Those Baffling Boomer Brains

This post could be tucked in The Déjà Vu News or No News News gatherings.  But I’ll give it it’s own page so we can poke around:

Inside the Brain of a Boomer: Cash-Rich Demo Does Poorly With Visual Complexity
by Jack Neff, Advertising Age
The neuroscientists at Nielsen Neurofocus, having strapped EEG-tracking caps on thousands of people over the years, have good and bad news for marketers about the brains of baby boomers.

Not really news:

03 March 2010
Aging Brain Less Quick, More Shrewd
… For baby-boomers, there is both good news and bad news about the cognitive health of the aging brain.

NPR interview with Dr. Gary Small:

More from the Ad Age/Nielsen piece:

As boomers age, some neural decline will be inevitable, and they’ll find it harder to handle visual or verbal complexity.

I interpret this a bit differently.  From my book, © 2005:

I also talk about busy websites in a very long online presentation produced in 2007.  If you have nothing better to do…

Advertising to Baby Boomers: Ads and Web Sites

A few years later a fascinating book was released dealing with many of these themes:

3 January 2010
2010: The Year of The Baby Boomer Brain
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.

16 April 2010
The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain

Ad Age/Nielsen:

Among cognitive pluses that come with age…are more “emotional resilience” and a tendency to “not sweat the small stuff”…So they’re less likely to fall for alarming messages…

Sounds familiar.  From my book:

… A similar campaign today, using vague, anxiety-ridden scare tactics, might not work for Baby Boomers. We’re too smart (or perhaps too jaded) to be fooled by hackneyed situations and simplistic answers…

Remember this: An easy-to-grip handle is not dumbing down.  A ‘big picture’ is not dumbing down.  If anything, a big picture has more inherent complexity and meaning than an array of blinking doodads.

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The Human Resources/Brain Power Posts

The Déjà Vu News

Sometimes I think my browser is playing tricks on me.  Twilight Zone tricks.  Or Google is on the fritz, spitting out news stories from the past.  Some recent headlines:

Boomers Are The Most Valuable Generation For Marketers

Baby Boomers Are A Lucrative Marketing Demographic

Retailers Target Grey Spending Power

Baby Boomers Consider Next Housing Move

Boomers Are Not Like Your Grandparents

Baby Boomers Discover Grandparenting

More Boomers Aspire To Careers With Social Purpose

Baby boomers Are Starting Up Businesses

Hindenburg Explodes In Mid-Air

OK, I’m lying about the last one.  It’s not a recent headline.  But  to me it doesn’t seem any older than the others.

No links to these because everything has been said before in this blog, my book – and in other places by other marketing and advertising folks who talk about Baby Boomers. Why have you choke on regurgitated reportage?  Always go to the sources.  Scroll and click around over on the left.   

More déjà vu-ish offerings through the years:

No News News

No News News Redux

No News News Redux II
I’m one of the few bloggers to take pride in bringing you no news news.  I’ve been offering my readers no news news for years …

More No News News

The Best Reviews Money Can Buy

Good story in the New York Times about word-of-mouth marketing through the lens of bookselling:

The Best Book Reviews Money Can Buy
By David Streitfeld
… Reviews by ordinary people have become an essential mechanism for selling almost anything online; they are used for resorts, dermatologists, neighborhood restaurants, high-fashion boutiques, churches, parks, astrologers and healers — not to mention products like garbage pails, tweezers, spa slippers and cases for tablet computers…

… Almost no one wants to write five-star reviews, so many of them have to be created…

Plucked nuggets:

» Consumer reviews are powerful because, unlike old-style advertising and marketing, they offer the illusion of truth.

From 2006:

The Brouhaha Over WOMM
My prediction: When it all comes out in the wash, WOMM will be the best thing to happen to (silly retronym ahead) traditional advertising. Pretty soon, consumers won't believe anybody - even their best friends. They'll realize that they receive the most honest and straightforward information about a product or service from a TV commercial, print ad, or product web site. At least we don't lie about who we are and why we're saying what we're saying.

» Mr. Liu estimates that about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake.

Betcha it’s even more since 2008.

» The Federal Trade Commission has issued guidelines stating that all online endorsements need to make clear when there is a financial relationship, but enforcement has been minimal and there has been a lot of confusion in the blogosphere…

More about that:

The Latest WOM On WOMM
The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.

Even more depraved than good WOMM is bad WOMM.

And as I’ve said more than once:

Advertising didn't die with the invention of the telephone.

But don't believe me. This is just some blog, and I'm just some blogger. Who knows if someone's paying me to trash word-of-mouth marketing.

One thing's for sure: You'll never know.

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The Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising Posts

Coughlin on Advertising

Dr. Joseph Coughlin of MIT AgeLab has been peeking through the ether here for years: 

29 November 2010
Tech & Baby Boomers: Universal Design vs. Universally Dull

 

Joe Coughlin

Disruptive Demographics is on my must-read list and always worth it.  A recent post:

Casting a New Dream of Old Age
Joseph F Coughlin
…Images of ‘aging’ have been on television for years. The famous, some might say infamous, ‘help I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ commercial for Life Call’s personal emergency response system has shaped much of the public’s perception of products for older consumers…

Sounds right to me.  From Advertising to Baby Boomers © 2005, 2007:

The Geritol Syndrome (pages 14-18)
The Geritol campaigns were successful because of their simple, direct messages. A similar campaign today, using vague, anxiety-ridden scare tactics might not work for Baby Boomers. We’re too smart (or perhaps too jaded) to be fooled by hackneyed situations and simplistic answers.

More from Dr. Coughlin:

… These images have done more than sell a product, they have reinforced an image of aging. Message – older people are frail, sick and need this product to manage old age.

No kidding.

16 September 2009
Boomer Backlash II
… 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.

Joe sent me an email the other day about his post: 

…. I thought I would share with you my rookie attempt at observing some messaging in advertising…

Hardly a rookie.  MIT AgeLab is the gold-standard for aging research, and that includes universal design and marketing:

NavStudio
The NavStudio provides a research platform to understand how consumers successfully navigate, become distracted, lost, give-up, or put-off decisions in the information seeking process in their interaction with print materials, packaging, the web and other forms of goal oriented communication.

While my sole contribution to it all is a fool-proof method for opening candy wrappers:

2 June 2006
Boomers in Candyland
I can rip open any dumb, stupid candy wrapper with my bare hands .... as long as one of my bare hands is holding a pair of pliers.

Collected posts about Universal Design (with Dr. Coughlin and AgeLab references sprinkled throughout):

The Aging In Place & Universal Design Posts

The Ones That Got Away: Skating Device

In March 2010 a fellow called me.  He’d developed an exercise device for Baby Boomers who loved to strap on rollerblades and zoom every which way - but because of bad knees or safety concerns were hanging them up. 

The device was really one of those newfangled three-wheeled baby strollers without the stroller.  The handlebars were more like a bike. I’d say it was a cross between a walker and a stroller.

The problem was that it looked more like a walker, giving the impression that it was medical equipment.  I’m pretty sure he’d designed it himself, perhaps with help from the manufacturer.  It was pure function, no style.

When he called I was preparing for a workshop/presentation and getting ready to travel abroad.  I told him I liked his product and would email him in a week.

My thoughts:

• Like the previous product in this series, take it out of the medical realm.
• Position it as a cutting-edge, sleek piece of sporting equipment. 
• Unless you’re a speed-skater, the average person can skate faster because they’re not worried as much about balance.
• You can skate longer distances.
• There is less strain on your knees and legs.
• With a basket, skate to the store.
• The product needs a total overhaul.  Hire an industrial designer.  Today’s bicycles and other types of non-motorized mobile devices are designed for the eye, with bright colors and polished construction.  If it looks like a walker, nobody will want it. 
• Even medical walkers are being redesigned for the eye.

I didn’t get too far:

…This weekend I’ll put together a basic, short, creative brief. My guess is that you won’t like all of it. I think your product needs to be positioned away from the medical realm.  I’ll send you the creative brief – and we can talk afterwards if it interests you.

…I didn't request anything from you. I didn't hire you. I just finished professional videos which are now being edited.

…Of course you didn’t hire me. I was going to pitch you with no cost to you…How about this – do what you’re doing and have fun and good luck. You have a good product. But if it isn’t going as planned in a few months, contact me.

I never heard from him again.  Those professional videos were anything but.  In one, a lady was practically screaming over a windstorm – with not much success since the mic was likewise getting blasted.  I guess the professional video company forgot their mic windshield that day. 

Another video had a fellow pretending to skate poorly, almost falling over, looking very sad and frustrated.  He wasn’t enjoying himself.  This was followed by the same fellow utilizing the device, now smiling and happy, floating safely down the trail.  Quite the comedy sketch.

If you’re presenting sports equipment to people who are relatively fit (and they would be relatively fit if they’re even contemplating putting on rollerblades), don’t insult them by assuming they are clumsy and helpless.  You’re introducing an exciting, exhilarating product.  You can do things on rollerblades that you never could have imagined.

I visited the website the other day.  It’s a placeholder, with this message:

The ************® is no longer available.

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There is a 2011 post about the same subject, but thought it  appropriate to update everything for this series.

Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers III
Those measly trike things unnerve me the most. Put someone on one, and they remind me of cartoon velociraptors swerving and scurrying, looking for lunch.