody involved in the medical industry that are pushing for computerized records.  All generations will be beneficiaries (or have their privacy compromised – depending on your point of view).

Microsoft/AARP:

Social Networks. For boomers, social networks will become as commonplace as the telephone—particularly to link them into the lives of their children and grandchildren in a way that's unobtrusive yet meaningful. And personal videoconferencing will be commonplace: High-definition video cameras on the big screen in the living room will enable regular family-to-family chats.

I guess I’m confused.  What is a ‘social network’?  This sounds to me like ‘calling grandma and grandpa’ forty years ago, where we all passed the phone around.  How is that social networking?

And didn’t I blog about this in 2006? The ‘high-definition’ part is new.  That’s about it.

Microsoft/AARP:

Video-Game Fever. Boomers will become video-game aficionados, primarily using motion-sensing video game consoles rather than old-fashioned game controllers.

Confused again. Won’t everybody be using “motion-sensing consoles rather than old-fashioned game controllers”? What exactly is the startling prediction here? 

No mention of brain games.  My guess is that Boomers will continue to play cutting-edge video games, but most will want to exercise their gray matter when doing so.  Sure, they’ll play virtual tennis – but for some reason I bet they’ll prefer real tennis.  Wriggling, twisting, and swinging your arms around in front of some newfangled contraption can be diverting – but spending your entire life entangled in virtual reality just doesn’t seem like much of a life to me. 

And it could be embarrassing.  It’s a mark of honor to sustain a sports injury, but I’d feel rather silly if I were limping about and had to tell everyone, “I fell over while Wii-ing …”   

Microsoft/AARP:

Employment, Boomer Style. Boomers who are past the 9-to-5 routine but still working part-time will become the masters of tele-presence: videoconferencing with HD and surround sound.

Again – this probably will be standard-issue business practice for all generations.  Variations have been ‘foretold’ by numerous futurists.

 Microsoft/AARP:

Parents. Boomers will lead the aging-in-place movement with their own parents, wiring their parents' homes with smart sensors that monitor motion, power usage, average conversation levels and footstep patterns, and that send regular updates that all is well—or suggest the boomer check in to make sure the parents are OK.

Some monitoring will take place (it is taking place) but keeping track of every burp and twitch … I’m not so sure.

Microsoft/AARP:

Home, Green Home. The boomer dream home will have a full solar roof, plus energy monitoring that lets residents tailor their usage to maximum efficiency. Domestic robots will be increasingly common appliances, and in new homes, designers will make kitchens and floor plans "robot-friendly."

Key phrase: dream house. It sounds good.  Let’s hope all this will someday be available and affordable for everybody.  Microsoft, of course, has been pushing this stuff since 2000.

Maybe I expected fresher insights from two influential  corporate forces.
____

Update Dec 9 2009 Great post from Laurie Orlov (even if she does join in to chastise me a bit):

What Boomers Want from Technology 2009 and other aging theories