Country Joe & The Fish, Dylan, Sixties Cinema … & Chuck

Disclaimer: This post has nothing to do with advertising.
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Amazon.com has upgraded (at least they think so) its author/publisher services.  I now have my own author’s page – with a slightly mangled RSS feed and a Chuck Nyren Forum (which I hope remains devoid of discussions).

I’ve written one book, two versions.  However, while filling in all the do-dads there was a link to View and edit our list of your books. Being the curious sort, and wanting to know if I’d written any books I’d forgotten about, I clicked. Up popped over a dozen books.

The search engine found every mention of ‘Chuck Nyren’ in all Amazon.com books. I wrote a chapter for this one, wrote sections for this one and this one, blurbed this one, was quoted in this one and this one and this one.

There were surprises.  I have no idea what’s written by or about me in this one:

Contemporary Business
by Louis E. Boone , David L. Kurtz
Opening new doors of possibility can be difficult.  CONTEMPORARY BUSINESS 13e gives students the business language they need to feel confident in taking the first steps toward becoming successful business majors and successful businesspeople.

I’m in awe of myself, whatever’s in there.  Last I looked the book costs $126.94. 

But the oddest surprise was finding a quote in this one:

Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties
by Dave Saunders
Direct Cinema … offers a meticulously researched study of a significant period in the history of North American documentary film.

A sentence from the book and the quote:

 

The author found an online article from 1997 (so don’t expect those embedded links to work):

Country Joe and The Fish
Author: Chuck Nyren
Published on: September 1, 1997 
For CJ, Fish and the gang the enormous popularity of this Anti-Vietnam War Anthem proved to be somewhat of a mixed blessing, overshadowing the rest of their truly inventive and wondrous music.

Golly gee willikers (I mean, “Far out!”). I might have to reevaluate who I really am, reinvent myself, add this impressive credential to my professional persona: Sixties Political and Counterculture Pundit.

I like the sound of that. 

Boomers key to economic recovery

The Chronicle Times:

Boomers key to economic recovery
Baby Boomers should be renamed Economic Boomers … they hold the key to America's economic recovery and … the best thing American business could do right now is market to boomers.

Other news pieces floating around make the same points.

Nice to see the press and a handful of business industries catching up.  I talked about it all six months ago:

Baby Boomers & The Economic Collapse
What do you buy? Almost everything.  Clothes, appliances, computers, toothpaste.  The list is endless.  Regular, ol’ stuff.  Stuff almost exclusively marketed to twentysomethings with ad campaigns that don’t resonate with middle-aged consumers.

And in an online presentation posted January 3rd (about 17 minutes in):

2008 Review: A PowerPoint
Not necessarily the biggest stories about advertising and Baby Boomers – but ones that intrigued me, that I believe will be influential.

Another quote from the Chronicle piece:

So, the best thing any business in America could do right now is to learn how to sell to Boomers. It's not just good for business -- it's good for the economy.

From my November blog post:

Lots of folks have been asking me about Baby Boomers, the economic collapse, and how you should now advertise and market to this demographic.

The how hasn’t changed.  Simple answer: Make sure you have the right guts around to trust.

And if you’ve been hopping around this blog for the last three and a half years, or read my book first published in early 2005, you’d know that the what likewise hasn’t changed.  Unfortunately, not too many have paid attention.

Baby Boomers Bolting From Facebook

Not that it matters or anything’s changed – but surprise, surprise: Baby Boomers are decamping that most famous of digital digs.

Inside Facebook
Fewer Users Over 55 Coming Back … the number of active users over 55 actually decreased by over 650,000 … In other words, users over 55 who joined the site earlier this year haven’t been coming back as much in April and May …

 
Why it happened, why it doesn’t matter to marketers and advertisers:

Is roiling ether the best place for advertising?
The big buzz phrase today is social networking.  Because Boomers are worried about their work-related competencies, all of a sudden they’re diving into Facebook, LinkedIn, are Twittering, etc. to find out about it all and make connections.

Snake Oil In Cyberspace
As far as Boomers being tech/web Luddites - I’ve been dispelling that silly myth for years - in my book and blog (Advertising to Baby Boomers, first published in early 2005).

But monetizing social networking sites … well, they still haven’t been able to do that with the Millennial and Gen Y demos. What makes anybody think you can do it with Boomers?

The Forgotten Market Online

Christina Binkley of The Wall Street Journal is all over the paucity of online shopping for 35+ (that’s age, not size) apparel for women:

The Forgotten Market Online: Older Women
New Fashion Sites Target Youth -- Though Most Web Apparel Sales Are to Women Over 35

Dick Stroud blogged it last week:

All of this would be OK if it were not for the facts. 45-54 year olds spend twice as much online as their daughters. Not surprisingly the average age of an online customer at Saks.com … is 42.

Christina and Dick have nailed it – so I’ll simply link to a few bygone babblings:

Chico’s and Younger Women

Marks & Spencer Redux

Demand for older models grows

The Depend Campaign

A pivotal (you’d never forgive me if I used the word watershed) campaign by Kimberly-Clark – and Bob Moos does a wonderful job unpacking it:

Adult underwear no longer being given the silent treatment
The new TV commercials have ordinary boomer men and women engaged in some unscripted banter about the differences between the two sexes, such as whether men or women make better drivers and which sex actually rules the world … The commercials were directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris and bear a striking resemblance to a short film he created for a recent Oscars telecast in which people talk off the cuff about why they like movies.

Watch the Depend spots.

Bob saw my 4/9 post about the campaign and called me:

Why couldn’t it have been…?
And looking at the big picture – let’s hope that ad agencies will see these spots and realize they’re missing out not hiring people over fifty to create campaigns for just about any product or service.

So I get a quote or two in the article.  Thanks, Bob!
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