From The Nothing New Dept : Retail’s New Niche

Retail's new niche: Aging baby boomers
The number of senior citizens in the United States is expected to nearly double by 2050, creating a fast-growing niche for retailers and manufacturers.

Odd sentence. What is an ‘aging’ baby boomer? I guess one who isn’t dead.

How about ‘fast-growing niche’? I guess in the grand scheme of things, thirty-odd years is a nanosecond. 

The Baby Boomer Market is a ‘niche’?  I guess the Pacific Ocean is a niche.

Executives at Gillette have for decades defined shaving as a rite of passage … in recent years, executives have begun to see another milestone emerge in their customers’ lives: the moment when sons begin shaving their aging fathers.

Smart that Gillette understands the difference between 50-70 year-olds and an 80-100 year-olds. Few advertisers do.

A touching, sweet video:

… At Best Buy, the focus is increasingly on aging Americans who live at home …

Step one: Make it easier for adults to keep tabs on their aging parents. The company’s Assured Living program, introduced a year ago, uses a network of sensors to alert caretakers to changes in routine.

Best Buy’s acquisition of GreatCall … (has) two Jitterbug phones — one with a touch screen, the other a flip phone.

Will their youngish sales force be trained to differentiate between fifty-sixty somethings and eighty-ninety somethings?

I’m sixty-seven. If I walk into a Best Buy and say, “I’m looking for a smartphone,” and the salesperson steers me to a Jitterbug, I’d turn around and walk out. If I walk in and say, “I’m looking for a smartphone for my father” – I would be happy if he/she steers me to a Jitterbug.

We’ll see.

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Yours Truly is participating in a project/startup:

TV Spots I Remember

My previous post:

28 or 52 or 103 Things Only Baby Boomers Remember 

While banging it out I began thinking about commercials that have stuck with me through the years. They’re not necessarily the best or most famous – simply ones I loved, knocked me out.

Although the advertising revolution was well under way by 1965, I remember first seeing this commercial (I’m fourteen) and just going batty. I had no idea what I was watching. No commercial before had ever started and continued non-stop as a montage. Every image was memorable. Montages of any sort weren’t really used much on television – in commercials or programs:

Volkswagen Ads. There were so many. A great mini-doc:

The VW spot I went nutty over was for the Bus/Station Wagon. I swear I remember it being a minute long. An old couple is walking down a residential city street, looking for an address. They find it, walk up a few flights of stairs, then ...

Stone-faced absurdity. I’d never seen anything like it in a commercial. The actress playing the mother makes it all work.

Special effects. They’re all over the screen today. In the 1960s this was about as good as it got:

How about a spot whose sole purpose was not to use special effects? Talk about thrills and chills…

There is no ‘greatest commercial ever’ – except, of course, the Volkswagen Snow-Plow commercial:

My favorite greatest commercial ever:

Simple message: FedEx=Fast.

28 or 52 or 103 Things Only Baby Boomers Remember

There are hundreds of lists of things only Baby Boomers will remember. I stumble upon a new one every month or so.

The latest one from Good Housekeeping:

28 Things Only Baby Boomers Will Remember

Usually, some Baby Boomer puts these lists together. This time, no. So there are anachronisms and cognitive dissonances every which way - telephones, gas stations, cars from the 1930s and 1940s, and so on. For example, the picture above is captioned:

 Whether it was The Beatles or the Beach Boys, people born in the '50s definitely remember buying their first vinyl record and listening to it over and over again.

Hmmm. That’s not quite the way I remember it. What pops up in my mind is one of these:

Here’s a better list:

37 Things Every Baby Boomer Will Remember

22. Your doctor would lecture you about junk food while smoking a cigarette in your face.

23. You didn’t know who was calling you until you actually picked up the phone.

24. You know the anticipation of waiting for a polaroid picture to develop.

There are loads of better lists.

Now, think about a 25-year-old creative putting together an ad campaign targeting Baby Boomers.

The Human Resources/Brain Power Posts

From the vaults:

15 March 2010
Hire Baby Boomer Creatives
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.

Generations Make Better Decisions Together

The Year Of Big Gets Bigger

NostraChuckus, famed soothsayer of the obvious, continues to amaze with his humdrum prognostications:

21 July 2017
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.

09 January 2018
2018: The Year of Big
That’s my prediction. Advertisers will finally follow simple common sense, something a certain seer has been urging for years…

26 March 2018
NostraChuckus’ Crystal Ball of Common Sense has spot-on prognosticated what would come true in 2018

And now …

Direct-to-consumer brands see gains from traditional TV
For many direct-to-consumer companies trying to diversify their marketing away from Facebook and into traditional media, TV stands as a new opportunity…

Iconic brand advertising on TV isn't going anywhere

Traditional TV rolls with the times, remains a viable entertainment channel to both viewers and advertisers

Go90 promised to reinvent the TV ad model. Instead it's shutting down

Social media ads increasingly less popular among viewers

NostraChuckus often gets bored seeing the same thing over and over in his Crystal Ball of Common Sense. Instead, he’ll be staring at this for awhile:

Reefer Madness

In some places it’s legal. In other places it’s sort of legal.

It’s now legal in Canada.

You can smoke it, eat it, spray it on body parts or someone else’s body parts.

There’s a suppository. 

Lots of suppositories.

You can get really ripped or simply become moderately pain-free. Or both.

If I listed all of marijuana’s claims – valid, maybe valid, yet-to-be-determined, complete poppycock – you’d go mad.

The reefer madness today is its marketing and advertising. What a mess.

I’m in a category: The Baby Boomers Who Smoked Lots Of Grass Way Back When, Stopped For The Most Part, Now Might Want to Get Back Into It Again For Medical Reasons And/Or Just For Fun.

But I have no idea where to start, what goes on in these places. I do know that I don’t want to walk into a cannabis shop like a hayseed right off the bus.

But I am a hayseed right off the bus. All I know I learned from watching one episode of a bad sitcom.

Leafly is fascinating, but I’m lost:
    

I just want a nickel bag. Although I know today it’ll cost me $50.00.

If there is some sort of National Marijuana Association and it wants to promote their products to the 50+ market, the best advertising would be simple, direct information. The less creative the better.

After I’m stoned you can get goofy, silly, and confusing. I won’t care.