2010: The Year of The Baby Boomer Brain

Not that the last few years haven’t had plenty of neurons bouncing about and flashing all sorts of surprising info about middle-aged noggins:

What Kind of Genius Are You? 
A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types - quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet …

Brains More Distracted, Not Slower with Age

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

My Brain, Your Brain, iBrain

Baby boomers are smarter than you think
Researchers have confirmed what many mature people already know – intelligence actually gets sharper with age.

Aging Brain shifts gears to emotional advantage

Your Brain on Games

But in April get ready for The Book:

The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain
The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind
Barbara Strauch – Author
For many years, scientists thought that the human brain simply decayed over time and its dying cells led to memory slips, fuzzy logic, negative thinking, and even depression. But new research from neuroscien­tists and psychologists suggests that, in fact, the brain reorganizes, improves in important functions, and even helps us adopt a more optimistic outlook in middle age. Growth of white matter and brain connectors allow us to recognize patterns faster, make better judgments, and find unique solutions to problems. Scientists call these traits cognitive expertise and they reach their highest levels in middle age.

Ms. Strauch is the Medical Science and Health Editor for The New York Times.  Her recent piece reads like a warm-up for the book:

How to Train the Aging Brain
Over the past several years, scientists have looked deeper into how brains age and confirmed that they continue to develop through and beyond middle age.

I liked this:

The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.

From my book Advertising to Baby Boomers ©2005, 2007:

 

So a lot of us will be doing a lot of thinking over the next thirty-odd years.

Wrapping Up The Aughts

Time to wrap up the aughts and throw’em in the trash (please don’t recycle them).

That’s what most people think:

Current Decade Rates as Worst in 50 Years
As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years. This stands in stark contrast to the public’s recollection of other decades in the past half-century. When asked to look back on the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, positive feelings outweigh negative in all cases.

I’ve stumbled upon a few news stories about the above survey – and either the writers are not too bright, or they’ve purposely twisted the results to make Baby Boomers seem as if they had mostly positive reactions to the past decade.  I’m not linking to these news stories – but I’ll quote one:

Despite the generally negative view of the 2000s, fewer baby boomers saw this decade negatively. “Baby Boomers - most of whom are between the ages of 50 and 64 today and were between 20 and 34 in 1979 - view this decade in an overwhelmingly favorable light, with positive impressions outnumbering negative views by 48 points (59% positive vs. 11% negative).”

If you read the research, Baby Boomers were talking about the 1970s, not the 2000s:

Boomers Look Back Fondly
… The biggest generational division of opinion is in retrospective evaluations of the 1970s. Baby Boomers – most of whom are between the ages of 50 and 64 today and were between 20 and 34 in 1979 – view this decade in an overwhelmingly favorable light, with positive impressions outnumbering negative views by 48 points (59% positive vs. 11% negative).

Sloppy reporting?  Probably.

See you next decade.  

Where and When in 2010

Lots of juicy seminars and events coming up in the first few months.  Some picks:

Todd Harff, Prez of Creating Results and co-founder of IMMN, will be speaking at the 2010 International Builders Show® in Las Vegas:

The "New Deal" for Selling in the New Decade
Just in time for the new decade, a "New Deal" is emerging in marketing and sales of 50+ communities. Learn how experts are redefining the "4 Ps" of marketing as they apply to the over-50 set: People, Process, Pursuit and Purchase.

In April, Mary Furlong and Brent Green are booked at the Florida Boomer Lifestyle Conference:

Mary is the Dean's Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University's Leavey School of Business.  Before launching MFA, Mary founded the nonprofit organization SeniorNet in 1986 and ThirdAge Media in 1996.

Brent Green is a marketing communication strategist, creative director, copywriter, author, speaker, trainer and consultant with focus on generational marketing. He is author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers.

Carol Orsborn heads up a workshop at the March ASA/NCOA Conference in Chicago:

The Full Nest Syndrome: Boomers Supporting Adult Children in a Down Economy
Join a panel … including Carol Orsborn and other experts on the Sandwich Generation, to learn how Boomers are now coping with both their parents and their children's finances and the boundaries they are setting.

Of course, there’s the potent What’s Next Boomer Business Summit on March 19th.  I won’t make it this year. But I have an excuse. Also on March 19th, in Istanbul:

International Marketing Techniques Targeting Baby Boomers 
Produced by IMI Conferences

 
So - a big chunk of the globe is being covered.  As the year progresses, we’ll blanket the rest. 

What Next From The Crystal Ball of Common Sense?

For Immediate Release:

Famed Soothsayer and advertising gadfly NostraChuckus has been startling the world for years with his mundane prognostications. 

One of his first foretellings is now coming true.  Way back in The Ancient Times (2005) he foretold the redesigning of automobiles for an aging demographic:

Major thanks to Brad Forsythe, Ray Schilens, Stephanie Ceritelli, and all involved with The Advertising Show for putting up with me as a guest last Sunday, August 7th. It was great fun, and a real honor. (And to be honest, I was a bit shocked that they called. The book is barely out of the gate.)

You can listen to the archived show here. Two hours compressed to 79 minutes.

While on the show NostraChuckus predicted this:

Coming Boom in Boomer-Friendly Transport (2008)
My point three years ago was that Baby Boomers were buying up those mid-priced boxy cars (even though they were being marketed to college kids and twenty-somethings) because they were easy to get in and out of, easy to see out of, and some had large dashboards that were easy to read. So why not build cars with these and more features for older drivers? And market them as such?

Over six months later.

And last March there was this:

Who’s gonna buy this car?
If we rescue the auto industry, it must
be able to build vehicles for an aging population

Now the majestic seer of all things Boomer is again mystically evoked:

Designing Better Cars for Senior Drivers
By Dale Buss, Contributor 
… One feature prominent in these models is what Toyota calls "360-degree handles." These handles allow doors to be opened from the outside using only major arm muscles — in contrast to "paddle handles" that require strength in the fingers and wrists, which often is compromised by arthritis and other conditions in elderly drivers …

Toyota is also rolling out brighter instrument displays in many vehicles, using what is called "vacuum fluorescent" technology instead of liquid crystal, the conventional but dimmer method. Designers have begun to incorporate larger-type fonts throughout vehicle interiors as well — including the clocks.

 
What next from The Crystal Ball of Common Sense???

Unpacking Deloitte’s State of The Media Democracy Teaser

Last December I blogged Deloitte’s Third State of The Media Democracy Survey:

Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy Survey

Now there’s a press release and bits of info on the web about the Fourth edition:

Deloitte 'State of the Media Democracy' Survey: Recession Intensifies America's Love For TV

Deloitte's State of the Media Democracy Survey, Fourth Edition

The preliminary info released doesn’t always break down age demos – so with our knowledge of Baby Boomers, let’s bend and squeeze the stats and make some intelligent guesses:

More than 70 percent of survey respondents rank watching TV in their top three favorite media activities.

Bump that to 80% for Baby Boomers.

When watching their favorite TV programming, 86 percent of survey respondents prefer watching on their television set, enjoying the programming either live, via their DVR/TiVo, or using an "On Demand" feature.

Assume that would be around 96% for Boomers.

According to the survey, consumers are watching close to 18 hours of television programming on their home TV in a typical seven day week -- up notably from less than 16 hours last year. Millennials (ages 14-26) had the largest increase, to almost 15 hours from 10.5 hours.

But … Millennials don’t watch regular, ol’ TV.  (If you believe that I have a text message in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.)

Increased console ownership by Xers and Boomers has also driven increased game playing. Thirty-one percent of surveyed Boomers played a newly released videogame via a game console over the past six months, up significantly from 12 percent in 2008.

Baby Boomers will be a healthy market for video games.  But beware of this survey.  If you’d asked me if I’d played a newly released videogame on a game console, I’d have to say yes, yes, yes.  With my teenaged nieces.  At their house. Another relative, a Baby Boomer, actually bought a game console so these beautiful ladies would have something fun to do when they visit.  And, of course, there is the Boomer grandparent phenomenon.

Television continues to reign as the most influential advertising medium, with 83 percent of consumers identifying TV advertising as one of the top three media with the most impact on their buying decisions. Online advertising ranks much lower in impact than television. Less than half of those surveyed identify online advertising, which includes banner and video ads, search engine result ads and pop-ups, amongst the top three.

Again, bump “most influential advertising medium” to 93% for Baby Boomers.

The ability of ads on websites to move traffic to other sites has dropped from 72 percent to 59 percent over the past three surveys. Moreover, respondents articulate a decreased inclination to click on more Internet ads, even if the ads are targeted to their needs.

This is why I’ve said …

For the umpteenth time - The Most Effective Marketing/Advertising Model For Reaching Baby Boomers: What is now called traditional advertising pushing you to an age-friendly, informative product/services web site.

Some of the other findings seem a bit mealy-mouthed to me.   I’ll wait to comment after I see more of the survey.