Bausch & Lomb's new lens implant helps consumers see more clearly.  But will Boomers connect with the ads?
 
Bausch & Lomb is rolling out an advertising campaign to promote its new Crystalens, an artificial lens implant. Because maladies associated with stiffening eye lenses, such as nearsightedness and cataracts, are common in the 45- to 65-year-old demographic, the global eye-care company is targeting Baby Boomers as well as seniors.
 
The ad campaign has relied so far mainly on traditional media such as local television, radio and newspaper in select regional markets on the grounds that consumers 50 years and older "are still major users of traditional mass media," stated a Feb. 4 press release. Ads in Dallas, Raleigh-Durham and St. Louis stimulated sales by increasing traffic 10-fold to the company's web site, which detailed the case for the lenses. A search tool referred visitors to "a Crystalens specialist near you."
 
The web site takes a straightforward approach to selling the Crystalens, laying out the case in a clear, factual manner. A video dramatizes the benefit of correcting cataracts by showing a foggy image of a woman reflected in a bathroom mirror. The woman wipes the mirror and the image comes into partial focus. She puts on glasses, and the image snaps into crystal clarity.
 
We're glad the company considers its ad campaign a success. But we can't help wonder if a different approach would have been more effective. It's fine to present the facts, as Bausch & Lomb has done, but our research stresses the need to connect with Boomers through emotionally meaningful concepts, words and images. The video does that when it switches to images of an attractive and vital gray-haired couple on vacation, dancing, snorkeling and playing tennis. But the emotional connection is lost among the descriptions of presbyopia and cataract surgery.

 

When the economy slides into a recession, luxury products are the first to suffer from cuts in consumer spending. It's even worse in this downturn as signs point to a fundamental shift in consumer attitudes from prodigality to frugality.

Thus, DeBeers is re-defining diamonds - the ultimate luxury good - from an expression of passionate love (an extravagance) into a family keepsake to be passed down through the generations (an investment). Likewise, our friends at the Go RVing coalition are re-defining recreational vehicles - and what else could you call a $250,000 vehicle costing as much as the average American home but a luxury? - as thrift on wheels.

In the good ol' days of consumer excess, the industry positioned RVs as a way to experience the freedom of the open road. Now Go RVing, a coalition of manufacturers, component suppliers, dealers and campgrounds, is making the case that RVs are a practical, cost-competitive means of taking a vacation. The coalition's home page lays out the case:

Citing research by PKF Consulting, an international consulting firm with expertise in travel and tourism, Go RVing states that "typical RV family vacations are on average 27 to 61 percent less expensive than other types of vacations studied."
 
Kudos to Go RVing, a friend of long standing, for being so quick to reposition its product in the marketplace - and for thinking the way we do. At the Boomer Project, we were writing about the demise of the spend-and-borrow consumer economy last year, coining the phrase "the new fru" to describe the shift to more parsimonious behavior, especially among Baby Boomers. Visit the Go RVing web site to see how one industry has re-tooled its sales pitch.