The Brouhaha Over WOMM Returns

This was the poster for the 2005 WOMMA conference:

You should probably read my post about WOMM from December 2006 so what follows is put in perspective.

From the LA Times and Josh Friedman:

Blogging for dollars raises questions of online ethics
Thousands of bloggers are writing sponsored posts touting such diverse topics as diamonds, digital cameras and drug clinics. The bloggers are spurred by new marketing middlemen such as PayPerPost Inc. that connect advertisers with mom-and-pop webmasters.

Regarding Baby Boomers – at this point, it’s really not much of an issue because newfangled word-of-mouth marketing techniques – good/bad, ethical/unethical – really don’t have much impact:

Boomer communications are personal in nature. Eighty-four percent of boomer recommendations are made face-to-face and 82 percent by phone, as opposed to 45 percent that are made online.

What should the PR/WOMM standard be for Baby Boomers? Like I’ve said, make it simple, direct, and (an overused phrase, I know) transparent:

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?

There was a WOMMA conference recently. I’m not sure what this sign referred to at the conference – why it was up, if there was a session about it, if it was officially sanctioned:

(photo by Josh Hallett)

Pretty funny. I railed about this theme for their conference two years ago.

Reaching Baby Boomers (and, I bet, most other demos): Good ol’ fashioned advertising, marketing, PR. And good web sites. Sure, pay attention to these fresh WOMM techniques – but if you think any of it is new, any of it will somehow replace advertising and marketing ...

Then I have the proverbial bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell. Could you get the word out for me?

New Fidelity Campaign

Fidelity Investments has a new ad campaign. It looks good, sounds good. Certainly better than …

Ross Kerber of the Boston Globe has an interesting, well-researched piece about it:

One ad, for instance, shows a couple with the husband talking about putting his retirement savings through a "rollover, turnover, whatever."

"The more people talk about their finances, the more successful they are," said Claire Huang, Fidelity's executive vice president for marketing, describing the research.

"The normal financial-services ads show babies, brides, and super-boomers who surf or skydive. We're about just regular people trying to engage in conversations."

In the updated 2nd Edition of my book there is a huge chunk of a chapter where, as an exercise, I put together a viable campaign for a financial planning company - and it looks and feels a lot like this one.

Actually, my idea takes their idea to the next level. It'll be interesting (at least for me) to see if this campaign will eventually end up being more or less what I came up with.

Positioning Magazines for Baby Boomers

I’ve been doing a lot of consulting for magazines/magazine web sites lately. When I present at a public or private conference and the attendees are involved in print, included is a large chunk about positioning magazines for Baby Boomers. And I’m informally asked about this subject on a regular basis. Here’s a quick version of what I say:

Take a look at this classic commercial from the early 1980s ...


That was before desktop computers, cell phones, IM, BlackBerrys, Twitter, etc. If done today the spot might still be funny and persuasive, but would reflect a different ethos - because for many of us life is like that. I know a big chunk of mine is. (We have a new, cute term for it: multitasking.)

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.

When radios became must-haves in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the doomsayers said that this would be the end of magazines and newspapers. When television became popular in the late 1940s and early 1950s the doomsayers said that this would be the end of radio. When the WWW became popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s the doomsayers said that this would be the end of everything. They’re still saying it.

I think not. (Although I do wonder about the fate of daily newspapers.)

Magazines do not compete with the various offerings slithering and exploding in a digital nest. If you fashion a web site for your magazine it would be wise to make it a different experience – because it will be whether you like it or not. It’s a web site, not a magazine. Certainly a bit of cross-promotion, a bit of cross-branding should be a part of the experience. I might suggest the same logo but a different layout and color palette. Certainly different content.

To position the magazine in a promotional campaign place it far away from the interactive frenzy. It’s like a pleasant dinner, a walk, a good movie, a good book – to be singularly appreciated. Too often, I see magazines desperately trying to compete with and within the digital nest. This nest is here to stay – but for a big part of their day Baby Boomers are happy to fly far from all the chaos and into another nest – one that is warm and nourishing. That’s where they will find, among other delectable items, your magazine.

Market To The Max in Seattle

Next month I’ll be speaking at the Seattle Direct Marketing Association’s event Market to The Max:

The marketing industry heats up more every day, with advanced technologies, privacy concerns, and an increasingly fickle audience. Never fear! With 16 sessions to choose from, you're sure to find the topics that concern you most in these turbulent times.

Lots of interesting folks are involved, including one of my favorite bloggers Robert Scoble. He blogs about blogging – also used to work for Microsoft and wrote a lot about it.

I’ll probably ruffle some feathers with my take on WOMM. We’ll see …
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I love getting emails like this one from yesterday:

Dear Chuck Nyren,

I am a Portuguese sociologist that recently founded an event planning company to the 50+ market. Well, I always liked marketing and communications subjects, so now I feel I need to have deeper knowledge. I'm researching on the best way to communicate with the 50+ market in Portugal. I am reading Dick Stroud's book, and it as been very useful to me, as well as his blog. Then I found your blog too and it really has been very interesting. Let me congratulate you for your work and site! Thank you so much for all the help you are indirectly giving me in this very beginning of my business venture! Wish you all the best and hope to keep in touch with you!

Cumprimentos,
Best regards,
J.V.

It’s always a pleasurable shock when you find out that people around the world are reading your blog, your book – even if you haven’t a clue what they’re saying.

Centrum Silver's Strip Poker Spot Not

Gill Walker of Evergreen Marketing in Australia sent a few of us agency and marketing folk an email. The subject line: We love strip poker. No comment in the message body, just a movie file attachment of a commercial.

When I watch commercials I try not to bring all my professional baggage along for the first visit. So … I mildly chuckled at this Centrum spot:


Kind of clever. A bit hokey. Actually, a Cocoon knock-off. But cute.

Of course, as a piece of persuasion - it fails. The spot is rife with ageism, and (even worse) portrays the target market as a bunch of delusional imbeciles.

I'm assuming that the target market is not Baby Boomers. These folks look to be in their seventies and eighties. As an exercise, let's refashion this ad for Boomers by making it appealing and persuasive:

Keep the first half of the spot, maybe shorten it a bit. We hear a door open. Pan. Barreling in are two twenty/thirty something adults (maybe with their young children). "Mom, Dad - we're dropping in because ..."

The pan back to the poker table reveals four people in their fifties/sixties, still looking pretty good - maybe with a few potbellies, a bald head, etc. They're healthy, animated, colorful. Both groups (at the door and at the table) are shocked, uncomfortable. The young adults at the door squirm, mumble something, look at each other. "Oh! Ummm …." And out the door they go, slinking away.

Back to the strip poker game. There is a wild mix of reactions (because, contrary to advertising/marketing conventional non-wisdom, people over fifty are not all the same). One is a bit sheepish, another finds the situation highly amusing, another is embarrassed, another sloughs it off and shrugs as if to say, 'Who cares, no big deal.' After a moment, they all smile, maybe giggle - and merrily continue with the game.


Watching the original commercial again - I didn't laugh at the old folks. I laughed at the agency that produced this sad, insipid spot.
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Check out Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By for her take on the commercial.
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Update 11 APR 2007: Interesting developments concerning the origin of this video. Read about it over at Time Goes By.