Beginning in 2003, my business blog for Creative Services, Copywriting, Consulting, and Speaking. You'll find all sorts of information about the current trends in advertising and marketing to this unwieldy, diverse demographic.
Mary Furlong and a slew of impressive sponsors present:
The What’s Next Boomer Business Summit For more than a decade, MFA has collaborated with the American Society on Aging (ASA) to present the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit in conjunction with ASA’s annual Aging in America national conference. Scheduled this year for March 11–15 in San Diego, California, Aging in America is the nation’s largest multidisciplinary conference on aging issues…
I’ve been to a few:
14 March 2006 What's Next? Boomer Business Summit I'll be hopping off the blogging merry-go-round for a week or so to participate in Mary Furlong & Associates/BFA's Third Annual What's Next? Boomer Business Summit in Anaheim.
Sydney, Australia in April:
The Mature Market Engaging Australia’s Most Astute and Affluent Demographic One-day connected forum with two half day post-forum workshops.
Age Aware Summit 2014 SERC is hosting The Age Aware Summit, an interactive conference for business leaders, marketers and marketing communication professionals.
The Keynote Speaker:
Dick Stroud is quickly achieving worldwide recognition as a leading expert in understanding the implications of physical aging on the way older people behave and the products they buy.
I’ve already declared this The Year of Fashion, so that’s that. Too late to drape the annum in a new cloak.
In January 2010 I declared it to be:
The Year of The Baby Boomer Brain … 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.
I had to do some searching to find the above, wasn’t sure which year was the year of the baby boomer brain. I guess my cranial hard drive needs to be cleaned and defragmented:
"The human brain works slower in old age but only because we have stored more information over time," lead researcher Dr. Michael Ramscar said in a written statement…
Whew. I don’t need a new C:Drive. The one I have is plenty big, a terabyte or two. It’s just slow.
I could use a new monitor, however. And maybe a Google Chromecast to stick in my ear.
Of course, Ronni Bennett has something to say about it all – along with a bunch of good links:
The repetition doesn’t annoy me. What does: Many offer up their prognostications as something fresh, profound, even controversial.
Why TV Ad Spend Will Grow More Than Digital Spend In The Next Five Years … TV advertising and audiences are not shrinking. The average American watches more than 34 hours of TV programming every week … TV advertising works. Sight, sound and motion on 60-inch, high-definition screens deliver results every day for brands like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Walmart, State Farm, Kellogg’s and Ford. Audiences are massive. They are passive audiences.
Sounds familiar.
15 April 2007 Positioning Magazines for Baby Boomers There are active and passive parts of our day. Without getting into too much psychobabble … the passive side needs nourishment. It’s not really passive. It’s focused absorption. At some point you have to climb out of your frenetic digital nest and concentrate on one thing. It might be reading a book, watching a TV show or movie, listening to music, looking out the window…
15 February 2009 Television Still Shines As enamored as advertisers are with the interactive potential of digital advertising, they know that online is a complement to offline, not its replacement …
16 July 2009 Facts Consumers find TV ads more helpful than any other type of commercial message … They find TV spots more helpful than online banner ads in deciding what products or services to purchase by an astounding margin of 37 to 1 …
18 April 2011 The Flat-Screen Rectangle of Common Sense … Broadcast networks' overall ad volume during the upcoming upfront market will grow strongly to over $10 billion … as well as averaging double-digit percent gains…
06 March 2012 Digital Distractions Advertisers are getting wise to the drawbacks of marketing in the digital nest.
Even I’m getting bored sifting through these moldy posts. Just one more:
01 May 2010 Foretellings … That silly retronym “traditional advertising” will remain the premiere force for introducing people to a product or service, along with sustaining its shelf life. Television, print, radio, and billboard ads will continue to have the visceral power they’ve always had – if only for their sheer size, simplicity, and cutting-edge audio/visual qualities.
For some reason, everyone’s talking about clothes and accoutrements. Maybe it’s time for people fifty and beyond to dress appropriately – meaning (probably) inappropriately, but comfortably – with a willing nod to fashion.
It’s been attempted many times before, with calamitous results:
29 August 2005 The Very Secretive Forth & Towne If you're in the advertising/marketing industry (or in the retail clothing industry, I'm guessing) you're probably sick of hearing about Forth & Towne - a new set of thirty-odd stores opening up around the country.
28 February 2007 Bye-Bye, Forth & Towne Gap Inc. announced plans yesterday to shutter its Forth & Towne division, which catered to women ages 35 and older … Forth & Towne was launched 18 months ago in New York and Chicago to much fanfare as a place for fashion-conscious baby boomers to shop …
There are more posts through the years about fashion and advertising, but I’ll spare you.
The new stuff in Media Land:
Fashion: A mature market By Andrea Felsted and Norma Cohen Retailers are struggling to find the right formula for the demanding baby-boomer market…The problem is that few clothing retailers have successfully managed to market to the baby-boomer women – ironic, given that advertising has for decades been geared to selling the postwar generation everything from blue jeans to Pepsi.
The Giant Leap There had better be a minor revolution in the creative end of the advertising industry. Talented men and women in their late forties and fifties need to be brought back into the fold if you want to reach us. This includes copywriters, graphic artists, producers, directors, and creative directors.
Truth is, you can analyze marketing fodder all day and night, read countless books about marketing to Baby Boomers, attend advertising and marketing conventions around the world, and soak up everything all the experts have to say. Much of what is out there is valuable and useful … But if you plan on implementing a creative strategy and turn it over to a different generation of advertising professionals—you'll forfeit the natural sensibilities required to generate vital campaigns.
Ronni Bennett’s recent blog post tells us something’s up:
Friday, 03 January 2014 Elder Fashion Sense …Apparently, being in public in clean, attractive clothes selected to fit well, that match or contrast pleasingly along with shoes and hat that enhance the outfit is something to be remarked upon…
Thanks to Ronni I’ve become a fan of…
Advanced Style Advanced Style offers proof from the wise and silver-haired set that personal style advances with age.
The promo for the documentary:
OK, it’s a stretch – but watching the first few seconds of this video reminded me of the first few seconds of a short film from forty-four years ago:
I know of more fashion-related projects slated for this year, so fashion might be on my plate throughout 2014.
Unrelated to advertising:
This week a piece by yours truly is published in HuffPost Featured Fifty Fiction:
18 December 2012 Until next year (if it happens)… Like The Mayans, NostraChuckus unleashes prognostications not limited to calendar years. Often he foretells decades in advance.
01 January 2013 Windows 8 … Redmond screwed up a bit with their new OS. Lots of folks aren’t happy with the Start Screen. You can do your own binging about the brouhaha. It has to do with the touch interface when there’s no touch. The OS works flawlessly on phones and tablets, not so well on desktops and laptops with regular ol’ monitors and screens. Third-party workarounds are available – and I use them.
News article, December 9:
Windows Start menu to return in Windows 8.2By Mark Hachman In what could be one of the more startling reversals since New Coke, a report released Monday claims that Microsoft will bring back a Windows 7-style Start menu to what is being called Windows 8.2.
Second and third posts this year:
07 January 2013 Tablets Moses and the pharmaceutical industry once had exclusive dibs on this word. Nowadays, tablet commonly refers to a specific type of computer doodad technology. 14 January 2013 Tablets Redux … Researchers have developed a revolutionary tablet screen as thin as a sheet of paper that can be twisted and dropped without damage - and it could replace your laptop within five years.
Need I say more? Watch TV, zip through magazines and newspapers. Tablets are taking over the world. More ‘traditional’ advertising will follow.
Scroll to #3:
04 November 2013 Smartphones & Tablets Clients and just about everybody else seem to be confused about advertising on all these new-fangled gadgets. Added to the mix are odd, stupefying concepts like digital and mobile and native. Most of this stuff is gobbledygook, but I’ll try to separate the chaff from the chaff…
My favorite post this year, probably because someone else wrote it:
15 September 2013 Boomer Gnashing Teeth 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.
And check out a series of posts about AARP – with a focus on their magazine and media:
The AARP PostsThere is a slow overhaul of AARP Magazine going on, no doubt for the better ...
For more than a decade, MFA has collaborated with the American Society on Aging (ASA) to present the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit in conjunction with ASA’s annual Aging in America national conference. Scheduled this year for March 11–15 in San Diego, California, Aging in America is the nation’s largest multidisciplinary conference on aging issues…
14 March 2006
Sydney, Australia in April:
Age Aware Summit 2014
Dick Stroud is quickly achieving worldwide recognition as a leading expert in understanding the implications of physical aging on the way older people behave and the products they buy.
The Year of The Baby Boomer Brain
Not only the shows… 
16 July 2009
18 April 2011![[image[10].png]](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_n77PqIjyySk/TNhU6q2eusI/AAAAAAAAEgk/uFHGs86hSEA/s1600/image%5B10%5D.png)
01 May 2010
29 August 2005
28 February 2007
18 December 2012
Of course, that 
… Redmond screwed up a bit with their new OS. Lots of folks aren’t happy with the Start Screen. You can do your own 
In what could be one of the more startling reversals since New Coke, a report released Monday claims that Microsoft will bring back a Windows 7-style Start menu to what is being called Windows 8.2.
04 November 2013
