13 December 2016

Recap 2016: Advertising to Baby Boomers

The year began with folks playing games with our brains:

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:
Lumosity fined millions for making false claims about brain health benefits…

And, as always, there was More Déjà Vu:

image19 April 2016
Big Mags Roll Out Big Guns. Again.
… The Economist found that only 31% of firms it polled did take into account increased longevity when making plans for sales and marketing … One reason for this tardiness is that young people dominate marketing departments and think that the best place for the old is out of sight and mind.

23 September 2016
Deaf Ears, Gatekeepers, and Frustration
image… We have approached all the local ******* ad agencies and (our pitches) seem to fall on deaf ears … their gatekeepers are millennials and they have no interest in marketing to a bunch of old fogies …

26 July 2016
Television Still Shining
…I like it when someone else writes a post for me – and/or I’ve written the post before (in this case, loads of times) so I don’t have to start from scratch. Copy ‘n Paste is fast becoming my mantra...

Image result for nostrachuckus14 October 2016
Tweeters & Zoomers & An Ugly ‘Ism’
… No surprise to NostraChuckus,  famed soothsayer and advertising gadfly who’s been startling the world for years with his mundane prognostications…

What blog wouldn’t be complete without Shameless Self-Promotion Posts:

aging21 February 2016
Published: Advertising in the Aging Society by Prieler, Kohlbacher
… Professor Kohlbacher asked me to fashion an Afterword for his newest co-written tome…

28 March 2016
Advertising In The Aging Society: The Foreword, The Interview

Image result for zoomer complex07 October 2016
Zoomer Media/ZoomerU Presentation in Toronto
Last week I was at  ZoomerPlex, a city square of TV production facilities, radio stations, magazine headquarters, and site of an astonishing television museum.

ZoomerU gets off to a successful launch

Take a break with a Double-Feature & Shorts:

blob26 August 2016
Entrepreneurs & Spending Power
Why Advertising To Boomers Just Got More Important
by Barry Robertson
Shocking new study defines vast Boomer (ugh!) spending power…

Digital Déjà Vu:

[image%255B5%255D.png]03 October 2016
Digital Ad Shenanigans
…It’s been a bad week or so for online advertising foolishness and chicanery. No big surprise for yours truly. I’ve been yacking about all this nonsense for a decade...

29 November 2016
Digital Ad Shenanigans: The Academic Edition
…The realization that something you thought to be “real” is actually an advertisement is an increasingly common, if unsettling, sensation. Mara Einstein calls it “content confusion,” and if her book, “Black Ops Advertising,” is right, we’re in for even more such trickery…


Like this year and last year,  no doubt more frolic beginning in January.


Just For Fun:

Image result for Huffington postThe Everlast
by Chuck Nyren
Fred Thorson had been dead for fifteen million years...

29 November 2016

Digital Ad Shenanigans: The Academic Edition

Not too long ago:

03 October 2016
Digital Ad Shenanigans
It’s been a bad week or so for online advertising foolishness and chicanery. No big surprise for yours truly. I’ve been yacking about this nonsense for a decade.

Now there’s a book about it:

Black Ops Advertising
Native Ads, Content Marketing and the Covert World of the Digital Sell
by Mara Einstein
… Whatever the label, however, it comes down to this: advertisers can camouflage their sales message in only one of two ways 1) hide the advertising within existing content environments or 2) create the pitch themselves and make it look like something other than advertising. The first of these is native advertising, the second content marketing …

And a review in The New York Times:

… The realization that something you thought to be “real” is actually an advertisement is an increasingly common, if unsettling, sensation. Mara Einstein calls it “content confusion,” and if her book, “Black Ops Advertising,” is right, we’re in for even more such trickery, indeed a possible future where nearly everything becomes hidden commercial propaganda of one form or another. She forecasts the potential of a “world where there is no real content: Everything we experience is some form of sales pitch.”

All true. Although my take is that these silly Next Big Things will come and go.  They’ve been coming and going for years:

07 December 2012
What is Digital Advertising?
[image%255B5%255D.png]… The newest buzz-phrase has me completely baffled: Native Advertising.  One social media guru described it as advertising that is ‘baked into’ the content. I guess it’s sort of like the old Burns & Allen Show where one episode had Gracie baking a cake using Betty Crocker Cake Mix, a sponsor.

And this (again):

[image%255B22%255D.png]

 imageProfessor Mara Einstein has been working in and writing about the media industry for more than 20 years. Her career has taken her from being an executive at NBC and MTV Networks to positions at major advertising agencies, working on such accounts as Miller Lite, Uncle Ben’s, and Dole Foods.

I haven’t read the book, but will.

04 November 2016

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

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

Hungry? Senior Nutrition Fellow Ruth Kava sez to Food Purveyors: Ignore Baby-Boomers at Your Peril … “How amazing. How astonishing. How pathetic.” That’d be Dick Stroud wondering about Marketers discovering  the importance of the 50-plus once again and Advertising campaign gone wrong. Oldsmobile alienated the very people who would buy their cars. Photo: 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday coupe by Sigmund CC BY-SA 3.0again and againAdvertising campaign gone wrong: The idea of people over fifty driving their cars is so appalling and such an embarrassment that they outright ignored and disparaged the most valuable economic group in the history of the world (or you could’ve read this blog for the last thirteen years) … From the Best 18 minutes you can spend today Dept.: The “Great Volkswagen Ads” Documentary FilmThe No Big Surprise Dept.: Boomers buy about two-thirds of the new cars Image result for Doodyvillesold annually, as well as half the computers and a third of the movie theater tickets … Read all about Doodyville … Meet the 2016 Influencers in Aging (What? I’m not on the list? The process is rigged!) Congrats to Paul Kleyman and Louis Tenenbaum … ‘til next time…


Just for Fun:

Image result for Huffington postMouth Hunters
by Chuck Nyren
I’ve been thinking about buying this house. Then I was told that it might be time to buy a new mouth…

14 October 2016

Tweeters & Zoomers & An Ugly ‘Ism’

Twitter is teetering:
Twitter Shares Plunge, as Suitors Appear to Lose Interest
By Yoree Koh (WSJ)
Twitter Inc.’s shares plunged 12% on Monday as the odds of a sale appeared to dim further, shifting attention back to the social-media company’s troublesome pursuit of a strategy to jump-start user and revenue growth.
Image result for dead twitter birdSalesforce Walks Away from Twitter Deal
by David Faber (NBC News)
… After reports that companies like Google and Disney had already backed off bids for Twitter, Salesforce had been left as the most likely bidder …
Image result for nostrachuckusNo surprise to NostraChuckus,  famed soothsayer and advertising gadfly who’s been startling the world for years with his mundane prognostications:
25 September 2012
Twitter & Advertising
Twitter is a fascinating phenomenon, has worldwide cultural and political influence and will be around for quite some time.
But it is not an advertising platform. How Twitter will eventually support itself, who knows. Maybe some sort of underwriting …


Zoomer U in Canada had a boffo blast-off (see my previous post):
imageZoomerU gets off to a successful launch
by David Cravit
… Zoomer U will offer information and insights online as well as through special events. We kicked things off with a client breakfast on September 28, featuring the noted Boomer advertising expert Chuck Nyren …

New News From Yesteryear:
Is Ageism The Ugliest 'Ism' On Madison Avenue?
by Avi Dan (Forbes)
… The majority of 20-and-30-somethings working in agencies (there are exceptions, of course) have zero insight into anyone different from themselves and they don’t seek that insight. They are too invested in the youth zeitgeist.

Perhaps it’s time for CMOs to stop rewarding agencies with inexperienced talent and look at agencies that rebalance their staff along the lines of age diversity as well as diversity across gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. – so they can produce work that will resonate with the required audience.
Golly Gee Willikers, I wrote this in 2003 (and wrote it over and over since then):
Advertising to Baby Boomers: Back into the Fold
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, some practically required reading, others instructive and illuminating. 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.

The 'old blood' has moved on. They're top execs or have retired. How do you get them back? Do they want to get their hands dirty again? These former crackerjack creatives must be convinced that they're needed …
I’ll leave you with a few moldy posts…
23 June 2009
NostraChuckus Scratches His Head
Another déjà vu …For me, the strangest episodes are happening while reading news articles about Baby Boomers and realizing that I’ve read versions of them all before – in my book and blog.
01 December 2010
NostraChuckus Conjures The Specter Of NostraChuckus
imageAlmost every day, NostraChuckus stares into his crystal ball and sees himself – but in other guises. These strange visages look nothing like him – yet they do. It’s as if his crystal ball doubles as a phantasmagoric funhouse mirror ...
13 September 2012
The Déjà Vu News
Sometimes I think my browser is playing tricks on me.  Twilight Zone tricks.  Or Google is on the fritz, spitting out news stories from the past. 
16 May 2014
The Age Premium
… Some employers promote innovative programs to show that they appreciate their older employees and don’t want to lose their experience, their rapport with customers or their ability to mentor younger workers …
And the first few chapters of a tattered old book:
Advertising to Baby Boomers© 2005, 2007
Free Download
:Preface - Intro - Chapter One (PDF)

07 October 2016

Zoomer Media/ZoomerU Presentation in Toronto

Image result for zoomer complexLast week I was in Toronto at  ZoomerPlex, a city square of TV production facilities, radio stations, magazine headquarters, and site of an astonishing television museum

David Cravit invited me to keynote the first (actually, a rejuvenated) Zoomer U event:

imageZoomer U is your information and idea resource for all things pertaining to the boomer market – news, trends, data, and creative ideas. Zoomer U gathers the latest thinking from ZoomerMedia experts as well as marketers, demographers, policy-makers and trend-watchers from around the world, and delivers it online and through special events.

The night before, David and Lori Fitzgerald (Publisher of Zoomer Magazine, Director of Sales, Print & Digital) took me to dinner. We probably should’ve taped our spirited discussion and put it up somewhere. These are dedicated folks, and fun to be around.

The next morning I did my song ‘n dance for about seventy attendees.    

I won’t put you to sleep with the entire hour presentation. Just take a short nap with this 12-minute selection of clips (or watch it on a bigger screen https://youtu.be/h5D-rh-iklY) :

Thanks again to David and Lori for inviting me.

Image result for zoomer magazine gretzkyLinks:

Invitation to Event

About Zoomer Magazine

EverythingZoomer.com

Zoomer Radio

Zoomer Television

Trade Shows and Conferences

MZTV Museum of Television & Archive

Moses Znaimer/Founder’s Message

03 October 2016

Digital Ad Shenanigans

It’s been a bad week or so for online advertising foolishness and chicanery. No big surprise for yours truly.  I’ve been yacking about all this nonsense for a decade. 

A post from 2006:

The Brouhaha Over WOMM
… When it all comes out in the wash, WOMM will be the best thing to happen to (silly retronym ahead) traditional advertising. Pretty soon, consumers won't believe anybody - even their best friends. They'll realize that they receive the most honest and straightforward information about a product or service from a TV commercial, print ad, or product web site. At least we don't lie about who we are and why we're saying what we're saying.

You can read a bunch of my posts about this and other sordid subjects here:

Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising

In a recent presentation I talked a bit about WOMM – then followed my comments with two slides:

image

image

Back to the bad week:

Doubts About Digital Ads Rise Over New Revelations
Image result for wsj… The lack of transparency and trustworthy measurement in online advertising will be among the issues weighing on ad executives gathering in New York next week for annual Advertising Week festivities. Also on their minds: fears that they are wasting billions of dollars on ads that aren’t “viewable,” or visible to the human eye, or are being shown on sites with computer-generated fake traffic…

'Interrogate the Data': CMOs Are Sick of Digital Ad Hype
image… Chief marketing officers are sick of publishers making far-out claims about how great their ads perform, according to Nielsen Chief Operating Officer Steve Hasker…

Is the online advertising bubble finally starting to pop?
image… One of the biggest online advertisers told me late last year that they yanked $100 million/year out of adtech and put it into traditional advertising for one simple reason: “It didn’t work.”