The Jitterbug Phone

I've already passed along an odd story about the Jitterbug phone (or at least about their PR and marketing). Now the product is getting some press.

Will Baby Boomers scarf down Jitterbugs? I doubt it - although there are markets for a simple, easy-to-handle, easy-to-figure-out phone.

My assessment (and being the muddle-headed, evil moral-relativist I am, the good and the bad aren't mutually exclusive):

The Good

1. Those numbers and buttons are big - I can see them.
   
2. I like the padding. Makes it easy to hear.
3. It's comfy to hold. Like a real phone. Not like a lumpy Lego.
   
4. Some people just want a phone.
   

The Bad

1. Those numbers and buttons are big - like a toy phone.
   
2. Boomers are tech-savvy, demand choices. Just because you don't text or maybe enjoy getting away from email and the the web while out and about doesn't mean you don't want those options.
3. No pictures or video? How will you instantly see your granddaughter smiling at you? Or watch your grandson actually splashing around in the bathtub almost live, sort of like 'instant replay'? Or ogle a video from your friend you're jealous of because she's at a concert you're not because the tickets were $250 a pop - and there is that old rock group, right on stage, banging guitars, screaming into microphones, long silver hair wagging away? I'll sound like a Hallmark Card here - but these are moments to cherish …
4. The calling plans are expensive and cheesy.

The real issue: Marketers assuming that if you're over fifty you're automatically a member of one and only one age demographic - all with the same needs and wants.* While some Boomers will like the Jitterbug, most will turn their noses up at this product.

However, a lot of Boomers are pivot-spenders. They might buy Jitterbugs for their less tech-obsessed parents. And how about a Jitterbug for that three-to-ten year old grandchild? A one-button direct line to GrandBooma and GrandBoompa? Then, who knows - after playing with it a bit they might like it and buy one for themselves.

Or simply position it as ... a phone. For anybody of any age who just wants, oddly enough, a phone.

What'll happen unless the Jitterbug folks get wise: The Jitterbug concept will influence other cell phone manufacturers and service providers. Easy-to-read, easy-to-manipulate phones will be developed - but with more features. And the Jitterbug will go the way of … well … the Jitterbug.

Things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein

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* And what do you do when the usually perceptive and entertaining David Pogue of The New York Times does even worse, referring to "the over-40 set" as if we're all the same, calling us "technophobic old people"? No wonder most marketers and advertisers are clueless.

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More posts about the Jitterbug Phone:

NostraChuckus Predicts The Future

My Blog Was WOMMed!

The Same Old, Same Old Redux

As usual, nothing new in the news about marketing to Baby Boomers:

Tech giants target older buyers - and their cash
"Today's older generation is primed to buy and consume new technologies like no previous group of seniors," says David Kelly, president of technology research company Upside Research.

What fresh insight. Here's the pull-quote on the cover of the 1st edition of my book:

That's from late 2004.

Even my friend Matt, quoted in the USA Today piece, must be getting tired of saying:

"Any company wanting to grow their business in the next 10 years better have a strategy for marketing to those 50-plus," warns Matt Thornhill, founder of baby-boomer-focused market research company Boomer Project.

In 2005 I was a guest on The Advertising Show. You can listen to it - although it's pretty long. What's funny is that someone was on recently and simply repeated everything I said - as if it were all new stuff discovered by his company.

Merely the same old, same old - over and over again.

It's time to move on from the Why to the How. That's what I focus on in my presentations, consulting work - and the revised edition of the book.

Yuk, Yuk, Yawn

This is the stuff I rail about when consulting or presenting - a youth sensibility when your target market is supposed to be over fifty:

Tourism campaign featuring ugly, chatty aliens draws critics

For weeks now, a contentious debate has raged among tourism officials here over a new state-financed advertising campaign aimed at attracting vacationers. Instead of highlighting New Mexico's picturesque desert landscapes, art galleries or centuries-old culture, the ads feature drooling, grotesque office workers from outer space chatting about their personal lives …

… to increasingly vocal critics, the ad campaign is strategically clumsy and a possible threat to the well-being of the state's $5.1 billion tourism industry. In other words, while the ads may yield a chuckle or two, the joke is on New Mexico …

… Dale Lockett, president of the state's largest convention and visitors bureau in Albuquerque, addressed the issue at a statewide conference last month … At a keynote luncheon, Lockett told the creators of the ads ... that their handiwork, while innovative, appeals to the wrong audience. Why, Lockett wondered, was the state targeting its centerpiece ad campaign to a younger crowd at the precise moment when the bulk of baby boomers nationwide are reaching the age when they have time and money to travel?

Or maybe I've seen just one too many commercials in my life. I'm jaded. I think this one's dull and unoriginal. Aliens instead of Cavemen yakking it up as if they're just average joes.

Yuk, yuk, yawn.

Promotional Presentation Video

My colleague and great friend Brent Green brought along his video camera for our European Tour - and ended up making a fun, informative video about it.

Being the magnanimous fellow he is, in my mailbox the other day I found a small package from him. He'd tossed the takes of Yours Truly onto a CD.

Yesterday I cobbled together a video using Microsoft Movie Maker - so don't expect too much. It's simply a promotional tool for speaking gigs - to complement this. I purposely made it teasing - not giving much away:

Brokaw's Boom!

Tom Brokaw always made the news go down easy. Even uncomfortable clumps. Nothing was ever too prickly, made you bleed or gag.

So goes Boom! - a book about his experiences in (more or less) the 1960s. Mr. Brokaw was around a lot of influential folk from all over the cultural and political map. Most of it is insider stuff and fun to read. Early in his career he covered what is arguably the most important movement of the decade - Civil Rights - and his points of view and personal profiles of the individuals he knew were for me the most interesting and vital chapters.

Brokaw comes pretty close to defining the 'generation' (or at least the era that he's covering) the same way I do. As I state in the intro to this blog - it's a diverse, unwieldy group. After reading Boom! you'll consider that an understatement.

Boom! has been criticized for leaning too much on the remembrances and evaluations of famous and influential people - but those were the people Mr. Brokaw knew. It's what I expected. After all, the subtitle is Personal Reflections on The Sixties and Today. Perhaps the problem is that Boom! is being perceived and/or touted as the book about the 1960s. Of course it's not. It's one of many, with many more to come.

The more you know about your target market, the better. So I'll recommend Boom! to anybody interested in advertising and marketing to Baby Boomers - along with Len Steinhorn's The Greater Generation: In Defense of The Baby Boom Legacy. (And there are dozens of others.)

Janet Maslin's Review of Boom! in The New York Times.