Boomer Marketing Basics

Brent Green, marketing/advertising creative director, consultant, and author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers offers this crash course in Boomer Marketing Basics.

An excerpt:

Boomers resonate with marketing messages that help them process their lives. Although they still maintain youthful idealism and verve in many ways, they are now middle-aged adults with middle-aged value frameworks.

Brent calls it the 'cliff notes' version of his book. I think it's more like a script for one of those minute-long versions of famous plays. The characters and dialogue go whizzing by, it's frenetic and fun, but...

Absorb it, get your bearings - then tackle the unexpurgated folio. You'll be thoroughly engrossed and enlightened. (And if you have a consumer product or service, you might even learn how to make a lot more money.)

Marketing to young people is fun!

Bill Virgin, a fellow I read regularly not simply because he's my local newpaper's top business writer — but because he's such a troublemaker — has this to say in today's Seattle P.I.:

Marketing to young people is fun! You get to talk about cool ideas and hot fads and pretend you can actually predict what the next trend will be!

Marketing to old people, by contrast, is boring -- too boring to bother with, except for three inconvenient facts: There are a lot of old people out there. The number of old people is growing. And they're the ones with the money.

No News News

If any of this surprises you.....

Culled from a report by Jupiter Research, Internet Retailer reports Baby Boomers spend more online than other age groups:

37% of online baby boomers who bought products or services on the web said they spent more than $250 in the prior three months. That compares with 32% of online users in all age groups, Jupiter said. 76% of baby boomers have made online purchases of products or services.

Imagine if a company decided to truly target Baby Boomers, if their site was truly boomer-friendly, if Baby Boomer creatives actually designed the site, wrote the copy... imagine how this product or service would break away from the pack...

Boomers TV

This post is about advertising Baby Boomers, not advertising to Baby Boomers...

And I don't know anything about the project, but it's certainly worth a few clicks:

Boomers: Redefining Life After 50, a 13-part series of half-hour magazine style programs that examines the issues, challenges and opportunities facing Boomers as they contemplate their 50’s, 60’s and beyond. Hosted by Mark & Nancy Mills.

At The What's Next? Boomer Business Summit this year, Nancy and Mark interviewed and recorded my colleague Brent Green. Have a listen.

Mark and Nancy are hoping to sell the series to Public Television. Program funding is provided by Fidelity Investments and Del Webb Corp., a division of Pulte Homes, Inc.

Keep an eye out for it in January, 2006.

Vega aims for mid-age cherry pickers

What do I know about Australian Baby Boomers? Nothing. There are experts in the field, however.

Because I know nothing, this article from the Sidney Morning Herald fascinated me (you may have to log in). Especially after such recent shortsightedness in the Big Apple and elsewhere.

Cherry-picking from the article:

DMG Radio has confirmed widely held expectations that its new Vega FM stations in Sydney and Melbourne will target about 3 million metropolitan baby boomers who are cherry picking their mix of news, current affairs, talkback and music from a variety of radio stations.

Vega settled on its music strategy less than three weeks ago after eight months research but is saying little about its programming until Monday when the station starts broadcasting at 11am. "It will be a play list beyond the dimensions that have been contemplated before," Mr. Thompson said. "It's going to be different and much larger."

Media buyers and advertisers reacted positively, saying the station would gain immediate advertising support.

Here's more about it from another Australian news source.

This business model/program strategy should be vetted by the powers-that-be here in the U.S.