Windows 8 Redux

NostraChuckus, Renowned Seer of The Mundane and The Obvious, has startled the world again with his pedestrian prognostications:

01 January 2013
Windows 8
… Win 8 phones, tablets, and desktops are potent technologies for Baby Boomers, but you’d never know it by the ads and commercials.  The products are positioned as toys, not elegant and productive tools:

Win 8

Microsoft would be wise to fashion some advertising  for Boomers and older (and that tiny niche market known as the business industry).  Less flash, more substance.

Three months later:

Win 8

Less talk, more doing

Now is the time for business to get onboard.

Are you model material?

From Rebecca Nappi of The Spokesman Review:

Are you model material?
Advertisers see growing markets for boomers in fashion, acting
… Boomer age men and women will be in greater demand in the next few years as models and actors in TV commercials, as companies finally wake up to the fact that boomers have some money to spend, a lot more, in fact, than the 20-something folks advertisers are so hot after.

I’ve been bellowing about this for years:

08 February 2007
Best Commercial Not On The Superbowl

02 July 2008
Demand for older models grows

09 January 2009
Chico’s and Younger Women
… Colleague and intrepid blogger/marketer Brent Green recently posted about Chico’s and their catalog.

17 February 2009
The list goes on and on…
Lina Ko of Boomerwatch.ca rounds up examples of mature women in campaigns.

27 May 2009
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.

Sounds great. But what concerns me: Advertisers might think that simply throwing in Boomer models will sell a product or service to Boomers. 

More important than merely models:

05 November 2006
Ignore the Research and Trust Your Gut
… It wouldn't be too bright to trust my gut to come up with a campaign for a product aimed at twentysomethings. My gut would tell me, "… Ummm ... ummm ... Wait! I got it! We get some twentysomething girl an' spike her hair an' give'er tattoos and a nose ring an' put an iPod on her head an' bed some hip-hop music an' have her hold up the toothpaste! Yeah! They'll buy it! They'll buy it!"

And this:

16 September 2009
Boomer Backlash II
…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.”

New Editor-in-Chief at AARP Magazine

A blog post collection from a few months ago:

AARP Is All New Redux
AARP is ‘rebranding’ itself for the umpteenth time ...

One of those posts:

02 April 2013
AARP Is All New Redux: Part III (The Magazine)
There is a slow overhaul of AARP Magazine going on, no doubt for the better ... Myrna Blyth, former editor/publisher of a slew of top-notch magazines (Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, More, and even more) is now Editorial Director of AARP Media.  AARP can’t do much better than that.

Now there’s news about the overhaul of AARP Magazine:

Bob Love Named AARP Editor-in-Chief
Monday, June 10, 2013
Steve Cohn
Robert ("Bob") Love, whose 20 years at Rolling Stone culminated in leading the biweekly to two National Magazine Awards while managing editor from 1998-2002, was hired June 4 as AARP editor-in-chief. Upon his June 24 start, Love will oversee all editorial content creation and management for the bimonthly AARP, which goes to 22.7 million members of the namesake organization originally formed to serve retirees…During his career, he has worked with such distinguished writers as T.C. Boyle, P.J. O'Rourke, Scott Turow and the late Hunter S. Thompson.

Looks like chunks of the magazine might become relevant, irreverent, entertaining.

 

 

P.S.  That NostraChuckus is pretty good, ain’t he?

The No News News News

It’s always a treat to get up, make some coffee, open the newspaper (pixels or pulp) and read nothing new:

Study: Older drivers more likely to buy new vehicles
Isabella Shaya
May 30, 2013
Automakers and dealers have the best chance of selling new vehicles by marketing to consumers ages 55 to 64, according to a University of Michigan study released today.

The study looked at the likelihood of a licensed driver buying a new light vehicle based on the consumer's age.

Baby Boomers still more likely to buy cars than Millennials
Paul A. Eisenstein
June 3, 2013
While automakers may be focusing on the next generation of potential buyers, they shouldn’t forget about the middle-aged motorists key to the industry’s recovery, according to a new study.

Sounds vaguely familiar…

18 December 2009
What Next From The Crystal Ball of Common Sense?
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…

31 March 2006
Car Spots Driving in the Wrong Direction
Automakers pursuing the elusive youth demographic are chasing the wrong economic quarry…

16 May 2008
Coming Boom in Boomer-Friendly Transport

12 March 2009
Who’s gonna buy this car?
…If we rescue the auto industry, it must
be able to build vehicles for an aging population.

Oftentimes No News News takes the form of a convoluted zero-sum theory, where contradictions cancel each other and you end up with … No News News:

Boomers aren't working forever, after all
Mark Miller
Baby boomers have been talking a good game for years about working longer and reinventing the last third of life. Now that it's game time, their retirement decisions look somewhat conventional.

Why Boomers Are Ditching Retirement to Go to Work
Steve Yoder
The Fiscal Times
Today’s older Americans are dumping retirement or at least reengineering it to include work.

Some mornings I’d be better off just staring at a blank newspaper or empty computer screen.

Intergenerational Teams A Strength

L’Oreal Canada is picking up on the zeitgeist:

L’Oreal Canada considers inter-generational teams a strength
The company focuses on recruiting new talent and retaining the services of experienced employees, which often results in the creation of inter-generational teams tackling company projects together.

I’ve been promoting this for years.  From Chapter One of my book:

Things have changed, all for the better … However, a strange thing happened during this constructive inclusion of targeted social groups. Each generation of advertisers developed its own versions of yesteryear’s myopia and conceit.

While advertising agencies were never a healthy blend of gender and ethnicity until recently (and many still believe quite correctly that it isn’t quite perfect yet), agencies of the past were usually an effective
mixture of young, middle-aged, and old. Creative directors, copywriters, and graphic artists could be any age. Smart account execs
assigned accounts to creatives based on their age and cultural strengths.

There’s a lot more about it all. Download The Introduction and Chapter One of Advertising to Baby Boomers (PDF).

Posts (2006-2013) about HR issues, Diversity, Creativity:

Human Resources/Brain Power