What's Next? Boomer Business Summit

I'll be hopping off the blogging merry-go-round for a week or so to participate in Mary Furlong & Associates/BFA's Third Annual What's Next? Boomer Business Summit in Anaheim.

Jon Currie (Currie Communications) and Yours Truly will be entertaining the troops with a handpicked handful of commercials targeting Baby Boomers (Pillsbury, Stainmaster Carpet, etc). In everybody's welcome packet will be a survey. After being crunched by Currie, the results will be available to the participants.

There's also an Author's "On the Beat" Luncheon (scroll a screen or two). Some good folks have been lined up.

Although I'm not at all happy. When you register for the Summit, you pick your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices for authors you'd like to sit with — and I didn't get any of my choices (Myrna Blyth, Dr. Susan Love, Brent Green). That's because the powers-that-be have insisted that I sit at my table. So ..... if you're being forced to eat lunch with me, I'll be as upset about it as you are.

Then I'll spend the next day schmoozing and doing a book signing at 2006 ASA-NCOA Joint Conference on Aging.

And for the last few days I'll be in LA mixing business with pleasure, and generally causing trouble.

Back on the merry-go-round in a week.

Braving the old attitudes and being thankful for the new.

Along with some revealing numbers crunching, Matt Thornhill's Boomer Project newsletter for March features a short interview with Leonard Steinhorn about the reaction to his superlative trouble-making book, The Greater Generation (scroll down three or four screens):

"Most gratifying to me is how positive the reaction has been. I've gotten hundreds of e-mails and letters, and a good three-fourths say that the book speaks to them both culturally and personally. Some - - particularly those working in nonprofits or other social change work -- say that my book puts their lives and pursuits in a larger generational perspective, that they're not so alone in what they've done. Some -- mostly women and minorities - - share their own stories of braving the old attitudes and being thankful for the new."

Check out the book on Amazon.com — but, as Matt says:

"The only negatives we've seen about the book are postings on Amazon's site -- which read like an organized smear effort..."

I've read the book - and will put up an Amazon.com review soon.

Advertising/Marketing Article of The Month

Probably of the year:

Is Word Of Mouth All It's Cracked Up To Be?
by Jack Trout in Forbes

"How many people really want to chatter about products? Do you really want to talk about your toothpaste or your toilet paper? ..... This all brings me to my word-of-mouth on word-of-mouth marketing. It's not the next big thing. It's just another tool in your arsenal. If you have a way to get your strategy or point of difference talked about by your customers and prospects, that's terrific. It will help, but you're going to have to surround it with a lot of other effort, including, if you'll pardon the expression, advertising. You just can't buy mouths the way you can buy media. And mouths can stop talking about you in a heartbeat once something else comes along to talk about."

So what brilliant insights can I, advertising to Baby Boomers author, creative strategist, and blogger extraordinaire, add to this article?

.... Whoops. I've exposed myself. I can't think of a thing.

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Update 4/4/06: Listen to Jack Trout, Steve Rubel, and others discuss WOM marketing on Jack Trout Radio.

Reuters & Brandweek & Baby Boomers

Freelancer Linda Stern writes about financial matters for Reuters. She made me chuckle today when I read this juicy aside in her latest article, How to ride that aging baby-boomer wave:

"…and, of course, Ameriprise Financial (AMP), the financial services company behind those embarrassingly annoying (or is it annoyingly embarrassing?) '60s nostalgia ads."

Brandweek has a guest piece about advertising to Baby Boomers. I agree with about two, maybe three of the eleven suggestions — and I bet you can guess that the first suggestion isn't one of them. Circle 2, 8 & 10 — although I've already made these points in my book and this blog.

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Technorati Tags: advertising; baby boomers; advertising to baby boomers

What kind of classic are you?

Clothing retailer, cataloger, and e-tailer (their word) Talbots has a new campaign:

The "What kind of classic are you?" TV spot seeks to connect with boomer females through a story of four women who gather for a reunion weekend to reminisce and share stories, with Talbots' wardrobes featured throughout.

I haven't seen the spots, can't read the copy on the graphic I've tossed up - but we get the general idea.

I have problems with personality profiling. (Lifestyle profiling, fine.) True or not, Baby Boomers think of themselves as individualistic folk - so if you market to them it's not wise to squeeze'em into little boxes, neatly (and presumptuously) defined.

Besides, what's Talbots selling, anyway? Clothes ..... or Baby Boomers?

You decide.

Technorati Tags: advertising; baby boomers; advertising to baby boomers