07 September 2017

Even More Some of The News That’s Fit to Print

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

Now in its fourth year, the Mature Marketing Summit is firmly established as Europe's leading conference for all interested in marketing for older consumers …

Old New News Flashes: Boomers' role in entrepreneurship is, well, booming … Not exactly cutting-edge journalism if you’ve kept up with NostraChuckus through the years: Entrepreneurs & Baby Boomers Part I Boomers A Driving Force On U.S. Economy Despite Advertising Focus On Millennials …  Some of us have been saying that for the last twelve years, maybe more …

carolTalk of The Town: Carol Orsborn was once Fierce With Age.  Now she’s Older, Wiser, FiercerPaul Kleyman isn’t thrilled about The Age of Anti-Aging … I wasn’t happy about it in my previous postThe Ad Contrarian has proof that he’s an idiotBrent Green examines Media Mishaps from Spicey and The Mooch

P&G Cuts More Than $100 Million in ‘Largely Ineffective’ Digital Ads … This reporter is not surprised … ‘Til next time.

30 August 2017

Disillusioned

imageHarry (Rick) Moody, former Vice President and Director of Academic Affairs for AARP, tackles disillusionment in an engrossing piece for The American Society on Aging.  He opens with a humorous, self-deprecating story about not giving a presentation on the subject:

Baby Boomers: From Great Expectations to a Crisis of Meaning
Image result for american society of aging… I had given many presentations at conferences on aging, but this session turned out to be unique: I sat on a chair at my poster session for two hours and not a single person came by. Not one. Talk about disillusionment!

Rick goes deep, quoting and/or referencing Robert N. Butler, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, The Buddha, Erik Erikson, Viktor Frankl, and others. His take, it seems to me, is not to define disillusionment as some sort of generic depression - but as a wisdom-inducing experience, perhaps not welcomed but ultimately enlightening.

The Danish author Isak Dinesen once said: “All the sorrows of life are bearable if only we can convert them into a story.” Are we perhaps telling the wrong story about old age—namely, that we can “fix” it?


Rick Moody’s Human Values in Aging Newsletter has over 10,000 subscribers. It’s free w/ no advertising. A personal newsletter. No privacy-invading shenanigans.  Email Rick and he will add you to the list.

CVRCompWhile Rick goes deep, Chuck goes shallow – simply sticking a finger in the ocean and wriggling it around. Way back in 2005, in my book Advertising to Baby Boomers, a chapter dealing with some of the same issues:

Don’t Paint Too Rosy A Picture
A recent article in USA Today asks us to “take a moment to journey forward to 2046, when 79 million baby boomers will be 82 to 100 years old.”[i]  A paragraph later, the reporter asks, “So just what kind of America will be forged by this crowd of geriatric goliaths?”

Excuse me for being an unassuming ‘David’ (or even worse, a genocidal Grim Reaper) but I doubt very much that all 79 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. will still be alive in forty years, swaggering like giants – unless the medical establishment is holding out on me.

The good news you know: many Baby Boomers will live longer, healthier lives – more so than in any previous generations. The bad news you also know: a huge chunk of Boomers will pass on, and another huge chunk will be dealing with acute diseases and afflictions.  

The problem is that well-meaning articles in the press like the USA Today piece, along with mountains of 50+ marketing fodder, are setting up Boomers for a psychological fall.  There will be a backlash.

Not being a therapist, I won’t diagnose – but if it were beaten into my head over and over that things were going to be just peachy for the next forty years, that my same-aged friends will all be around laughing and cavorting while leading meaningful, vigorous lives—then, shock of shocks, many of us become incapacitated and/or drop and die – I will feel cheated.   I will become depressed and disillusioned.  It will happen even if I’m one of the ‘lucky’ healthy ones.

Ask today’s 80+ year olds about this or that and you’ll probably find that many are surprised (but relatively pleased) they’re still alive.  They believe they’ve beaten the odds, for whatever reasons.  Jump twenty-five, thirty years: if the myth of the non-dying, perfectly healthy Baby Boomer persists, folks in the aging industry are going to have millions of very angry octogenarians their hands.  They might even blame you for all those false promises.

How should this be dealt with by marketers and advertisers?  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.  Only a small percentage will opt for pure retirement.

This is all part of redefining what it means to be the ages we are.  It may seem to some as  pathological, believing and acting as if we’re eighteen or twenty-five – but that’s because pundits and experts suspiciously eyeing this gargantuan, spirited, unwieldy and varied hoard of middle-agers have nothing to compare it to.  The only conclusion they can come to: Baby Boomers must a bit daft.

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.

Much of this new, positive attitude about our future has to do with being the beneficiaries of so many fast and furious medical advances.  Some we have already taken advantage of, while others are ready and waiting for us – or right around the corner.  A good example is joint and hip replacement surgery.  The cane industry is in the doldrums, and we’re hoping it will never recover.

Another medical advance (still in its infancy, from what I’ve read) is pain management.  This promises Baby Boomers and successive generations freedom from a fear that haunts all as we age.

There has been plenty of press about Baby Boomers and their dread of Alzheimer’s.  Not much of a surprise.  Alzheimer’s affects many of our parents, we’re caring for them – and nothing frightens us more than not being in control of our own destinies.  However, from what I’ve read there may be some breakthroughs within the next twenty years.  That’s very good news.

Am I painting too rosy a picture here?  Isn’t this something I was railing against in the first few paragraphs?

Yes, but with a big difference.  All the examples above have to do with the quality of life – not the quantity.

If I were digging into a marketing/advertising campaign for a client in the aging industry, I would extract as much quality inherent in the product/service – and toss out any (or most) mention of longevity.  This would hold true even with basic nutritional and  exercise products.  A significant chunk of people who eat only healthy foods and  exercise regularly die of heart attacks, get cancer, are the victims of  all sorts of diseases and afflictions.  You can’t fool me.

But the quality of their lives in every respect will be superior to the ones who don’t take care of themselves, or avail themselves to what’s out there in the aging industry market.  

Nobody can promise you that you’ll live to be a hundred.  However, you can (more or less) make a good argument that healthy lifestyles and advances in modern medicine will offer you a quality life after sixty that no preceding generation had ever imagined.

[i] 2046: A boomer odyssey
By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY October 27, 2005

_____

There’s nothing wrong with being positive and aspirational – you just have to temper it with dollops of reality so your marketing won’t be dismissed as pie-in-the-sky nonsense.

21 July 2017

The Interminable Death of Television

[image[3].png]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
imageThe 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
image… 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

Related image

05 June 2017

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:

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

advisorBaby 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
image … 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
image 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
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.

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

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

[image[23].png]

01 May 2017

Brain Games or Mind Games?

More bad news for brain games:

Think brain games make you smarter? Think again, researchers say
imageBrain 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. 

chess…  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?

image_thumb2You 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.


Just for fun:

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