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Buy our book, Boomer Consumer, today |
| Voted "Best of the Best" Business Books in 2007 by CORBIS.
Available and in stock online at Amazon.com, BN.com and at Barnes & Noble stores in major markets.
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| Can't Get Enough of that Baby Boomer Stuff? |
There's more. Oh, yes, there's much more.
On the Web:
Check out the Boomer Project Web site where we archive our published content and tell you how to line up Matt Thornhill and John Martin as speakers. We tweet: Follow us on Twitter.
Visit the Older Dominion Partnership, a Virginia-based consortium of businesses, not-for-profits, universities and government agencies planning 10 to 20 years ahead for the Age Wave of aging Boomers. |
| About Us |
The Boomer Project offers the most thorough and up-to-date portrait of today's Boomer Consumer. How can we help?
We offer consulting to help companies and organizations develop their "50+ plan." If you don't have one, you better. It's the only demographic segment that will increase in size over the next decade, growing some 23% while the 18-49 segment stays stagnant (Census data, baby).
We also conduct on-site programs, where we educate your marketing and/or customer service personnel about how today's Boomer Consumers think, feel and respond to your messages. These day-long sessions include insights obtained from our on-going proprietary national research among Boomers.
Contact us to learn more about all of our services.
Email: info@boomerproject.com
Phone: 804.690.4837
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February 11, 2010
News & Insights from the Boomer Project |
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Dear Matt,
The world of marketing to Boomers continues to grow and change as more companies and organizations realize Boomers offer real business opportunities.
This month we'll identify several interesting things going on that are worthy of your attention.
First, there is a new pragmatism in Boomers. The eternally optimistic generation has finally smelled the coffee and woken up. In fact, we examine four studies that suggest Boomers are less optimistic than other generations. Quite a turn.
We also report on the growth in natural burials.
Seemingly unrelated, we weigh in on the Super Bowl commercials and halftime show. Both seemed dead to us.
We offer some perspective on "universal design" -- it's the future, you know.
And we humbly submit a review of our book, Boomer Consumer, for your consideration.
Happy reading!
-- The Editors
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The New Pragmatism
The Sun Will Come Up Tomorrow...Or Not
 In our work studying Boomers, one key generational characteristic of this cohort has been its optimism. Coming of age in the late 1950s, '60s and early '70s, when the economy prospered, social issues were addressed (civil and women's rights), and the Vietnam war came and went, Boomers entered adulthood with a rose-colored view of the future (as best represented by "Tomorrow" from Annie, the Musical, 1977):
The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There'll be sun!
Jump forward some thirty years to the Great Recession. It isn't so sunny any more. Boomers are entrenched in middle age, feeling their age, facing mounting debt as the kids go through college and the parents face healthcare needs. Squeezed by both and suffering from a shrinking 401(k) balance and an economy destined to remain soft, it is not surprising that some of that youthful optimism has faded.
Four recent reports about attitudes at the end of the Uh-Oh's (the 2000's) indicate that the bloom has indeed come off those rose-colored glasses.
First, our analysis of new data from the January 2010 BIGresearch Consumer Intentions & Actions survey, focusing on the attitudes of better-off consumers of all generations, those who live in households with incomes over $50,000 a year: The Boomers are bummed. They're feeling poorer than they did a year ago. (Do you remember how things were a year ago? Not so hot. A year later and Boomers feel worse? This is not a good sign.)
Click to enlarge
Boomers aren't happy about their health, which is no surprise considering the rising rates of obesity. As the generation that defined itself through work, Boomers aren't feeling particularly chipper about their jobs either.
Click to enlarge
Second, Pew Research reports in "Current Decade Rates as Worse in Fifty Years," that Boomers are the least optimistic about the next ten years -- only half say the next decade will be "better" that the current one. Think overcast, not sunny.
A third measure, fairly new, is the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The Well-Being Index tracks responses to several questions about emotional health, physical health, work environment and other aspects of life to gauge an overall "well-being" score. That score is on an upward trend since March 2009, when the stock market bottomed out. As of November, 2009, it stood at 66.7. But Boomers report lower scores than other generations. Their "well-being" is a little sickly.
A fourth study, by Mintel International, also reports only six out of ten Boomers "expect the future to be better," and that score is driven by 44
percent who say "I expect the future to be better because I have become better at handling problems in the past couple of years." With age comes experience, it seems. And again, compared to other generations, fewer Boomers are optimistic.
Our sense is that middle age pragmatism is trumping youthful optimism in Boomers. Despite countless warnings by their elders to save for a rainy day (lessons they learned thanks to the Depression and World War II), Boomers didn't save and find themselves in precarious financial position at exactly the worse time in their life -- when they need to be saving for their retirement.
The Boomer Line: Boomers will respond to pragmatic marketing messages, not overly optimistic ones. They are looking for products and services that can help them deal with life's current issues, which include stresses over money, caregiving responsibilities, kids, and careers.
The sun will come up tomorrow, but Boomers realize now it might be cloudy for quite a while.
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On Death and Dying The Boomer Way: Natural Burials
 Baby Boomers were there on the first Earth Day in 1970, helping pioneer the green movement. Now, many of them are taking their environmental ethic with them to the grave. Literally.
The Ministry of Justice in the United Kingdom says more than 220 woodland cemeteries have been established in the past 16 years, reports the Telegraph -- a trend, by the way, that has spread to the United States and Canada.
Environmentally-friendly funerals are a logical extension of the environmentally-aware lifestyle of many Boomers. As an alternative to cremation or churchyard burials, woodland cemeteries eschew the use of embalming chemicals, employ biodegradable caskets or shrouds, and place the dead in wooded environments that, unlike the grass-carpeted expanses of traditional cemeteries, support populations of small birds and mammals.
One tricky challenge of natural burials is keeping track of where the dead are buried. Stone tombstones are a no-no, so there is discussion of using GPS or RFID technologies to mark the burial sites.
The Boomer Line: We've long contended that Boomers will reinvent the final season of life, just as they reinvented youth, young adulthood and middle age. It is the natural order of the progression through life for people to become more spiritual as they grow older.
In the case of Boomers, spirituality will become increasingly infused with "green" values, which will be reflected not only in funereal preferences but forms of worship and even everyday lifestyles. Marketers seeking to appeal to Boomers need to take these emerging sensitivities into account. | |
 The most-watched TV show in American history was last Sunday's Super Bowl. The game itself was exciting and the win by the New Orleans Saints was an invigorating accomplishment for the city, region, state, nation, and we suspect, planet. Hey, it's the Super Bowl, hyperbole is appropriate.
But seriously, what was up with the ads and the halftime show? They were terrible.
We agree whole-heartedly with Joe Queenan's assessment in The Wall Street Journal that they were crass, sexist and stupid. Read "Super Bowl, Stupid Ads" for perhaps the best, clearest and certainly funniest accounting of the $2.5 million investment marketers made for 30 seconds.
We also agree with Queenan that the Letterman promo with Oprah and Jay Leno was brilliant.
Brent Bouchez, of Agency Five-0, also does an excellent job of pointing out how all of the commercials missed connecting with anyone over the age of 50 in "Super Bowl Ads Need to Age Gracefully" for BusinessWeek. He notes that the only people in any of the commercials over 50 were there as props or to be ridiculed. As Brent says, "Betty White is old enough to be my grandmother."
You may also find it fascinating to read the comments to Brent's article. Apparently there are some among us with generational issues. Ick.
 Our least favorite aspect of the spectacle was the presence of The Who, or at least Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, at halftime. Sure, it was especially fun to annoy our teenaged kids by answering "Yes" countless times to their "Who are they?" question. But when Roger, at age 65, belted out Baba O'Riley's famous "It's only teenage wasteland," we were over it.
It's not because he's old. It's because it is lame.
Ever since the "wardrobe malfunction" by Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson in 2004, five out of the last six halftime acts have been male sextagenarians (more or less): The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and now, The Who. Who's next, indeed? The Lovin' Spoonful?
Aren't there other artists out there with cross-generational appeal that could entertain us for 12 minutes? We'd listen to Carrie Underwood for that long. Or Kelly Clarkson.
All in all we're wondering what the NFL and marketers will do when the opportunity to reach over 106 million Americans returns next year. This year was a bust on all fronts but the game.
Note: The best ads are the ones that get spoofed and none is getting that treatment more than the Google spot which told the story of romance in Paris that ends with marriage and a baby. Watch the original, then enjoy the spoofs.
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The Future is in Your Ketchup Bottle
For over 120 years the iconic Heinz ketchup bottle was made one way -- in glass, with a metal screw top, and packed to the top with America's favorite ketchup. Of course, it was really difficult to get a tomato concoction with the consistency of mayonnaise and the viscosity of butter to "pour" easily from the bottle, but never you mind, that's how we make it.
Heinz knew their bottle was difficult to operate and the ketchup slow to emerge, requiring either the strength of Hercules, vigorously banging on the bottle bottom, or the skill of Hippocrates, surgically using a table knife. Consumers knew, too. That's why one of the most memorable advertising campaigns of the last fifty years was the Heinz Ketchup commercial using Carole King's anthem, "An-tic-i-pa-tion." Making me wait, for sure.
Explain, then, why did Heinz abandoned that iconic glass bottle some ten years ago for a plastic bottle, turned upside down(!), with a flip top and easy-to-squeeze sides? Why in the world would they give up their most dramatic and unique point of difference for added functionality? The answer, it turns out, is universal.
Universal design, that is.
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Praise for Boomer Consumer
If you haven't read our book, Boomer Consumer, it's time to buy one at Amazon.com. Here's a recent review by reader Wayne Lehrer:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A perfect guide, February 7, 2010
By Wayne R. Lehrer
"The Boomer Consumer" is the perfect guide for addressing the issues of boomers in the marketplace. I have written a book, "The Prodigy Within," that is subtitled "for late bloomers and other seekers," and have only recently begun to market it. From the beginning I always believed that my primary clientele was the baby boomers, being one myself, but had no idea how to market a book.
After reading Boomer Consumer" I had such a fantastic overview of how to approach my perspective readers, that putting together a marketing plan was relatively easy. The book is concise, well organized, thoroughly researched and I must say, for a marketing book, it was a pleasure to read.
We thank Wayne for his kind words, and willingness to post them at Amazon. Now, go buy the book yourself!
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