The Interminable Death of Television

Nothing I can think of is as lively and chipper as television in its final throes.

If we all began dying as happily, healthily, slowly, and painlessly as TV, we wouldn’t fear the process - but welcome it. 

In fact, TV’s leisurely demise sounds just like normal, invigorating life to me.

The death knell first chimed in 2006:

Let's Just Declare TV Dead and Move On
The poll may be more of a simple testament to the fact that as people spend more time on the Internet, television time suffers.

Regardless, the writing is on the wall.

Someone must’ve whitewashed that wall.  Just ugly graffiti anyway…

And in 2010 Television continued croaking:

Advertising Is Dead. Again.
Here’s a question I’ve never wondered about:

“What do viewers do during commercials?”

I just assumed that most viewers watch them. Now I find out the truth: Most viewers watch them.

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.

Spending goes where the eyeballs are.

In 2011 came the last gasps:

The Flat-Screen Rectangle of Common Sense
… For the umpteenth time - The Most Effective Marketing/Advertising Model For Reaching Baby Boomers: What is now called traditional advertising pushing you to an age-friendly, informative product/services web site.

Then many years of final death wheezing and twitching:

20 January 2014
Television Repeats

TV Advertising Most Influential
by Jack Loechner
According to Deloitte's fifth edition "State of the Media Democracy" survey, 71% of Americans still rate watching TV on any device among their favorite media activities. In addition, 86% of Americans stated that TV advertising still has the most impact on their buying decisions.

11 August 2014
How America is Watching TV

26 July 2016
Television Still Shining
OMG! The Internet STILL Hasn't Killed TV!

Now, finally, in 2017, Television (and Advertising) are dead and buried:

TV networks sell a record $19.7 billion in advertising
by Meg James (LA Times)
… Media Dynamics calculated that the price per viewer paid by advertisers at this year’s market was a 72% increase over the 2008 upfront. And overall revenue generated for commercials placed in prime-time programs soared 18% since 2008.

R.I.P.
Television and Advertising

The Psychobabble Silly News: Bifurcated Boomers

It happens once or twice a year. Every so often I do a Google News search for Baby Boomers and two contradictory articles pop up one after the other. It’s like invoking Tweedledum and Tweedledee out of the ether.

The latest:

Why Your Decades After 60 May Be Your Best
Retired people past that age are the most joyful. Here's why…

Baby boomers are getting glum
… Its latest consumer confidence survey of 2,006 people in April 2017 showed that baby boomers were the most pessimistic age group.

Maybe we’re all joyful about being pessimistic.

Earlier Pairings:

21 May 2010
We’re all miserably happy, or …

Baby Boomers: An unhappy generation?
by Amy Sherman
… Why does a recent survey from Pew Research on Demographic Trends state that of all the generations, baby boomers are considered the unhappiest and most discontent? Could it be because our work and personal responsibilities cause us too much stress? Or that we feel strapped, tired and just bummed out?

Daily stress and worry plummet after age 50 By Sharon Jayson
After 50, daily stress and worry take a dive and daily happiness increases, according to an analysis of more than 340,000 adults questioned about the emotions they experienced "yesterday."

25 January 2017
The More Things Stay The Same, The More They Stay The Same

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

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

Does any of this have anything to do with marketing and advertising?

Probably not much. My take from Advertising to Baby Boomers © 2005/2007:

Brain Games or Mind Games?

More bad news for brain games:

Think brain games make you smarter? Think again, researchers say
Brain games marketed by the billion-dollar brain-training industry don't improve cognition or help prevent age-related brain decline, new research finds…

“The thing that seniors in particular should be concerned about is, if I can get very good at crossword puzzles, is that going to help me remember where my keys are? And the answer is probably no.”

Forget Brain Games — They Won't Make You Smarter

No big surprise for dumb Chuck. Eight years ago I was skeptical (but mostly skeptical of the outrageous claims with no proof):

02 March 2009
The Brain Games Game
… My first exposure to the recent spate of brain games was at the 2004 Boomer Business Summit.  I scratched my not-too-bright head and wondered what the difference was between a brain game and any mind-bending game: Rubik's Cube, Scrabble, Sudoku, etc.  Obviously, this new crop of revolutionary IQ busters improved your brain power while all the others were, I guess, just for laughs. 

…  And that’s what bothered me about the marketing – and still does.  Are these new-fangled blinking lights on a screen the best way, the only way to keep your noggin nimble?  This seems to be the claim.  Or are they a new breed in a long line of cognitive games that go back to counting pebbles on a cave floor?

You certainly get the ‘hard-sell’ impression that if you don’t buy and play these games, eventually your brain will leak out of your nose and ears…

Now we have proof.  Brain games do nothing but entertain – and don’t say otherwise or this is what’ll happen if you do:

06 January 2016
Brain Games: Hocus-Pocus Hyperbole
Looks like a not-so-bright company hawking a make-me-bright online game is in non-virtual hot water…

Want to kill time at the airport? Take out your smartphone and play a brain game. Want to get smarter? Read a book. Want to stay smart? Re-read a book.

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Just for fun:

The Live Forever Diet
by Chuck Nyren
Scrumptious and so simple to prepare even a 112-year-old can do it.

Much More Some of The News That’s Fit To Print

Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Marketing from continent to continent and satellite to server and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press…

Steve Lubetkin is tired of the myth that baby boomers aren’t tech-savvy.  He thinks he’s tired??? I’ve been exhausted for almost a dozen years … Ever wonder what type of advertising is the least disliked?  Or the most trusted? I spilled most of the beans way back in 2007 … Kevin Lavery has warned us. His blog contains adult content …

From the It’s All About Me Files: Small business gears up for baby boomers according to Marjo Johne of The Globe and Mail (you’ll find a quote or two from Yours Truly) …  This blog made the list (#40):  Top 70 Advertising Blogs And Websites for Advertising Agencies & Firms …

Talk of The Town: Max Wells chats with Marc Freedman of Encore.org … Carol Orsborn is as fierce as ever … Susan Silver in NYC still looks hot in hot pants while hawking her tell-almost-all memoir, Hot Pants in Hollywood … The Society for Women’s Health Research honors AARP media maven Myrna Blyth …

Don’t spend too much time hanging out here or anywhere else on the WWW. Psychologists claim social media ‘increases loneliness’.  NostraChuckus told you this years ago but obviously you weren’t listening …

… ‘til next time…..

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
This 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
I'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!
By 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.

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Industry Arrives at a Consensus on Online Advertising
by Brian Jacobs
… 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

Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising

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Top model agency responds to baby boomer spending power
by Helen Leggatt
The 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?

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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.

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Just for fun:

76 Million Sociopaths Outed
by Chuck Nyren
… 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…