15 March 2017

Something Old, Something Old, Something Borrowed, Something Old

Actually, everything in this post is old and borrowed.

Has wearable tech had its day?
By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBY7t7OmZYBRoSEwSJc7Effi6xJQTeoP2mZKX788CygiHEZA6mMwThis time last year analysts were making multi-billion dollar forecasts for the developers of health trackers and smartwatches … But by November 2016 Smartwatch shipments declined by 51.6% year-on-year …

… Jawbone, once a popular fitness tracker brand, confirmed to TechCrunch that it is leaving the consumer market and focusing on healthcare providers … Microsoft has removed its Fitness Band on its online store … and crucially no longer provides the Band developer kits.

And if you read to the end, they’re still optimistic. 

My old and borrowed takes:

Never Leave The Hospital! Health Tech Wearables, Implanted Chips
By Chuck Nyren
huffington_post_logo1I'm having issues. I'm worried that the medical industry might want me to worry too much about my health. A little worry is good. But constant worry? It seems as if they want me to think of nothing else but my vital signs for the rest of my life.

Finally Live The Life You've Always Wanted With Wearables!
2014-11-14-beany.jpgBy Chuck Nyren
… Along with Google Glasses, you'll also be wearing Google Nose and Google Mouth.

15 OCTOBER 2015
Baby Boomers Not Wearing Wearables
… My guess is that we’re a decade away from wearables we might want to wear. Even then we might not want to wear them.


Industry Arrives at a Consensus on Online Advertising
by Brian Jacobs
image… Since the media world exploded and we all started talking digital gobbledegook the BS filter gets clogged, and all sorts of rubbish gets through (and all sorts of good stuff gets blocked) when that happens.

Then there’s the ads. Sad to say they’ve become ludicrously irrelevant, the province of the luddite creatives…

My takes on this are so old and borrowed they’re threadbare:

03 OCTOBER 2016
Digital Ad Shenanigans
image

Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising



Top model agency responds to baby boomer spending power
by Helen Leggatt
imageThe growing buying power, and lust for life, of the post-war baby boomer generation has led to one of Europe's leading model agencies to launch a new division – RETRO….

Some of many:

05 OCTOBER 2007
London & Marks & Spencer
… The adverts use Twiggy and three other models of various ages - very age-neutral marketing.

02 JULY 2008
Demand for older models grows

13 JUNE 2013
Are you model material?


Thanks to Christopher Simpson for telling me about this:

50 Years Later, Heinz Approves Don Draper’s ‘Pass the Heinz’ Ads and Is Actually Running Them

I remember laughing when Draper was pitching a campaign to Lucky Strike around the concept of It's Toasted, Lucky Strike's slogan created in 1917.

Mad Men was either 40 years behind the times or 50 years ahead of it. It may have missed the 1960s altogether.


Just for fun:

76 Million Sociopaths Outed
by Chuck Nyren
[image%255B6%255D.png]… As someone who does not have impressive degrees in history or sociology, I was thinking, just off the top of my head, how an eminent scholar (as the author assuredly is) might go about researching and ultimately arriving at the startling conclusion that baby boomers are a generation of sociopaths…

15 February 2017

The Age of Portmanteau

If I may coin a phrase, we’re living in the Age of Portmanteau, what with Bromance, Sexting, Frankenfood, and dozens of other blends bandied about – even by reputable news sources (if there are any anymore).

A new one: Boomaissance.

I swear I didn’t make it up.  Some marketing firm did. A humongous marketing firm.

Boomaissance: While the media remains smitten with Millennials, it's the Boomers who control 70% of the disposable income in this country. The tide is turning—older is becoming cooler as Boomers take on a "Middle Aged Millennial" mindset…

Tell me some youngsters didn’t write this. Of course, all us old folks do is just sit around all day wanting to be Millennials…

Such Hubrilescence!  (I made that up. A blend of hubris and adolescence.)

We weren’t that different when we were their age:

11 February 2008
Me vs. We
[mevsyou.jpg]… Talk to some folks in their twenties, thirties. They are now in that ‘me’ stage. It’s healthy, smart for them to be so. I was just like them thirty years ago, get a big bang out of them, admire their boundless creativity, energy – and self-obsession. These ‘me generation’ twentysomethings today will become a ‘we generation’ in thirty years…

But we do not have or want millennial mindsets.  Two quotes from my book (2005):

CVRComp… Contrary to popular myth, Baby Boomers do not believe that they are still teenagers or young adults. (Some probably do, but they need therapy.) Boomers are slyly redefining what it means to be the ages they are. Included in this new definition are some youthful attitudes - but the real change is that instead of winding down, many are winding up. We're not 'looking forward to retirement,' we're looking forward to new lives, new challenges…

There is a big difference between thinking you are younger than you are, and not thinking that you are old. This “night and day” distinction may confuse many pundits, but it does not confuse most Boomers…

Of course, any Boomaissance advertising created by Millennials that assume all Boomers want to be Millennials have failed and will fail. 

And maybe that’s been my problem all along! While I’ve been writing about hiring older creatives for over a decade…

The Human Resources/Brain Power Posts

… I never came up with a proper portmanteau to promote the concept of age diversity in advertising agencies. Let me give it a whirl:

Boomlennial (Boomer and Millennial)

Juveluvian (Juvenile and Antediluvian)

Youngacious (Young and Sagacious)

I’ll keep trying.


Just for fun.  Absolutely nothing to do with advertising:

imageNo Goblins
by Chuck Nyren
…I don’t watch TV shows with goblins. Or draculas or monsters of any kind. Which means I don’t watch much TV anymore...

01 February 2017

Black Ops Advertising by Mara Einstein

I blogged this book already – without reading it.  Now I’ve read it.

Good one, recommended if you don’t mind getting sick to your stomach. Stay away if you’re prone to paranoia. As for me, it just got me all itchy and queasy.

So far, this might not seem to be a positive review. It is one. But like most of what’s on the web nowadays, how do you know if it’s fact, advertising, fiction, advertising, drivel, advertising, truth, advertising? Professor Einstein does what she can to sort it all out.

Image resultI’ve been following this cesspool for over a decade and writing about it here for just as long. The power of Black Ops Advertising: Native Ads, Content Marketing and the Covert World of the Digital Sell is the cumulative effect of all the advertising/marketing/public relations slop roiling in digital ether – contained in one book.

Two visceral takeaways:

Rolling on the floor laughing  What a wacky virtual world we live in!  Streams of prose, pictures, videos, all not what they seem.  Alice in Wonderland, by comparison, is rather prosaic.

Nyah-Nyah  And speaking of Looking Glasses and such, it never occurred to me that my computer screen and smartphone are really one-way mirrors. (Or are they called two-way mirrors? See? It’s all so confusing!) While I stare at my screen, literally hundreds, probably thousands of people are staring back at me, following me everywhere I go, watching and recording my every move. And here I thought I was merely reading Google News and checking my email.  It makes me want to scream at each of them with that tired retort, “GET A LIFE!”

imageReviewed in
The Guardian:

Black Ops Advertising by Mara Einstein review – stealth marketing is everywhere
by Steven Poole
…Profiling may be scandalous when the police do it, but it is all the rage online…

25 January 2017

The More Things Stay The Same, The More They Stay The Same

In this topsy-turvy world where there are boggling upheavals every 5-minute news cycle, it’s comforting to know that some things will always remain the same.  

Forget the millennials, online travel could be missing the boom time 
imageYoung, slick, mobile-savvy millennials, if many headlines are to be believed, are the customer segment that many travel startups first target…

As it was, almost a dozen years ago…

14 November 2005
My Favorite Cyber-Myth
…Hitwise found that visitors to the top travel search engines were by far likely to be over 55 years of age. Hitwise attributed this to baby boomers…

15 April 2006
Insatiable Appetite for Information
…Of the travel content viewed by this group, over 70% takes place on agency, hotel supplier, and airline carrier websites…

Dick Stroud has no problems opening this can of worms:

Package design is the dark horse of the marketing world. So says Nielsen.
image… So much packaging design assumes the customer has 20/20 vision, a knowledge of how the packaging works and the hand and grip and strength of a wrestler.

I had no problems over a decade ago:

12 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…

The thrill starts with the grille…

The Crazy Logic Of Media Strategy
Ad Contrarian
image… But why in the fucking world would you direct those commercials at 20 year olds? If your objective is to sell more cars, and people over 50 are 4 times as valuable to you, why in the world would your media target be millennials?

grillethrill12 March 2009
Who’s gonna buy this car?
… I’ve blabbered about this for years.  In 2005 on The Advertising Show yours truly had a spirited discussion with hosts Brad Forsythe and Ray Schilens.  A chunky segment was about marketing autos to Boomers.

Baby Boomers are wonderful, Baby Boomers are horrible. Today and years ago.

Today:

How baby boomers became the most selfish generation
imageThe baby boomers who have controlled this country since the 1980s are a selfish, entitled generation.

Baby Boomers Pitch In
imageSenior citizens are channeling time and money to volunteer efforts. One estimate: They’ll contribute $8 trillion in two decades.

Years Ago:

April 8, 1997
The Anti Boomer Page 

22 October 2009
Me vs. We Redux Redux
…Did any generation apologize for The Great Depression? I’ll have to check the history books.  If not, it should.  Some of those evil bastards must still be alive.  Anybody over ninety-eight had better atone…

So don’t feel too bad. Not everything is changing.  As I’ve said, take comfort in that.

Now I’m going to make myself some comfort food – maybe a grilled-cheese sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk with a straw – and watch the evening news.

04 January 2017

Where we might be headed in 2017.

While the world, civilized and otherwise, is headed for certain annihilation, I’m a bit more optimistic about advertising to the 50+ demo.

Marketing folks are starting to catch on, maybe:

Getting to know urban elderly consumers
image_thumbThe elderly haven’t always been a priority for retailers and consumer companies. Yet they present a big opportunity: the demographic could account for more than half of all growth in urban consumption in developed markets in the next 15 years…

And for the last 15 years – but who cares about that.

Human Resources:

Boomerang Boom: More Firms Tapping the Skills of the Recently Retired
By CHRISTOPHER FARRELL
image_thumb2Call them boomerang retirees: people who exit gracefully after their career at a company, then return shortly afterward to work there part time…

Over-50s can adapt to new jobs and technology: research
By Anna Patty
image_thumb3… The survey of 5973 Australians aged 18 and over, conducted by Lonergan Research on behalf of insurance company Apia, found 77 per cent of people over 50 believe their creativity levels increase or stay the same with age…

I’ve heard this somewhere before. Maybe here:

Human Resources/Brain Power


Wearable Tech
:

Why Smart Wearables Needs To Get Smarter: Notable Percentage Of Abandonment Due To Boredom, High Prices
image… The reasons stated by them included boredom and the fact that they didn't find them useful…

I’ve heard this somewhere before. Maybe here:

image15 October 2015
Baby Boomers Not Wearing Wearables

Never Leave The Hospital! Health Tech Wearables, Implanted Chips
By Chuck Nyren
huffington_post_logo1I'm having issues. I'm worried that the medical industry might want me to worry too much about my health. A little worry is good. But constant worry? It seems as if they want me to think of nothing else but my vital signs for the rest of my life.

Finally Live The Life You've Always Wanted With Wearables!
2014-11-14-beany.jpgBy Chuck Nyren
… Along with Google Glasses, you'll also be wearing Google Nose and Google Mouth.

Making Sense, Finally:

Turning Ad Dollars Into Pennies

(You’ll have to scroll a bit for the next one)

TV’s resurgence gathers pace
image_thumb5…Much has been written about the surging popularity of online video at the expense of more traditional media, yet in 2016 we have seen many online brands invest heavily in television content and advertising…

So after the polar ice melts,  and there’s WWIII, advertising and marketing might end up in better shape this year.