UD, Aging in Place, and My Dumb Noggin

Wesley Hein at LifeTwo.com has a good piece about universal design and aging in place:

In the post war years, the big market was in small affordable homes that could be bought on a GI bill and were suitable for raising a family. Sixty years later, the children of those GI's are looking ahead a few decades and don't want to be moved into a retirement community.

And he points you to a good piece by June Fletcher of the Wall Street Journal:

Traditionally, the market for these products has been the elderly and handicapped, but builders and manufacturers see a bigger prize: middle-aged homeowners who don't need them yet. The beleaguered housing industry is hoping it can attract these buyers with more stylish, less institutional fare such as "smart" kitchen faucets and dishwashers …

I’ve written a bunch of stuff about UD and Aging in Place:

Baby Boomers and Universal Design

Neighborhood Design, Universal Design

Selling Universal Design to Baby Boomers

Aging in Place (PDF)

And Rolling Rains commented on one of my pieces.

But, like the typical Baby Boomer, I’ll probably wait until I slip in the bathtub and crack my dumb noggin before I get the hint to do some retrofitting.

Interview with Cathy Hamilton of Boomergirl.com

Colleague Brent Green (Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers) has tossed up a blog post and video interview with Cathy Hamilton, founder of Boomergirl.com.

It's worth a read/watch/listen:

This website is the brainchild of Cathy Hamilton, a long-time journalist in Lawrence, Kansas, home of the University of Kansas. With the support of World Media -- a company that owns the community newspaper, The Lawrence Journal World, as well as other media properties -- Cathy and her team have created an imaginative, warm and welcoming place for middle-aged women worldwide to connect and collaborate.

There were real reasons - and a specific plan - behind the creation of Boomergirl.com. Cathy just didn't say to herself, "Hey! Boomers have lots of money! Let's put up a web site for Baby Boomers! Whoopie!!!"

I blogged about Boomergirl.com back in January. I don't know how many people I've sent there to show them how a site targeting Baby Boomers should be done. There are so many horrible ones - with scores and scores coming down the pike - that it's refreshing to have at least one or two thoughtful, intelligent, fun sites around.

Dennis Hopper for Ameriprise

The generally funny and always nutty Radar Online has a piece by Jessica Grose about Dennis Hopper and Ameriprise. A bunch of 'young whippersnappers' weigh in:

"At 71, Hopper looks great and is the right age to be offering advice about retirement planning. But baby boomers who remember this easy rider as a bad drunk and a serious drug abuser may laugh their way through the commercial. If not bingo, Dennis, what? Spin the bong? If not shuffleboard, dropping acid? A gong for miscasting." — Jack Mathews, New York Daily News

While there are strong whiffs of ageism in most of their comments (I certainly don't remember being such a jerk when I was their age ...), I generally agree with them - and Radar's Final Verdict. But for different reasons.

I really have nothing to add. The new campaign is simply a continuation of the old one. I've already said enough about it.

Maybe too much.

Boost Your Boomer Business

In the previous post I talked about the value of marketing/advertising books. This month GRAND Magazine has an article titled Boost Your Boomer Business with reviews of a handful - including David Wolfe's Firms of Endearment, Mary Furlong's Turning Silver Into Gold, Marti Barletta's PrimeTime Women, and mine:

This fascinating book reveals how to rethink current advertising strategies to effectively reach the thriving boomer marketplace. Nyren passes on key information about how the generation responds to advertising, cleverly pointing out that this group grew up during the years when advertising really flourished and expanded. So, their level of advertising sophistication is key to consider when developing advertising strategies and campaigns.

Additionally, a special section of the book focuses on helping baby boomer entrepreneurs jump-start their marketing and advertising.

Here's a PDF of the article: Boost Your Boomer Business.

Thanks, GRAND. And it's a great issue: a profile of Nancy Pelosi, an interview with John Erickson of Erickson Homes and Retirement Living TV, and a bubbly, funny piece by Susan Silver.

Advertising to Baby Boomers Now Downloadable

I receive lots of hits to this blog, along with email queries from around the world, about my book - especially from Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Even a few from Asia and the Middle East. It's usually available on their regional Amazon.com and other online bookseller sites - but at twice the price as in the States. Sometimes three times the price. Often it takes two or three weeks to get it because it's actually shipped from here.

And the 2007 paperback edition isn't available outside of the U.S. yet.

Here's how I see it: There aren't many (if any) marketing/advertising books really worth more than fifteen, twenty, thirty dollars at most. It's a crapshoot, anyway. One book might be invaluable to you, while another might be worthless. You won't know until you read them. And that same book you loved will be useless to someone else, while the one that had nothing in it for you might be priceless to another.

Because of the worldwide interest in Advertising to Baby Boomers, my publisher Paramount Books now offers it as a PDF Download. It's the same price anywhere.

If you're interested, go here. There is a pull-down menu with Shipped Version as the default. Click it and pick the Download Version. You'll receive a password and a link to the download site.

Also take a gander at Paramount's newest catalog of savvy business books (PDF).