The Crystal Ball of Common Sense

I've been having a bit too much fun lately with my alter-ego NostraChuckus. Sorry - but when you write a biz blog for free you can be as silly as you want. (And it's one of the ways people find me for consulting, speaking, and creative work - so my tiny corner of the ether is serving its purpose quite well.)

Even so, I'll stand by everything NostraChuckus has predicted and will predict. After all, his sole method of conjuring is The Crystal Ball of Common Sense - and common sense is all it ever invokes.

I was about to put on my turban again for this post, but I'll leave it off and just talk about boring facts:

New Survey Reveals the Surprising Reality of Boomers' Behavior Online
The results of the survey may surprise even the savviest online marketers looking to capture the attention of the coveted boomer market.

Of course, there's nothing much new, surprising, or revealing in the press release above. Let's call it a Refresher Course.

Social Networking I've covered extensively. And you should see me go on and on in my presentations about the power of Print/TV and their potent connections to product web sites. (Or, you shouldn't. I do go on and on and on ...)

WOMM? I've blabbered about that too many times for too many years. Here's a post with links to previous posts about WOMM:

What's the Word?

And two that were posted after the one above:

Diarrhea of the Word-of-Mouth

Smart or Sneaky?

Part of the confusion seems to be defining the concepts. Word of mouth is simply consumers talking amongst themselves about products and services. We've all been doing that since the beginning of modern advertising, for over one hundred years. Actually it's been going on since the creation of civilization and trade - for thousands of years. It's nothing new.

Now there's something called Word of Mouth Marketing where 'citizen marketers' march into the ether and other places and, for baubles and beads and often more, create clumsy illusions that they're giddy over some product or service. Here's the best article I've found on the subject:

Is Word Of Mouth All It's Cracked Up To Be?
By Jack Trout

The real story is this: Baby Boomers read, listen to, and watch news. They're technologically savvy, and pick and choose the technology they think will be useful to them.

They might not visit many blogs, belong to many social networks - but they've read about them. They know a little or a lot about blogs, or have some vague recollection of news stories like the ones about the WalMart RV Blog and the Microsoft Vista free-giveaways-to-bloggers fiascos. If they can't quite remember the specifics, they know it's getting very weird out in cyberspace and they shouldn't believe big chunks of what they come across on the Web. It's spam, its scam, it's something sleazy.

And if they're one of the ones (and there are a lot) who've been around since the beginnings of the Web, they know exactly how sleazy it can be.

And they know how incredible it all is - all this information, entertainment, and connection at your fingertips! It's not much different than stepping outside your door and entering the real world: amazing stuff out there - but you'd better look both ways when crossing the street. And bring an umbrella.

So … most Baby Boomers are on the web, use email, use a few other means of communicating and gathering information that is web/internet-based, watch short entertainment, informational, and commercial videos.

But what about when they casually discuss products and services they use or are interested in? As I've said over and over, first they do deep research, usually trusting news sources and product web sites. And just as important: they email, phone, and talk face to face to friends.

Is there better word-of-mouth to be had?

Word of Mouth Marketers would like to contaminate this honest communication with all sorts of tricks and sleaze and invasions. It all seems counterproductive to me.

I've been around the web since 1994. In 1996 I was writing an online column (now they're called blogs) as part of a web community (now they're called social networks).

In 1999 I was working for an international company that manufactured and marketed audio equipment to professionals and non-professionals. I fought for and supported a message board (now they're called online forums). It was a tough sell:

"What if they write things we don't like?" I kept hearing.
"We can answer them," I'd say. "Officially answer them. It's called PR."

Finally the powers-that-be warmed to the idea. Nowadays it's obligatory to have some sort of online forum on your company or product web site.

Is that word of mouth marketing? No. It's PR. It's simple, straightforward marketing. It's also great for research purposes.

What if you find negative comments on the web about your product or service? You bring in the professional PR folks, the marketing folks, and decide how to deal with it. You might want to respond, or ignore it. Nothing new here. It's called PR. It's not word of mouth marketing.

Word of mouth marketing is when people leave messages in the ether just about anywhere - and they're getting paid to do so. Even if they happen to be transparent about it, it's still WOMM - and kind of silly. Of course, there are other (and more devious) ways of shilling in cyberspace. I'll leave those alone for now.

Why any advertiser would want to mess with good ol' honest word-of-mouth is beyond me. From a previous post:

So your product or service is getting some sort of positive response from users/consumers? Maybe a cult is forming. Or something. People are talking.

Take advantage of this. You'd be stupid not to. Bring in the PR professionals, the marketing people. Reference it in advertising campaigns. Support this grass roots excitement.

But trying to create buzz out of nothing? Paying shills to hand out lipstick and gum, paying bloggers for their so-called objective opinions?

I often wonder who's really being taken to the cleaners with Word of Mouth Marketing. Consumers … or advertisers?

For the umpteenth time on these ethereal pages, a slightly tongue-in-cheek quote from my hardcopy (they used to be called books):

When it all comes out in the wash, WOMM will be the best thing to happen to (silly retronym ahead) traditional advertising. Pretty soon, consumers won't believe anybody - even their best friends. They'll realize that they receive the most honest and straightforward information about a product or service from a TV commercial, radio spot, print ad, direct marketing collateral, or product web site. At least we don't lie about who we are and why we're saying what we're saying.

Remember this: Advertising didn't die with the invention of the telephone.

But don't believe me. This is just some blog, and I'm just some blogger. Who knows if someone's paying me to trash word-of-mouth marketing ...

One thing's for sure: You'll never know.

Disillusioned

Harry (Rick) Moody, former Vice President and Director of Academic Affairs for AARP, tackles disillusionment in an engrossing piece for The American Society on Aging.  He opens with a humorous, self-deprecating story about not giving a presentation on the subject:

Baby Boomers: From Great Expectations to a Crisis of Meaning
… I had given many presentations at conferences on aging, but this session turned out to be unique: I sat on a chair at my poster session for two hours and not a single person came by. Not one. Talk about disillusionment!

Rick goes deep, quoting and/or referencing Robert N. Butler, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, The Buddha, Erik Erikson, Viktor Frankl, and others. His take, it seems to me, is not to define disillusionment as some sort of generic depression - but as a wisdom-inducing experience, perhaps not welcomed but ultimately enlightening.

The Danish author Isak Dinesen once said: “All the sorrows of life are bearable if only we can convert them into a story.” Are we perhaps telling the wrong story about old age—namely, that we can “fix” it?

---

Rick Moody’s Human Values in Aging Newsletter has over 10,000 subscribers. It’s free w/ no advertising. A personal newsletter. No privacy-invading shenanigans.  Email Rick and he will add you to the list.

---

While Rick goes deep, Chuck goes shallow – simply sticking a finger in the ocean and wriggling it around. Way back in 2005, in my book Advertising to Baby Boomers, a chapter dealing with some of the same issues:

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.

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] 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.

The Latest Miscellany

Golly gee, there’s no one big news story I can find to write about.  Or I’m too frazzled to concentrate, or senescently scatterbrained, or to put a positive spin on it all, expertly multitasking since that’s what people do nowadays because it’s impossible to focus on one thing what with all the tech chattering going on all around you.

Baby Boomers are wonderful:

Baby boomers have lots more to contribute
Baby boomers have earned the right not to be forgotten for their contributions by the new generations…The national conversation will only be a success if it does not forget to engage the baby boomers.

Focus on the right things, and baby boomers are a model.
I would suggest that the perseverance we used to end a war, and to move the country forward using myriad of social, humanitarian and political actions -- could likely be the kind of leadership that is in such short supply today, both here in Minnesota and elsewhere.

Baby Boomers are horrible:

Elderly go from being perceived as capable consumer to ‘old person’
“Abbie,” an 89-year-old woman from Texas, told Barnhart when she went to her doctor with her daughters, the physician would only talk to her children.

“If younger people bring you in, they think it’s because you’re not, I guess, lucid enough to understand what they’re saying,” Abbie said.

That seems to be the Doctor’s fault. But what do I know.

As Entrepreneurs:

The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur
Tech startup founders in their 20s and 30s make all the headlines, but when it comes to entrepreneurship, increasingly it’s baby boomers who are more likely to be in business for themselves — and creating jobs in the process.

Why baby boomers take the entrepreneurship plunge
The end of World War II begot a generation of Americans that’s starting to make waves in the entrepreneurship scene.

This all sounds vaguely familiar:

ADVERTISING TO BABY BOOMERS
Targets Clients and Entrepreneurs
Paramount Market Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y.
… Chuck Nyren's egalitarian approach to advertising and the creation of campaigns is all-inclusive. A large section of the book is dedicated to helping Baby Boomer entrepreneurs get their marketing and advertising up and running. The author as well gives advice and guidance to the small businessperson on how to fashion a handmade campaign.

Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers: Part I
All of a sudden every other news article about Baby Boomers is focused on business and entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers II
I’ve found that there are two mistakes made by almost every entrepreneur targeting this unwieldy, diverse market.

Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers III
Lessons for entrepreneurs? Due Diligence, of course. But not everybody is out to steal your your money with promises of fortunes with their marketing/advertising prowess.

Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers IV
It's counter-intuitive, but the forever work life of older Americans may turn out to be a good thing for young workers.

Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers V
The theme contemplated in this session is the enormous opportunity and challenge created by the aging demographics of the United States and Europe.

Friend Kevin Lavery tweeted this today:

No kidding.  I can’t keep up with them all.  I tried to years ago:

Sleepy Baby Boomer Internet Villages

Invasion of the Baby Boomer Pod People

A Bit Of Social Networking Site Research
Six sites featured were Social Networking sites.  Of those six, four (BoomJ.com, BoomerTowne.com, TeeBeeDee.com, Boomer411.com) failed miserably and no longer exist.  Millions of dollars wasted.
Update: Make that five out of six.

Advertising to Baby Boomers Can Be Tricky Business
“Here are six slogans, corporate tags, mission statements, whatever you want to call them, for six web sites targeting Boomers.”

You’d better start searching for all these new ones Kevin is talking about because they’ll vanish into the unity before long.

Uh-oh. We’re in trouble…

Or we will be soon. Rapped on the knuckles come February:

Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
by Susan Jacoby
Anyone who has not been buried in an underground vault for the past two decades is surely aware of the media blitz touting “the new old age” as a phenomenon that enables people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond to enjoy rich, full, healthy, adventurous, sexy, financially secure lives that their ancestors could never have imagined. Much of this propaganda is aimed at baby boomers now in their late forties, fifties, and early sixties…

Hmmm.  Well, she’s not completely wrong.  Maybe a bit heavy-handed. (That ruler is gonna hurt.) 

Ms. Jacoby’s recent piece in the NYT:

Real Life Among the Old Old
You haven’t experienced cognitive dissonance until you receive a brochure encouraging you to spend thousands of dollars a year for long-term care insurance as you prepare to “defy” old age.

I haven’t read Ms. Jacoby’s book, but my guess is that I’ll agree with chunks of it. I have already. In my book and in a piece I wrote in 1995 – a few themes seem to meld, a few don’t:

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.”[1] 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: by 2046 a huge chunk Boomers will have passed 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 are 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.

© 2005 Chuck Nyren

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

---

Thanks to Tony Mariani (Rabbit Ears) for his encouraging words about my 2010 Wrap-Up Presentation.

Marc Middleton has some fun ripping open Christmas presents. (Huffington Post)

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.

U.S. Bank's Retirement Planning Center

A snippet from a short piece on The Finance and Commerce site:

U.S. Bank aims to take apprehension out of retirement planning
“There is a level of discomfort out in the marketplace,” said Dan McCormack, senior vice president for U.S. Bank Investments, which manages the centers. “Our vision for the Retirement Planning Center is to provide a relaxed, interactive experience where clients can … feel comfortable.”
Comfort starts with a coffee bar at the entry to the center where visitors can begin to review U.S. Bank’s retirement products on their own via laptops and online presentations. They can take their next step at the bar, too, visiting with the center’s concierge, who will listen and suggest some next conversations – at a time that the customer chooses. 

Two reasons I'm blogging this:

1. Yesterday I was interviewed by U.S. News & World Report about this subject.  (If I get ink, I'll blog it.  Maybe even if I don't get ink, I'll blog it.)
   
   
2. In the 2007 Edition of my book I tackled financial planning ad campaigns.  As an exercise I came up with an idea for a campaign. This 'pretend' campaign would work perfectly for U.S. Bank's Retirement Planning Center.  Summing up the exercise, an excerpt:

I would want Baby Boomers watching the spots to simply say to themselves, “That’s what I need to do. And it doesn’t look frightening. Or difficult. Or mind-numbing.”

No high-concept branding silliness. No empty, aspirational gobbledygook. No scare tactics. Your financial advisor is not a loveable rock star, the Pillsbury Doughboy, or the harbinger of homelessness.

I'm not thrilled that U.S. Bank uses the word 'retirement' - but other than that they have an intriguing marketing/business model.

Brain Games or Mind Games?

More bad news for brain games:

Think brain games make you smarter? Think again, researchers say
Brain games marketed by the billion-dollar brain-training industry don't improve cognition or help prevent age-related brain decline, new research finds…

“The thing that seniors in particular should be concerned about is, if I can get very good at crossword puzzles, is that going to help me remember where my keys are? And the answer is probably no.”

Forget Brain Games — They Won't Make You Smarter

No big surprise for dumb Chuck. Eight years ago I was skeptical (but mostly skeptical of the outrageous claims with no proof):

02 March 2009
The Brain Games Game
… My first exposure to the recent spate of brain games was at the 2004 Boomer Business Summit.  I scratched my not-too-bright head and wondered what the difference was between a brain game and any mind-bending game: Rubik's Cube, Scrabble, Sudoku, etc.  Obviously, this new crop of revolutionary IQ busters improved your brain power while all the others were, I guess, just for laughs. 

…  And that’s what bothered me about the marketing – and still does.  Are these new-fangled blinking lights on a screen the best way, the only way to keep your noggin nimble?  This seems to be the claim.  Or are they a new breed in a long line of cognitive games that go back to counting pebbles on a cave floor?

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…

Now we have proof.  Brain games do nothing but entertain – and don’t say otherwise or this is what’ll happen if you do:

06 January 2016
Brain Games: Hocus-Pocus Hyperbole
Looks like a not-so-bright company hawking a make-me-bright online game is in non-virtual hot water…

Want to kill time at the airport? Take out your smartphone and play a brain game. Want to get smarter? Read a book. Want to stay smart? Re-read a book.

---

Just for fun:

The Live Forever Diet
by Chuck Nyren
Scrumptious and so simple to prepare even a 112-year-old can do it.

We’re hot again.

For almost a month I’ve been on a Large Org Rampage, ignoring all late-breaking stories.  My news aggregator is clogged.  It needs a cleansing:

We’re hot again, wanted again, as we are every year or so for a brief time until everybody who wants us realizes they have no idea how to get our attention.

Dentists want us.

The Clergy wants us.

Book Publishers want us.

Even Hollywood wants us.

And to no one’s surprise, marketers and advertisers want us.  Recent headlines, with no links because it’s all been said before so why waste your time:

Advertising to the over 40s – the new rules of engagement

New Research Reveals Misconceptions of Baby Boomer Marketing

Marketing to Boomers Crucial to Bottom Line

Baby Boom Your Branding Strategy

Advertisers overlooking cashed-up Boomers

People are spending — just look at the Boomers

Marketing to Baby Boomers: A [Very] Valuable Demographic

I feel like Rip Van Winkle – except upon awakening nothing has changed – and that’s even more shocking….

One gold nugget from the sift:

Why You Should Remodel to 'Age in Place' Now
Safety and style should go hand in hand when making home modifications
By Louis Tenenbaum
… In my 35 years as a professional home remodeler, I've found that if I get clients to fold the health and safety solutions into the more enjoyable task of remodeling to suit their changing tastes, they are not only more responsive, but they're also excited and enthusiastic.

And thanks to two folks for mentioning me in their posts/articles:

Baby Boomer Bashing: I just don’t get it.
by Erin Read Ruddick

BOOMHER: A is for….
By Nancy Hill

The Future Of Consumer Doodad Technology

I’m stepping outside of my pundit-zone to babble about the future of  consumer doodad technology. 

What got me going:

It's Stupid and Insulting to Pitch 'Baby Boomers' As Tech Novices
Larry Magid, Contributor
… I was rather amused and a bit insulted when I got an email today from a PR person, offering  a”great idea for baby boomer and senior first time computer buyers looking to be a little bit more tech savvy.”

What an insult. If anything, it’s younger users who are already accustomed to easy-t0-use touch screen devices like the iPad that don’t ever require you to know how to use a mouse.

Ripping into flack confetti.  I’ve done that already so let’s skip it.

Tech genius kids.  I’ve done that already so let’s skip it...or, here’s a bit of it (July, 2007):

… On NPR recently there was a report about students who were given laptops instead of textbooks. While these kids certainly knew how to download music, hang out at Facebook, and play video games – they had real problems opening up and using a word processing program. Many had no idea how to save a document. And when they did save it, they couldn’t find it again to open and work on it – or figure out how to print it.

There’s also good news.

Back to the tech gizmos.  Getting our bearings:

01 May 2010
Foretellings
… With the exception of the workplace, smartphones (along with iPads and Kindles or something like them) might just make desktops and laptops and the web as we know it obsolete.

06 April 2010
The Obligatory iPad Post
I’ll wait for the model that won’t shatter when you drop it and can be rolled up to swat flies.

Everybody is talking about mobile … but what’s mobile?  Is a laptop mobile?  What if you have a tablet, and after carrying it around for awhile mostly to be really cool, you now leave it at home and use it there.  Is it still mobile?

I blabbed about this a year ago:

29 November 2011
Magazines Pull Back on Tablet Bells and Whistles
… The business world is too hung up on the operating systems and branding of smartphones and tablets, that within the next five years there will be all sorts of smartphones and tablets in all shapes and sizes, all with different functions and capabilities.

At first, folks carried around their iPads as status symbols.  Now, no one cares – so they’re left at home.  Tablets will become much bigger, lighter, and will be on your coffee table.

My point: You should stop thinking about the next big thingamabob and whose will be best.  In five or ten years there will be all sorts of thingamabobs for just about everything.  You’ll have two or three or ten thingamabobs.  Tablets/Smartphones will be big, small, thin, simple, complex, active, passive, out the door in your purse or pocket, lost in your couch cushions. 

Sure, I’m as insulted as Mr. Magid is.  There will always be a need for simple technology – but not in all cases and not based on the age of the user.  Some technology I want simple, some I want complex.  I can handle either.  So can most people.  But if you want complex only or simple only, no problem.

My comment posted to the Forbes’ piece:

Good points. I’ve been screaming about this for years in a book, numerous articles, my blog, and speaking/consulting gigs around the world.

The only issue is universal design and making technology easier for Boomers when it comes to font/graphic size, color contrasts, and tactile design. An ergonomic handle on a spatula is not ‘dumbing down’.

And some people are eschewing their thingamabobs for big chunks of the day.  I even know a few kids who are sick of it all,  in tech rebellion (except for smartphones), aren’t even futzing with Facebook or diddling with video games. For some misguided reason, they’re avoiding the norms and wondering if there might be more to life. 

That sounds a bit like another generation that came of age in the 1960s.

Alzheimer's: No Magic Bullet

In January, NostraChuckus predicted that this would be the year of the Baby Boomer Brain. He’s certainly done a miraculous job so far. Everywhere you turn there are new studies, new theories, new books about that super-charged soggy stuff stuffed in our noggins.

It’s not all good news.

Years Later, No Magic Bullet Against Alzheimer’s Disease
By Gina Kolata
New York Times
…So far, nothing has been found to prevent or delay this devastating disease, which ceaselessly kills brain cells, eventually leaving people mute, incontinent, unable to feed themselves, unaware of who they are or who their family and friends are.

“Currently,” the panel wrote, “no evidence of even moderate scientific quality exists to support the association of any modifiable factor (such as nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins or environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.”

…There is only poor evidence, for example, that keeping your brain active, having a high level of education or exercising has a protective effect.

What does this have to do with advertising?  It’s time to cease referencing Alzheimer’s when marketing products and services. There are plenty of valid reasons for eating healthy foods, exercising, or challenging yourself with new mind and body activities. Stop flashing the false hope of staving off a perplexing disease that frightens every Baby Boomer.

Slippery copy even invades respectable sites:

 

 

 

 

 

My advice has always been to take the high road with the 50+ Market.  They’ve been around long enough to recognize most B.S. – and when they feel they’ve been fooled, say goodbye to them.

Laurie Orlov’s take on it all: Alzheimer's hype, hope, oops...reality.

The Obligatory Follow-Up iPad (and Smartphone and QR Codes) Post

I have a handful of zombie posts – ones that keep getting oodles of hits year after year.  Over the last three months, one from April 2010 has crawled out of the grave, haunting  the internet.  It’s more popular now than when first published.

Why? I guess NostraChuckus has been divining the future behind my back:

The Obligatory iPad Post (April 2010)
“Used in relaxed mode…” (Dick Stroud) That reflects a lot of what I said way back in April ‘07 about the strength of magazines and why they’re not going away…

I use the word iPad as a generic term referring to all tablets, sort of like “Have you googled anything on Bing lately?”  Droid, Mac OS, Windows 7 – don’t ask me about that stuff.  I’m more interested in the concept and how it impacts advertising and marketing to Baby Boomers.

A handful of news stories:

As PCs Wane, Companies Look to Tablets
By VERNE G. KOPYTOFF and IAN AUSTEN
…Computer makers are expected to ship only about 4 percent more PCs this year than last year, according to IDC, a research firm. Tablets, in contrast, are flying off store shelves.

Sounds familiar.  At least to NostraChuckus:

Foretellings (2010)
…With the exception of the workplace, smartphones (along with iPads and Kindles or something like them) might just make desktops and laptops and the web as we know it obsolete.  If ‘being connected’ mostly means communicating with friends, doing simple search, reading the news - then all that’s really needed is a smartphone. 

Ad Campaign Effectiveness Dives
by Steve McClellan
…Certain segments in the online space were more sharply impacted during the reported period. Display ads and sponsorships were down 26% and 35%, respectively, in customer engagement.

Online ads generally were 25% less effective than traditional ads for "incremental customer demand generation," per the report.

What a surprise:

Click this ad. 0.051% do.
… a tiny fraction of people ever click on an ad. In fact, 99% of stable cookies examined never click on an ad … optimization of campaigns to achieve higher CTR may in fact be reducing brand ROI.

And…

Smartphones & Usability
There is no way anybody, no matter what age, will put up with graphic gizmo advertising on smartphones.  Simple Fact: The real estate isn’t there.

New Study Reveals Generational Differences in Mobile Device Usage
Boomers are the most likely buyers of eReaders…  More than 9 out of 10 Boomers (92%) use the device at home, 13% at work, and 36% power up their eReaders while on the go.

Baby Boomers Up-to-Date on Smartphone Technology, Study Finds
"It is a common misconception that smartphones are complicated or hard to operate," Marick said. "But as we see in this survey, an overwhelming majority of current smartphone owners ages 40-plus were able to teach themselves the functions of their device."

Wow.  What a shock.  From my book, first published in 2005:

Shock redux:

Snake Oil In Cyberspace (February 2009)
A recent report from Forrester Research indicates that while it might be tempting to categorize all aging Americans as techno-dinosaurs and Luddites, more than 60 percent of baby boomers are avid consumers of social media like blogs, forums, podcasts and online videos…

Perhaps … it is simply a case of older users being a bit more savvy about marketing ploys, social networking, and the intermixing of the two.

QR Codes are beginning to play a big part in it all:

Foretellings II
How revolutionary!  How clever we are in this modern day and age!  Imagine! Using your phone to order from a grocery store and having your items delivered!  What’ll they think of next?

But …

QR Code Scanners Skew Male, Young, Wealthy

However, the numbers aren’t shoddy for Baby Boomers.  And add this into the equation:

Home Most Popular QR Code Location
The most popular source of a scanned QR code was a printed magazine or newspaper, with nearly half (49.4%) scanning QR codes from this source…

Among mobile users who scanned a QR code on their mobile devices in June, 58% did so from their home…

And that brings me to my mantra, repeated so many times by yours truly that I’m even sick of hearing it.  Update it a bit with QR codes:

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

What can be gleaned from this meandering, bloated post? 

• Smartphones are used to scan QR codes while reading newspapers and magazines at home.
• The perfect tablet (someday) for Baby Boomers will be big, thin, light, unbreakable – and while you’ll be able to use it for search, email, Facebooky things, etc. – it will mostly be for curling up on a couch and reading your favorite magazines, newspapers, books, watching short videos, etc.  I think we used to call this ‘alone time’.

Takeaways:

• Television, Magazines, Radio, Outdoor: Advertising 
• Smartphones: Some Marketing on steroids, no advertising
• Tablets: Advertising, maybe some marketing – but you’d better be careful.  Remember – most  Baby Boomers will be in ‘relaxed mode’ when using tablets. 

If you don’t know what ‘relaxed mode’ is:

Positioning Magazines for Baby Boomers April 2007