Boomer Backlash II

Note: I’ve plagiarized myself with this post – but thought the ideas behind the original needed updating.  The backlash predicted is happening now.
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A pivotal (you’d never forgive me if I used the word watershed) campaign by Kimberly-Clark for their Depend line is getting a lot of press. Culled from a piece by Bob Moos of The Dallas Morning News:

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 TV spots are carefully crafted to appeal to boomers who, if they don't use Depends themselves, may be caregivers for parents who do …

The creative is lots of fun. No surprise, since the spots were directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (born 1948). A Boomer directing Boomers.  Click one of the images below to watch the spots:

 

 

I guess what upsets me about this campaign is not the campaign itself.  I love it.  I see people around my age – they’re entertaining, loose, funny. I’m wondering what the payoff will be. What a letdown.  

Why couldn’t it have been a car?  Laundry soap?  Baked Beans? Gender-specific razors? Aluminum foil? A smart phone? Anything but some age-related malady.

And there’s this:

Use only as directed
By Joseph P. Kahn
Take one night last week, chosen at random, when NBC Nightly News aired 17 commercials during its 30-minute broadcast.

Of those 17 spots, 12 were for (in order): Zyrtec, an over-the-counter allergy medication; Citrucel Fiber Supplement With Calcium; Advil PM, a combination pain reliever and sleep aid; Transitions prescription eyeglass lenses ("healthy sight in every light"); Spiriva HandiHaler, for use by COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) sufferers; the cholesterol-lowering properties of Cheerios; Bayer aspirin and its heart-attack prevention benefits; Omnaris nasal spray, a prescription allergy medication; Just For Men hair coloring (let's help graying old Dad get a date!); Boniva, which helps reverse bone loss in postmenopausal women, most notably actress Sally Field; ThermaCare heat wraps, for relief of muscle and joint pain; and Pepcid Complete, a heartburn and acid reflux remedy.

The Backlash: If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

The Real Issue: Marketing and advertising folks grasping the fact that Boomers will be buying billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of non-age related products for the next twenty-odd years. If you target this group for toothpaste, computers, clothes, food, nail polish, sporting equipment, toenail clippers - anything at all (almost), and you do it with respect and finesse, they will appreciate and consider your product.   

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.

A quote from my book (1^st Edition published in 2005):

It’s going to be up to companies to be proactive when dealing with advertising agencies. Quality control of your product doesn’t stop at the entrances of Madison Avenue’s finest, or at the doors of small local or regional advertising agencies. If companies put pressure on agencies, and demand 45-plus creatives for products aimed at the 45-plus market, then they will find out that Baby Boomers are still “the single most vibrant and exciting consumer group in the world.”

Boomer Backlash I

Boomer Backlash I

Pretty soon (and for reasons I’ve been screaming about for years), advertising and the media will alienate its most vibrant demographic.

Ronni Bennett runs a blog that often reflects what’s going on in the hearts and minds of many folks over fifty:

Time Goes By
The Media's Take on Elders
In the five years I've been doing this blog, the amount of attention paid to elders from all media has exploded. That's because the baby boomers started turning 60 and our consumer society is ever-ready to exploit a market …

Most of this stuff reads like it has been repurposed from Seventeen or Cosmopolitan magazine. It's all about the pretense of youth, remaining a midlife adult forever, denying age and its differences from earlier years. There is more than a whiff of parental supervision in the attitude of these stories – that the writers know what is best for elders (not that they would go near that word), and how we should live, which is mostly just like 35-year-olds …

One of the many reader comments:

I love being in my late 50's! I'm not crazy about some of the physical stuff, but I'm relishing the enjoyment of being me. I can't imagine trading places with my 25 year old daughter; you couldn't pay me to do that again.

It won’t be long before Boomers wise up, figuring out what they’re supposed to figure out because they’re wiser than they think they are:

Older Brain May Really Be a Wiser Brain

And they’re smarter than you think.

And generally better.

There’s a Part II coming up.  I hope there won’t be a Part III.
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Update: Boomer Backlash II

New frugality is the new normal

If you’re alive you probably know this already:

New Frugality Is the New Normal, By Necessity
By ASHLEY M. HEHER (AP)
A year after "shop 'til you drop" stopped, the nation fixates on this question: Will consumer spending ever return to pre-recession levels? …

Until the Great Recession, the worst recession since World War II was in 1981-82. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent in December 1982, a month after the recession had ended.

The recovery that followed was powered by baby boomers …

The housing bubble mistakenly led boomers and millions of others to believe their home was their retirement nest egg. If they left their home equity alone during the boom, they've taken a hit the last couple years but are still ahead. But many treated their home like a personal bank and spent the gains by tapping a home equity line of credit.

Some now feel disgusted with the great national buying binge and are reacting against it …

So what should companies and advertising/marketing agencies do?  I wrote about this ten 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 …

So sell them clothes, appliances, computers, toothpaste.  This way you’ll beat the competition.

Just make sure you have the right guts around to trust.

2008: A Review (20 min)

 

For a UK perspective, Dick Stroud’s recent presentation (click the graphic):

WhatsNext.com: You Need More Than A Resume

There have been plenty of posts about Baby Boomers and HR on this blog. The subject gets more press than I can keep up with.

A few hi-profile Boomers are nailing it. Most who are looking for jobs haven’t been so fortunate.  There are reasons.  And those same reasons, along with ignoring their implications, will choke the growth of the economy.

A new website is doing its best to nudge recovery by focusing on pragmatic employment and entrepreneurial issues:

WhatsNext.com
The mission of WhatsNext.com is to provide information, inspiration and resources for men and women who want to change careers, find more fulfilling work or improve their work-life balance. All are welcome, but there will be an emphasis on those who are in mid-career or approaching retirement.

Examiner.com’s Andy Bragg does a good job exploring the development of WhatsNext.com:

What's Next is what was next for publishing executive Jeremy Koch
It was 2003 and since joining Time Inc. as a newly minted MBA in 1980 Koch had risen through Consumer Marketing for the largest magazine publisher: analyst on Life and Time, Circulation Director of Fortune, Deputy Time Consumer Marketing Director, VP Consumer Marketing and Brand Development of People and finally President of Time Consumer Marketing.

Also with impressive credentials: Mark Gleason and Mark Miller.

So if it’s Labor Day and you’re not celebrating quite like you used to – check out WhatsNext.com.
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More from Dick Stroud.

Savvy sleep that knits the ravelled sleeve of care.

I chatted with freelance writer Patricia Frank awhile back about sleep products and Baby Boomers.  A revamped article for Bed Times Magazine is now in Sleep Savvy Magazine.

Sleep Savvy, the magazine for sleep products professionals, is distributed eight times a year to more than 24,500 retailers at furniture stores, sleep shops, and department stores across the U.S. and Canada.

Flip through the digital edition:

The article with way too many quotes from yours truly begins on page 36.

Also tucking in the corners:

Dr. Carol Orsborn of Vibrant Nation

Matt Thornhill of
The Boomer Project

 

David Weigelt of Immersion Active

 

David Baxter of Age Wave