Carmakers should be marketing their hybrids to…

Big surprise:

Carmakers should be marketing their hybrids to … baby boomers
Car companies have long pitched their rides to the young, but the biggest buyers of hybrid cars in the US are the 60-plus set…

The study found that these buyers most valued the pride and prestige of driving an environmentally responsible car…

As usual, I wonder why this is news:

21 December 2007
Green Boomers
Green boomers are more attuned to advertising, both positively and negatively. They pay attention to ads for products they plan to buy, but are more critical and therefore are more likely to believe there is not much truth in advertising. They also wish that advertising included more real product information to help make decisions.

How long have I been saying that? I wrote articles about it four years ago, must have posted about it here twenty times over the last 2½ years…

17 February 2011
Green Boomers Redux
… A few of these Green toy companies might get the smarts – and market their products directly to Baby Boomer grandparents.

16 May 2008
Coming Boom in Boomer-Friendly Transport
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?

Along with ‘green’ – the auto industry had better retool with an eye on the 50+ market.

12 March 2009
Who’s gonna buy this car?

__

Two excellent biz/marketing bonus reads by Jonathan Salem Baskin in Forbes:

Boeing Marketing Reorg Illustrates Hazards Of Innovation

Google, Facebook And The Rise Of Zombie Marketing

Facebook And Twitter Do Almost Nothing To Drive Sales

The same day the previous post was tossed up, I read this:

Facebook And Twitter Do Almost Nothing To Drive Sales
by Ashley Lutz
… "While the hype around social networks as a driver of influence in eCommerce continues to capture the attention of online executives, the truth is that social continues to struggle and registers as a barely negligible source of sales for either new or repeat buyers. In fact, fewer than 1% of transactions for both new and repeat shoppers could be traced back to trackable social links."

A surprise? 

02 May 2011
Click this ad. 0.051% do.

25 September 2012
Twitter & Advertising

27 November 2012
Black Friday, Cyber Monday Surpass One Billion Press Releases

07 December 2012
What is Digital Advertising?

So WOMM is a washout. So are banner ads. 

What the hell are these consumers people doing?  Reading stuff? Looking at pictures and silly videos?  Listening to music? Communicating with each other?  Sharing stuff? Being virtually sociable? 

Where are their priorities?  They are supposed to be viewing and clicking ads, then buying stuff. 

Back to that piece in Business Insider:

Mulpuru didn't study small businesses, which she said do disproportionately well in social commerce.

What’s disproportionately well mean?  If fewer than 1% of transactions are influenced by social media for large businesses and their products/services, does this mean that 1% of social media advertising is influential when considering small business products?  Or would it be fewer than 2%? 

Hardly anybody pays attention to social media marketing blather or banner ads. Most product reviews are useless.

That leaves paid search, email, direct marketing, and something we now refer to as traditional advertising… 

15 December 2006
The Brouhaha Over WOMM

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.

You have read this on the web, so believe it.

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

You have read this on the web, so believe it.

Give Yourself 5 Stars? Online, It Might Cost You
By David Streitfeld
September 22, 2013
… New York regulators will announce on Monday the most comprehensive crackdown to date on deceptive reviews on the Internet. Agreements have been reached with 19 companies to cease their misleading practices and pay a total of $350,000 in penalties.

The yearlong investigation encompassed companies that create fake reviews as well as the clients that buy them.

Sounds familiar:

15 December 2006
The Brouhaha Over WOMM

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.

25 January 2009
Internet Hero of the Week
An uproar hit the Web over the weekend when it was discovered an employee at consumer electronics company Belkin had offered to pay people to write positive reviews for his company's products, even if they hadn't tried them … "Write as if you own the product and are using it," Bayard suggested. "Thank the website for making you such a great deal. Mark any other negative reviews as 'not helpful' once you post yours."

21 July 2010
Manipulation of the Crowd
… This article does not mention paid shills who do the reviews. As a freelance writer, this is one of the more common things that I am paid to do.

27 August 2012
The Best Reviews Money Can Buy
… Consumer reviews are powerful because, unlike old-style advertising and marketing, they offer the illusion of truth.

22 August 2011
5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5

Lots more:

The Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising Posts

Listen to NPR

Of course, NostraChuckus will predict anything you want – for a price. Rates for prognostications are on a sliding scale based on your gullibility. 

Boomer Gnashing Teeth

An email, slightly expurgated:

Subject: Boomer Gnashing Teeth

Hi Mr. Nyren,
I just read some quotes of yours and became aware of your focus on baby boomers and “trends”.

Perhaps you can use my observations about one particular product. Toothpaste!

I am a 53 year old Canadian. I am a ship’s captain and feel pretty comfortable with a lot of technologies since the marine industry has always been a forerunner of new equipment.

Lately, however, whenever I go to a supermarket or pharmacy to buy toothpaste, I end up standing in front of a massive display of toothpaste for what seems like hours trying to determine which style/brand I want to purchase. Quite often I just walk away in disgust. I have no problems making decisions quickly in other aspects of my life! What the hell’s with all the packaging and options? I just want a simple, effective toothpaste like there used to be in the (19)60’s. I don’t want flash marketing. I don’t care if it’s “Complete” or “With Scope” or “Whitening” or “Cinnamon” I just want a god damn mint toothpaste with a simple screw cap.

Why do the manufacturers think a tube that stands on it’s end is such a necessity? Those huge plastic caps waste resources, don’t generally get recycled, waste toothpaste and are just a huge pain in the ass.

Alas, I’m not the only consumer who is clearly frustrated with Crest, Colgate and the others. Why don’t these companies ask consumers what they want? Aaargh!

If you have any influence whatsoever with Procter and Gamble and can bring back a simple toothpaste, I would personally nominate you for a Nobel prize or Pulitzer or Emmy or whatever is given to social researchers.
Thank you,
***** *******
Halifax, Nova Scotia

He must’ve run across this syndicated piece from The Canadian Press:

Boomers tough marketing target
September 8, 2013
By Romina Maurino
… To boomer Chuck Nyren, who has spent years working in advertising and has written a book about selling to his demographic, one of the keys to drawing in the 50-plus crowd is to stop treating them like they're old.

The problem with ad campaigns for products targeted at boomers, he says, is advertising firms don't know how to treat that group.

"If they do it at all, it's only for products that are medical, maybe vacations," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Snohomish, Wash., near Seattle.

"If you're over 50 and you watch television, it just keeps reinforcing the fact that you're sick. That automatically kind of turns you off to everything. They think of baby boomers as either old, smiling vapid people on a beach, or as old hippies."

… And to Nyren, 62, in-store marketing isn't doing much better.

"If you walk into a mall, it just gets annoying because there's so much noise that is directed toward younger people, even for products that are for older people, and it doesn't really grab you anymore," he said.

The toothpaste conundrum…

From a review of my book Advertising to Baby Boomers ©2005:

Nyren humorously considers the Boomer making a consumer decision:

So what toothpaste should I buy? Anybody have any ideas? I have a trillion dollars in the bank, and 300 billion to spend as I please. And I’m sauntering around the dental care aisle, hands in my pockets, jingling a few million in loose change, looking up and down, side to side, and I’m not sure what I’m going to buy (p. 54).

The full review from The Journal of Consumer Marketing.

And more from the book:

… In chapter eleven I tossed together a tongue-in-cheek scenario of me strolling up and down a toothpaste aisle and not knowing what to buy because I had no idea what product would be best for someone my age. I also mentioned that one way of “cutting through the clutter” would be to come up with a plainer package, or at least one that
didn’t look like a space-age Christmas tree ornament…

It’s always fun to get sparkling, insightful emails from folks – and to wallow in my fifteen minutes of fame in Canada.

Microsoft/Nokia Smartphones

In Nokia, Microsoft Bets on Apple-Like Revival
New York Times
By Nick Wingfield
… Apple and Google have won the hearts and minds of developers, who design the apps that lure consumers to their devices, while Samsung is the dominant maker of mobile phones, most of which run Google’s Android operating system. Even though Microsoft’s and Nokia’s products have won praise for their quality, they have arrived late.

Allow me to claw my way onto the podium and holler about this from an advertising perspective:

While it seems as if the business model (owning both software and hardware) will be aping Apple, the competition won’t be iPhone, but Android. Microsoft will never lure Apple enthusiasts.

To Microsoft’s advantage, the branding and positioning of Android is muddier. Few consumers are ‘in love’ with their Androids the way Apple folk are in love with their iPhones. Add the new Moto X to the mix and things get even muddier. Consumers will have to pay headache-inducing close attention to what each phone/operating system is so they’ll know what they’re buying. It gets confusing: Samsung, Motorola, Google, Chrome OS, Android, Moto – and all the differences, combinations, configurations. Then factor in all the Phone Carriers and their quirks.

With iPhone and Windows Phone you pretty much know what you’re getting.

Two posts from earlier this year:

01 January 2013
Windows 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.

20 June 2013
Windows 8 Redux
Win 8 phones, tablets, and desktops are potent technologies for Baby Boomers…

Disclosure: I own a Nokia Lumia. No other mundane disclaimers to report.

And it’s a good phone, easy to use and easy on the eyes. Top notch camera and video capabilities.  In a pinch when a laptop or PC isn’t available, the phone flawlessly runs Microsoft Office stuff (no surprise).

It wouldn’t be an ad campaign straight up (too hokey), but Windows Phone is the perfect blend for work and play, personal and business.  That would be subtext.  Of course, there’s much more I’d toss into the creative brew.

So we’ll wait to see what Microsoft does with Windows Phone advertising.  It’s all about simplicity, focus, productivity.  And fun.