BOOMERS: THE FUTURE OF MARKETING BOOMERS
Why the youth bias of marketers no longer makes business sense and what you can do about it.
By Brent Green

Do boomers truly offer marketers a fertile business opportunity?

To this question there is one reverberating answer: "Duh!"

Nevertheless, the question is bandied daily in the business media. But consider the economic clout held by boomers and older generations.

Today, American adults over age 50 represent 38 percent of the population, and that group will explode to 47 percent by 2020. According to data collected by the U.S. Census and Federal Reserve, the 78 million Americans who were 50 or older as of 2001 had $28 trillion in assets, or 67 percent of the country’s wealth.

The question raised above has a forceful answer: 50-plus adults control from $750 billion to $1 trillion of all household discretionary income. Mature consumers outspend younger adults by a factor of two to one.

Marketers and media have a youth bias ... and we can partially thank boomers for this. When they were younger, boomers became Madison Avenue darlings by stimulating and popularizing youth marketing. Marketers are still obsessive-compulsive about the 18-to-49 demographic segment and its junior counterpart, 18-to-34.

Although people over age 50 haul in more than half the discretionary income in the United States, they receive less than 10 percent of ad messages. Since the nation’s youth market is shrinking and the mature market is burgeoning, a singular youth focus is folly.

So, to wrestle fully with the niggling question about boomer economic opportunity, we need a spoonful of demography and a pinch of sociology. 

The baby boom generation is composed of Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Post-world War II parents procreated 76 million times during this 19-year span and immigration has expanded the cohort by 6 to 8 million since the end of the boom.

Those born between 1946 and 1955 are called leading-edge boomers; those born during the second half are referred to as late- or trailing-edge boomers. The leading-edge boomers are different from their younger brothers and sisters in some fundamental ways.

Members of the older group shared teenage encounters with the galvanizing experiences of the Vietnam War era and the cataclysmic cultural shifts, including modern feminism, civil rights and environmentalism. Leading-edge boomers are most often associated with the protest movements of the ‘60s, as well as over-publicized experimentation with "drugs, sex and rock n’ roll."

Late boomers entered college after the Vietnam War ended in January 1973, and most experienced a more peaceful, less culturally chaotic time to start careers and begin families.

Leading-edge boomers are receiving a lot of attention right now because they are nearest to retirement, with bountiful implications for the housing, health, and hospitality industries, to name a few.

Every 8 seconds, another boomer turns 50. That’s 10,000 to 12,000 per day and 4 million per year. America is getting older every month, and one-third of the U.S. population will be older than 50 by 2010.

But the nature of boomers must be considered as well as the numbers.

Boomers have proven that they don’t just occupy life stages, they transform them. Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., author of several books on the subject, including Age Power: How the 21st Century will be ruled by the New Old, points out that boomer trends become social phenomena and cultural obsessions. Examples:

When a plethora of boomer children overwhelmed mealtime during the fifties, a company called Gerber introduced portioned and prepared foods for babies and toddlers.

When boomer teenagers developed a taste for carryout food and its conveniences, McDonald’s grew from one humble California store to a national juggernaut.

When GM became a metaphor for Big Brother during the antiauthoritarian ‘60s, Germany and Japan, America’s World War II arch-enemies, captured the U.S. automotive market with VW Beetles and Toyotas.

When boomers decided to lose extra pounds from consuming so much fast food, jogging became a craze and Nike became a Fortune 500 company.

Considering the paradigm-busting history of the boomer generation, why would anyone apply yesterday’s thinking about aging and retirement to tomorrow’s possibilities?

It is ludicrous to expect members of such an outspoken, demonstrable generation to accept their parents’ standards for retirement life, or to foresee them sauntering passively into a golfing sunset, estranged and disenfranchised. 

Recall the battle cry many boomers enjoined during Vietnam: "Hell no, we won’t go!" Today’s economic and social realities portend a different kind of retirement era, one driven by activism more than resignation.

When marketers understand this generation and its wants and needs, companies make money ... lots of it. What are some of the tricks that will open collective pocketbooks?

A full answer to this sweeping question will require a book, not an article, but here are some examples of cohort-sensitive marketing approaches.

Spiritual Satisfaction
The quest for self-discovery and self-actualization are fundamental mid-life issues. People who arrive at this stage of development become more concerned about relevance and legacies, less concerned about acquisition for purely material satisfaction.

Spiritual concerns in a material world have, at their roots, a collective desire for community, abundant health, brightening horizons and life satisfaction. There is an underlying search for holistic solutions - those modalities that interlace body, mind, and spirit.

This searching culture has generated a marketplace of new spiritual resources, including books, videotapes, audiotapes, weekend retreats, newsletters, institutes, and digital networks.

Beyond Stereotypes
You’ve probably seen a few boomer advertising clichés: hippies and Earth mamas; wistful nostalgia about the ‘60s, ad infinitum; and SUV-driving, cell-phone-yakking yuppies who appear inane and ego-centered.

A global electronics manufacturer launched a colossally expensive TV campaign in 2003. The flashy flourish, featuring a boomer’s global orbit in the International Space Station, makes its hero appear narcissistic and irresponsible. The underlying message, wherein the protagonist proposes to disinherit his children in the name of self-gratification, is a subtle putdown, veiled in cinematic beauty and boomer nostalgia.

A marketing campaign last year by a multinational pharmaceutical company demonstrates another typical error. The TV spot rivets attention with its classic rock music bed by Queen. But as boomers gyrate to the nostalgic beat while celebrating their erectile-dysfunction medication, they appear overweight and disheveled.

These ads are the products of the most high-profile, respected advertising agencies in the world, yet boomers are growing weary of this kind of positioning. No generation deserves to be dismissed as "self-absorbed" or some other sweeping invective. Opportunity lies in creating advertising that compliments rather than criticizes and messages that elevate rather than denunciate.

Experiential Marketing
According to Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy, the newest source of value creation is experiences: promotions, events and shopping environments designed to engage boomers in a personal and profound way.

The key to marketing with experiences is to position brands as a reflection of unique psychological encounters. Experiences create memories, rich with sensations and personal engagement. Boomers are experience seekers, especially today in mid-life.

Freedom Values
Aging often is associated with the values of comfort, predictability and routine, but healthy boomers defy these generalizations. Many head in the opposite direction and embrace unabashed experimentation as a pre-retirement lifestyle.

Experimental behavior could manifest itself in a number of new ways. That’s why the adventure travel trend is gaining momentum in the early years of the new century.

Freedom is the most romantic and compelling lure of retirement, and its multifaceted meaning will find expression during the next few years through new or revitalized products and services.

Gathering and Community
Boomers became accustomed to communal experiences at an early age. It was common for many to coexist in groups of 40 to 60 or more within classrooms built and designed for half as many. Appealing to this sense of generational community can become a powerful motivator for marketers selling lifestyle housing, recreational facilities, entertainment events, and educational conferences.

Cause-Related Marketing
Since the mid-1970’s, many boomers have refocused on careers, child rearing, and the increasing demands of economic competitiveness. However, I believe important lessons from their teen years about group engagement remain buried in the generation’s collective psyche; many retain a spirit of social activism that took shape and found passionate direction in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

The opportunity is always available for your company to support a worthwhile non-profit and then enlist your customers and stakeholders to participate in promotions that integrate advertising, sales promotion, and public relations. As a corporate brand development strategy, cause-related marketing powerfully resonates with boomers.

Processing Life
During a recent visit to Denver, David Wolfe, author of Ageless Marketing, wisely reminded me that "the most effective marketing is marketing that helps people process their lives." Help boomers process their lives with marketing communications and targeted brand strategies, and you won’t need to ponder the $750 billion question any further.

You’ll just profit from its answer.

Brent Green is the author of Marketing to Leading-edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions, Paramount Market Publishing, Jan. 2005. He is president of Brent Green & Associates Inc., a Denver-based marketing and communications company he founded in 1986. A member of the leadership council for the Business Forum on Aging, American Society on Aging, Green is himself a boomer with a 23-year marketing career.