Boomer Insights?

Two recent studies help illuminate the difficulty of trying to figure out the Boomer marketplace.

First, the bad. Ameriprise and Ken Dychtwald recently released the "New Retirement Mindscape" study which purports to provide insight into the five emotional stages one passes through regarding retirement. They've identified each stage, from 15 years before retirement day to 15 years after (see nice linear chart).

While interesting, it isn't particularly helpful in trying to determine what emotions Boomers will endure (enjoy?) during their retirement years. Why, you ask?

Perhaps because no Boomer is yet 75 years old. Asking a current 75-year-old about his or her retirement years is simply not relevant to Boomers today. At every stage of life, Boomers have done things differently than the previous generations. They look at retirement as done by their parents and already know they'll do it differently.

To wit: Anyone who thinks Boomers will take bus tours with 40 strangers to Dollywood, raise your hand.

Not gonna happen.

So mapping out the future for Boomers based on the prior generation's behavior is simply wrong.

What makes it worse is when you read the descriptions of the various emotional stages, you quickly see it's not a nice linear line, but an emotional roller coaster, from hope and excitement to anxiety to ultimately a loss of hope and dispair.

Try signing a Boomer up for that ride.

Not gonna happen.

On the positive side, the folks at Deloitte have issued a thoughtful piece called "Wealth With Wisdom: Serving the Needs of Aging Consumers" and call for marketers to seize the Boomer opportunity by 2008 or miss the boat. It's worth downloading and putting in front of your CEO's face.

We wish Deloitte had gone further and shared some revealing figures about the aging population from the Census Bureau that we like to brandish.

As you can see in this chart, the 18-49 segment is predicted to grow by only 8% over the next 20 years. But the 50+ segment will grow by 42%, becoming 90% as large as the younger group (and back in 1986 it was only half as large).

So when you hear us rant and rave about the opportunity to grow your business over the next 20 years by targeting aging Boomers, remember this:

Gonna happen.

Marketing Financial Services to Boomers Conference

You can avoid the mistakes being made by others by learning what the smart folks are doing already to target aging Boomers.

Come to the "Marketing Financial Services to Boomers" conference in Chicago on March 27-29, 2006.

We'll be presenting "Win the Battle for Boomer Minds, Hearts & Wallets – The New Rules for Marketing to Boomers over 50" right after the Vice President, Retirement Wealth Strategies for Ameriprise Financial speaks.

Let's hope he isn't a subscriber or else we've got some 'splaining to do.

Schizo Boomers

Columinst Ellen Goodman recently wrote an interesting piece on the polar opposites found in the Boomer generation today.

Apparently she had recently attended a Rolling Stones concert:

In retrospect, it was the perfect way to begin The Year The Baby Boomers Turned 60. After all, the audience for the Rolling Stones concert was divided roughly into two demographics:

One generation (mine) was awestruck that anyone our age could rock and roll for two straight hours without Advil or a stretcher. The younger generation couldn't believe they were even at a rock concert by a band mostly in their 60s.

She goes on to talk about the Stones at halftime during the Superbowl.

But her best point is this:

The truth is that baby boomers have never had much more in common than a date book. The folks who turn 60 this year are as different as Bill Clinton and George Bush, Donald Trump and Cher.

That's something all marketers should heed: There is no such thing as a single Boomer market. It's many, many markets made up of countless segments sliced and diced the way they should be -- by income, life stage, geography, education, political persuasion, and so on.

Every one of the 78 million Boomers is unique. Or thinks they are.

You should think that too.

---

Ted Koppel: Genius or Fool?

Seems Ted Koppel recently penned his first Op/Ed piece in The New York Times called "And Now, a Word for our Demographic" (link requires TimesSelect registration).

In it, he suggests that network TV news should forego trying to reach 18-34 year olds and instead harvest aging Boomers.

At first blush, he's dead on.

But upon closer inspection, he's also dead wrong.

He's wrong in that the world where the network news execs determined what news you got are over. Now, with the Internet, the consumer is in control of what, where, when and how they get their news -- and from whom.

Read what Slate had to say about Koppel's misguided missile here.

The bloggers chime in with some insight and a bon mot or two:

"That Mr. Koppel can argue with a straight face that it is better in 2006 for journalists to decide what curious people need to know, than it is for curious people to dig out on their own what they need to know is not only a terminally self-important notion, it is also antiquated beyond belief."

Koppel is foolish to think aging Boomers are going to schedule an appointment with their TV every night to watch the national network news like previous seniors have done.

New media requires old media to do some new thinking. And this isn't it.

---

Back to the Future

With Christie Brinkley smiling at us in this ad from Covergirl on the back of every women's magazine in America, it's no surprise there's been a run on Aqua Velva and Blue Nun Wine.

It's 1975 all over again.

Okay, maybe not. But it could be.

It seems supermodels are no longer washed up at 30, and that's a good thing for aging Boomers, who now don't trust anyone under 30.

Seriously, this new trend bodes well for marketing to women over 50. If Christie Brinkley, at 52, can still be beautiful, and more importantly, relevant, then so too can other Boomers.

Right on Covergirl's high heels comes Revlon with Vital Radiance, developed for Boomers over 50.

It's one small step for beauty marketers, one giant leap for Boomer women.

---

Join the Marketing Pulse :30 Survey

We're still recruiting marketing professionals to join our panel. Participants invest :30 seconds twice a month to share their opinions on a topic related to marketing to Boomers.

It's delivered by email and online, so it's a snap to participate. Participants get instant access to the findings among their peers, and an email with the full results once the survey closes.

Join up by telling us your name, job title and company name:

Sign Me Up

---

The Boomer Project continues to give speeches and presentations, as well as lead seminars to share our research findings and insights at various events.

If you know of a company or organization that would benefit from being enlightened on how to effectively market and reach older Boomers, please contact us at speaking@boomerproject.com.

Lastly, of course, if you have a comment on any of these stories, let us know.

Matt Thornhill
The Boomer Project