Beginning in 2003, my business blog for Creative Services, Copywriting, Consulting, and Speaking. You'll find all sorts of information about the current trends in advertising and marketing to this unwieldy, diverse demographic.
From MarketWatch:
Rough outlines
By Steve Kerch
… When it comes to retirement living, golf courses are out … Bike paths and walking trails are the new greens and fairways.
As usual, that sounds familiar. Years ago you could’ve had a ‘quick peek’ at this MarketWatch piece. From my book ©2005:
Chapter 4:
Give Boomers Room for Choices
I’m one of the few bloggers to take pride in bringing you no news news. I’ve been offering my readers no news news for years.
With the Death of Television, today I offer you this new no news news:
Super Bowl Ads Still Sell
by Steve Hall/AdRantsDespite the uncertain economy, three out of four Americans are still more likely to research or buy a product after seeing it advertised during the Super Bowl … 64% would be disappointed if advertising during the game disappeared … 66% still remember their favorite brand advertiser from last year's Super Bowl while only 39% remember who won the game.
My best guess why: I’d love to say it’s the book, the reviews, the word of mouth in marketing circles – but I bet it’s simply the subject matter. Marketing professionals are finally getting the message from various sources around the world that advertising to Baby Boomers is the smartest business strategy for almost all products and services – and will be for the next fifteen to twenty years.
A quote from the book (©2005, 2007):
It’s going to be up to companies to be proactive when dealing with advertising agencies. Quality control of your product doesn’t stop at the entrances of Madison Avenue’s finest, or at the doors of small local or regional advertising agencies. If companies put pressure on agencies, and demand 45-plus creatives for products aimed at the 45-plus market, then they will find out that Baby Boomers are still “the single most vibrant and exciting consumer group in the world.”
In 2007 I critiqued some ads for Selling To Seniors. Pulls from one:
Hearing problems as one gets older have affected humankind for eons. For this recent crop of folks over 50, listening to loud music when they were young has had a negligible effect on their hearing loss.
Certainly, a handful of professional rock musicians playing every night for years and years while plopped in front of amplifiers now have some serious hearing problems.
But for 99% of baby boomers, going to a rock concert every so often (even often) has made them deaf? I think not. And even if I’m wrong, why would you want to make your target market feel guilty? Why would you want to beat it over their heads that it’s their fault that they can’t hear their "grandchild’s giggle"?
What about people who did protect their ears, who did "listen" by not listening—and still have hearing loss? This ad makes them feel worse about their predicament. You’re either guilty because you did—or cruelly cheated by fate if you didn’t. While the leading causes of hearing loss are genetic and simply getting older, most studies confirm that everyday life in metropolitan areas is a recent contributor. So lay the blame elsewhere ..
Now there’s this:
Say what? Baby boomers not losing hearing as much as parents did
By John Fauber
While everyday life may be getting noisier, actual hearing loss from one generation to the next has declined, said Weihai Zhan, lead author of the study, which was published Friday in the American Journal of Epidemiology.Overall, the baby boomers had 31% less hearing loss than their parents.
I knew Mom & Dad weren’t playing those Benny Goodman records loud enough.
Mobile apps for Baby Boomers
Everything you could want to know about mobile apps that are especially useful for ageing consumers be they Baby Boomers, Seniors, Matures, 50-plus or even oldies.
There have been a few technological advances since then (although sometimes I wonder how ‘advanced’ they really are).
From my book (page 161):
However, a very brainy phone with a handful of advanced degrees lives here. Every so often yours truly and Dr. Droid have deep, rewarding, philosophical thumb-dances. Because I’m not nutty about mobile media, I have no idea if Mr. Stroud’s app would work on the thing.
So bookmark Dick Stroud’s companion blog. Or, if you have iTunes and one of those sassy iPhones, download the app.
