Week Old No News News

I didn’t get around to blogging about some no news news when it wasn’t news a week or so ago.  Now is as late a time as any:

Top retail products being sold to Baby Boomers
Baby boomers are responsible for nearly half of all consumer-packaged goods (CPGs) purchases, according to Nielsen’s August 2012 findings. CPGs include products ranging from foods and drinks, to health and beauty products, to household and pet products.

So along with the obvious stuff, Boomers purchase just about everything else.  Sounds familiar:

14 December 2008
Baby Boomers: A Force to Reckon With
Households with baby boomer members -- born between 1946 and 1964 -- account for nearly $230 billion in sales of consumer packaged-goods (CPG) products and represent 55 percent of total CPG sales…

16 September 2009
Boomer Backlash II
The Real Issue: Marketing and advertising folks grasping the fact that Boomers will be buying billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of non-age related products for the next twenty-odd years. If you target this group for toothpaste, computers, clothes, food, nail polish, sporting equipment, toenail clippers - anything at all (almost), and you do it with respect and finesse, they will appreciate and consider your product.   

Automobiles:

Boomers Replace Their Children as No. 1 Market for Autos
The 55-to-64-year-old age group, the oldest of the boomers, has become the cohort most likely to buy a new car…

Sounds familiar:

12 March 2009
Who’s gonna buy this car?
In 2005 on The Advertising Show yours truly had a spirited discussion with hosts Brad Forsythe and Ray Schilens.  A chunky segment was about marketing autos to Boomers.

03 May 2012
67% Of All Sales…
I haven’t invoked NostraChuckus in awhile.  He’s that Great Seer of The Obvious and The Mundane. 

More no news news:

'Selfish' Baby Boomers Give Way More to Charity Than Gen X or Gen Y
… Baby boomers account for 43% of all charitable giving in the U.S., far and away the largest amount given by the four demographic measured in the study.

Sounds familiar:

Me vs. We  11 February 2008

Me vs. We Redux  26 June 2009

Me vs. We Redux Redux 22 October 2009

Or …

Consider this post prophetic, for there will be much more of the same no news news in the future.

»»» Update 15 August 2013
Looks like The Wall Street Journal has finally caught up to what I’ve been saying since 2005:

Who's Buying 'Youth' Cars? Seniors
Boomers Are Prime Buyers for Small Vehicles That Auto Makers Target at Hipsters

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)

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.

Coughlin on Advertising

Dr. Joseph Coughlin of MIT AgeLab has been peeking through the ether here for years: 

29 November 2010
Tech & Baby Boomers: Universal Design vs. Universally Dull

 

Joe Coughlin

Disruptive Demographics is on my must-read list and always worth it.  A recent post:

Casting a New Dream of Old Age
Joseph F Coughlin
…Images of ‘aging’ have been on television for years. The famous, some might say infamous, ‘help I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ commercial for Life Call’s personal emergency response system has shaped much of the public’s perception of products for older consumers…

Sounds right to me.  From Advertising to Baby Boomers © 2005, 2007:

The Geritol Syndrome (pages 14-18)
The Geritol campaigns were successful because of their simple, direct messages. A similar campaign today, using vague, anxiety-ridden scare tactics might not work for Baby Boomers. We’re too smart (or perhaps too jaded) to be fooled by hackneyed situations and simplistic answers.

More from Dr. Coughlin:

… These images have done more than sell a product, they have reinforced an image of aging. Message – older people are frail, sick and need this product to manage old age.

No kidding.

16 September 2009
Boomer Backlash II
… If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

Joe sent me an email the other day about his post: 

…. I thought I would share with you my rookie attempt at observing some messaging in advertising…

Hardly a rookie.  MIT AgeLab is the gold-standard for aging research, and that includes universal design and marketing:

NavStudio
The NavStudio provides a research platform to understand how consumers successfully navigate, become distracted, lost, give-up, or put-off decisions in the information seeking process in their interaction with print materials, packaging, the web and other forms of goal oriented communication.

While my sole contribution to it all is a fool-proof method for opening candy wrappers:

2 June 2006
Boomers in Candyland
I can rip open any dumb, stupid candy wrapper with my bare hands .... as long as one of my bare hands is holding a pair of pliers.

Collected posts about Universal Design (with Dr. Coughlin and AgeLab references sprinkled throughout):

The Aging In Place & Universal Design Posts

Your Financial Advisor Is Not The Pillsbury Doughboy

A piece with not much new, but worth a look:

Silver Tsunami: Getting Real with Boomers
By Paul Menchaca   
February 17, 2010

This independent nature, which many boomers adopted when they were young, is now guiding them to retirement. Autonomy — or the ability to age in place — is part of a five-point value system that Sullivan applies to boomers. The others: Connectivity to family and friends; altruism, or the desire to give back to causes or charities which are important to them; and personal growth, whether it’s mentally or spiritually; and revitalization—through hobbies, travel or other activities.

So what does this mean to advisors?
According to Sullivan, it provides financial planners a means for connecting with their clients.

It all reminds me of a section in my book where I come up with a mock campaign for a financial services company: 


 
Take a look at this campaign for more inspiration:

Boomer Backlash II
The new TV commercials have ordinary boomer men and women engaged in some unscripted banter … The TV spots are carefully crafted to appeal to boomers…

Barbara Hannah Grufferman on Anti-Aging

There’s a new voice (and beautiful face, if I may be excused for being a tad philogynous) talking lots of sense:

Barbara Hannah Grufferman is the author of The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money and More, a resource book which addresses many of the concerns of women over 50…

Ms. Grufferman is the latest in a long line of fascinating and intelligent women “of a certain age” (whatever that means).  Scrolls and scrolls, parchment or ether, would be needed to list them all.  A few off the top of my head:  Myrna Blyth, Marti Barletta, Gail Sheehy, Mary Furlong, Carol Orsborn.

I stumbled upon an excellent piece along with a short, trenchant video (produced by my friends at Growing Bolder):

Is The Anti-Aging Industry Bad for Our Health?
Barbara Hannah Grufferman
A new study finds that the absence of older women in magazines wreaks havoc with our self-esteem. It isn't limited to just the images on the covers: An analysis of editorial and advertising images reveals that despite proportions of older readers ranging as high as 23 percent, magazines (even those supposedly geared to women over 40) show older women infrequently, if at all. Magazines geared toward older women generally show young, thin, wrinkle-free women on their pages . . . an "ideal" that's impossible to sustain, even with the use of Botox, fillers, or plastic surgery. Now experts are saying these media messages threaten to cause eating disorders, low self-esteem, and loss of sexuality in post50 women.

Find more inspiring video, audio, and images at Growing Bolder.

Botox.  That sounds familiar.  From 2003:

Don't call them old
By Jean Starr
Chuck Nyren is a leading creative consultant, copywriter, and columnist, who focuses on baby boomer demography, sociology and culture.

"Not wanting to get/be/look older isn't anything new. However, baby boomers will do it a bit differently," he said. "Looking and being healthy will be more important than toupees and botox. While botox and the like are getting a lot of press, I'm guessing only a small percentage of people are using stuff like that. Being able to ride a bike, play tennis and garden will be more important than looking good and feeling (bad)."

Airbrushing:

Twiggy & Me
Way back in July 2009, NostraChuckus mentioned something about Twiggy’s airbrushed Olay ad in one of his lantern and shadow shows.

Self-Esteem:

It won’t hurt you to watch the first minute of this:

2007 European Tour

Anti-aging?  What’s wrong with that?

The Best Anti-Aging Products, Services, and Activities: Guaranteed!

There’s also something called Graywashing.

And the advertising industry screwing up:

Boomer Backlash II
If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

“But more importantly, isn't it time to rise up and demand that the media - and the advertisers that support magazines, television, and radio - change how they engage with us?”

It’s people like all the ones I’ve mentioned who for years have been challenging the myopia of media and advertising.

Keep plugging away, Ms. Grufferman. 

More No News News

But it’s nice to see people blogging about it:

Baby Boomers: Consumers Ready To Buy
A look at the American advertising landscape shows that Boomers are virtually ignored. A review of numerous commercials finds that, excluding financial firms and pharmaceuticals/OTC products, most companies are doing little in the way of courting Boomers. Older faces are virtually non-existent in commercials and on websites for products and services used by Boomers …

Gee, that’s my book, my blog, my articles, my speaking/consulting since 2003 – in a nutshell. 

I’d link to every blog post about it all – but that would be every blog post. So, just one (although the links to the commercials are gone):

Boomer Backlash II
If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

 The Real Issue: Marketing and advertising folks grasping the fact that Boomers will be buying billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of non-age related products for the next twenty-odd years. If you target this group for toothpaste, computers, clothes, food, nail polish, sporting equipment, toenail clippers - anything at all (almost), and you do it with respect and finesse, they will appreciate and consider your product.   

A quote from my book (1^st Edition published in 2005):

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.”

AARP Is All New Redux: Part III (The Magazine)

There is a slow overhaul of AARP Magazine going on, no doubt for the better.

While not privy to the changes, I do know that Myrna Blyth, former editor/publisher of a slew of top-notch magazines (Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, More, and even more) is now Editorial Director of AARP Media.  AARP can’t do much better than that.

I won’t comment on the content of AARP Magazine over the last ten years. I will comment on the advertising.

A post from 2007:

Positioning Magazines for Baby Boomers
There are active and passive parts of our day. Without getting into too much psychobabble, as you get older the passive side needs more nourishment. It’s not really passive. It’s focused absorption. At some point you have to climb out of your frenetic digital nest and concentrate on one thing. It might be reading a book, watching a TV show or movie, listening to music, looking out the window.

Or immersing yourself in a magazine.

This isn’t ‘down time’ (that would be sleeping), but nourishing your psyche by absorbing and not actively being involved in what you’re doing.

From another post:

An attractive magazine arriving in the mail gets your attention.  It hangs out on the table, inviting you to do some easy, restful leafing – at least until recycle day rolls around.

What makes AARP Magazine unattractive: The Ads.  They’re ugly, and the subtext is always “You’re old and sick.”  Who wants to leaf through such icky stuff over and over in every issue? 

While it’s a freebie with your AARP enrollment, and 37 million copies are mailed, something tells me that a very large chunk of people simply toss their copies.  One of the reasons: They don’t want to see the ads.  They don’t want to see only ugly ads about how old or sick they might or might not be – or even worse, might be someday:

I counted one non-age/malady ad in the February/March issue – for Bose audio. 

Related:

16 September 2009
Boomer Backlash II
Why couldn’t it have been a car?  Laundry soap?  Baked Beans? Gender-specific razors? Aluminum foil? Anything but some age-related malady.

Add to all this something everybody knows already:  Readers devour magazines not only for editorial but for advertisements. They look forward to makeup and fashion ads, car ads, home-improvement ads, smartphone/tablet/tech ads.  Did I leave any out? 

For specialty magazines, ads are even more appreciated: Mechanics, DIY items, automobile enhancements, exercise equipment, crafts, cooking, travel.  Did I leave any out?

I have a tough time believing that anybody rifles through AARP Magazine excitedly looking for the latest in hearing aids and stair-lifts.  

Advice for AARP Magazine:

Sure, your media folks have a tough sell. And they know it and do their best:

A new campaign aimed at advertisers themselves features people in their 50s and early 60s, and argues that brands should be focusing on them, not people ages 18 to 34…

Dump the shotgun approach and suck them in. Plan an issue with no age/malady related ads allowed and one-time only rates advertisers can’t refuse. Practically give the ad pages away. 

Lose lots of money with this issue, but fill it up with beautiful, sumptuous, high-quality ads for Cars, Swiffer Dusters, Vacation Packages from whomever, Laundry Soap, Fashion Items (did I read something recently about J. Jill?), Warby Parker, Ikea, Smartphones, Tablets, Apple, Microsoft.  Did I leave any out?

Make it up to the age/malady advertisers by giving them discounts for the following six issues. 

Of course, I would leave editorial in the expert hands of Ms. Blyth and others – but might suggest this: For one issue, no articles about being old or sick. 

Put those aspirational TV spots aside for a month and toss up a few about this special issue of AARP Magazine (without really saying what’s so special about it).  Make sure advertisers know that you plan to promote the issue with a national television campaign.

My Bet: AARP Media will attract more major advertisers. 
__

For reference:

21 March 2013
AARP Is All New Redux: Part I
AARP is ‘rebranding’ itself for the umpteenth time.

27 March 2013
AARP Is All New Redux: Part II
AARP will also step up its efforts to help businesses develop “their 50-plus strategy”…

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:

Lumosity fined millions for making false claims about brain health benefits
…The shine has come off Lumosity with an announcement by federal investigators that the makers must pay $2m to settle a charge that it made fraudulent claims and “preyed on consumers’ fears”.

Although lucky for them, a big chunk of the penalty is virtual:

…The company has also been handed a $50m penalty for harming consumers – but the fine is suspended because the company cannot afford to pay it, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)…

Nostrachuckus warned of a backlash. Links to three long-ago posts:

02 March 2009
The Brain Games Game

08 December 2009
Your Brain on Games

21 April 2010
Your Brain On Games Redux

Random snippets from the posts above:

…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.  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.

…What’s the story with advertising and Brain Games? Because of clumsy tactics, most advertising/marketing/PR is still doing more harm than good.

…Obviously I’m not qualified to comment on whether these digital gizmos revivify your rotting noggin.  However, for years I’ve questioned why the hype was so thick.  Did it have to be?

… 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.

More:

FTC: ‘Brain training’ brand Lumosity didn’t have the research to back up its claims (Washington Post)

Lumosity to settle deceptive ‘brain training’ health claims (STAT)

Marketers Should Be Wary of Playing Up Living Long

Buzz McClain, a twisted freelance writer and Editor of Selling To Seniors, called me not too long ago. We chatted for a bit, and out popped this:

Marketers Should Be Wary of Playing Up Living Long
Rarely has someone in marketing been as frank as Chuck Nyren. The international creative strategist, consultant, columnist, speaker and award-winning copywriter doesn't hesitate to take the sizzle right out of anyone's seemingly misguided marketing campaign, particularly those aimed at Boomers…

The piece is behind a pay wall, so I’d cause even more trouble if I drilled a hole and sucked out more. 

What prompted Buzz to buzz me:

03 January 2011
Uh-oh. We’re in trouble…
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.

Buzz McClain on Boomer Authority™.

Joseph Coughlin: The Longevity Economy

"Old age (as a concept) is made up. Most of it was invented by human beings for short-term, human purposes over the past century and a half. Today, we’re stuck with a notion of oldness that is so utterly at odds with reality that it has become dangerous. It constrains what we can do as we age, which is deeply troubling, considering that the future of our older world will naturally hinge on the actions of the older people in it."
– Dr. Joseph Coughlin

I met Joe Coughlin in 2006. We were presenting at a private conference for a pharma outfit, still wet behind our hairy ears.

I had attended and/or spoke at various marketing and boomer conferences - and thought I’d heard it all. But Joe’s presentation was like no other. We chatted on and off through the day and shared a cab to the airport.

Since then, Dr. Coughlin and MIT AgeLab have become potent forces researching, investigating, educating, and promoting all things elder.

The focus of AgeLab has evolved. In the beginning it was gizmos, mostly. Now it encompasses just about every facet of age-related life:

AgeLab Research Themes & Projects

Dr. Coughlin’s new book is likewise like no other.

The Longevity Economy
… Coughlin provides deep insight into a population for whom the defiance of expectations is the new normal, and who are building a striking, unheralded vision of longer life that very few in business see coming. His focus on women -- who are leading the charge away from traditional ideas of retirement toward tomorrow's narrative -- is especially illuminating …

Google The Longevity Economy and/or Joseph Coughlin for press and reviews, along with videos of his appearances over the last decade.

My take:

Dr. Coughlin covers a handful of subjects I’ve written and talked about for years: advertising/marketing and the horrors of not understanding this demographic, the importance of entrepreneurs, the power of women as decision-makers, etc.

What I love about the book: Joe’s fascination with history. No matter what the subject, he delves into all the antecedents.

My presentations usually include a history of advertising. I talk about diversity and creativity through the years. So, I’m a sucker for history.

For me, the paragraph summing up the book is on (appropriately enough) page sixty-five:

A few selections from my book and blog:

Advertising to Baby Boomers, ©2005,2007
… I'm fifty-four, and (according to the advertising and marketing industry) I haven't brushed my teeth, bought laundry soap, purchased a shirt, or taken a shower in almost twenty years. And as far as big ticket items - well, those rabbit ears work just fine on my 13-inch black & white T.V. They just need a nudge and a jiggle every now and then, that's all. And if a new needle is needed for my phonograph, I just get in my '73 Pinto and head over to the Goodwill and, when no one's looking, twist one off of a dusty old turntable and put it in my pocket ...

09 April 2009
Why couldn’t it have been…?
… I guess what upsets me about this campaign is not the campaign itself.  I like it.  I see people around my age – they’re entertaining, loose, funny. I’m wondering what the payoff will be. What a letdown. 
Why couldn’t it have been a car?  Laundry soap?  A computer?  A razor?  Anything but some age-related malady …

16 September 2009
Boomer Backlash II
… If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

The Real Issue: Marketing and advertising folks grasping the fact that Boomers will be buying billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of non-age related products for the next twenty-odd years. If you target this group for toothpaste, computers, clothes, food, nail polish, sporting equipment, toenail clippers - anything at all (almost), and you do it with respect and finesse, they will appreciate and consider your product.

I’ve been scribbling and bellowing about advertising and baby boomers since 2003. After the first few years it dawned on me that I was part of a bigger picture. Admitted blustery profundity: We’re changing society and the effects will be felt for generations. Millennials will be old someday and they’ll be old longer than we’ll be old. We’re paving the way.

There are lots of folks who’ve educated us and continue to educate us. Names off the top of my head: Robert N. Butler, David Wolfe, Ken Dychtwald, John Migliaccio, Kurt Medina, Matt Thornhill, Brent Green, Marti Barletta, Mary Furlong, Myrna Blyth, Carol Orsborn, Rick Moody, Mark Miller, Paul Kleyman, Scott Rains, Kevin Lavery, Dick Stroud, Reg Starkey, Laurie Orlov, Richard Adler, Todd Harff, Bill Thomas, Louis Tenenbaum, Arjan in’t Veld, Martijn de Haas, David Cravit, Moses Znaimer, Maxime de Jenlis, Florian Kohlbacher, Christopher Simpson, Gail Sheehy, Marc Middleton, Ronni Bennett, Jim Gilmartin, Gill Walker, Dave McCaughan, Kim Walker, Tony Mariani, Barry Robertson, Frédéric Serriere, Bob Hoffman, have I left any out? No doubt.

Joe Coughlin is the Point Man/Person at the moment. Read the book.

---

Posts about MIT AgeLab and Joseph Coughlin:

22 April 2008
Bookmarked Brains: MIT AgeLab

19 May 2009
Fast Company Names Joseph Coughlin to Top 100 List

12 April 2010
Designing for Older Consumers

04 August 2010
Universal Design As A Beginning, Not An End

---

Just for fun:

The Dotty Thing
by Chuck Nyren
On the way to the store to do Thanksgiving dinner shopping. She’s thumbing through the newspaper inserts and reviewing her list …