Boomers

In Memoriam: Dr. Gene Cohen, A Creative, Thoughtful Visionary For Boomers and All Aging Generations

Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D. has forever changed the field of geriatrics while successfully challenging misconceptions about aging as a lifestage of inevitable decline and loss.

His scientifically-derived conclusions and insights about aging brains are voluminous. His trendsetting research and thoughtful analyses are inspiring new industries. His influence will persist for generations as society evolves more optimistic models of the aging process.

A member of the Silent Generation at 65 (not quite a Leading-Edge Boomer by one year), Dr. Cohen passed away on Friday, November 6, 2009, after a brave, fourteen-year battle against prostate cancer.

For those in business and marketing, Dr. Cohen’s research and clinical observations provide exciting new insights into aging, while creating vast opportunities for new products and services and reframing outdated societal myths.

Here are a few of Dr. Cohen’s salient observations—insights not derived from wishful thinking or overly idealized beliefs, but from rock-hard scientific research, much of it emanating from the field of neuroscience:

1. Contrary to popular myth, brain cells do not stop forming after adolescence; growing new brain cells is a lifelong phenomenon.

2. The brain's ability to grow new neurons is a dramatic reason for optimism about the brain’s potential in the second half of life.

3. Older brains can learn new things, and they are actually better than younger brains at many types of intellectual tasks.

4. The brain and mental capacity continue to grow throughout life.

5. As humans age, we use both hemispheres of the brain more efficiently; the brain becomes vastly more creative as life progresses.

6. Adversity and loss that often accompany later-life actually encourage creativity by forcing change.

From the perspective of cognition, how do aging adults differ from younger adults? According to Dr. Cohen, aging brains become more adept in three forms of thinking:

• Relativistic thinking, where understanding is based on a synthesized combination of disparate views. Older adults abandon absolute truth in favor of more realistic relative truths.

• Dualist thinking, where contradictions in opposing views are uncovered and opposites are held in mind at the same time without judgment. In this way, opposing views can be accepted as valid.

• Systematic thinking allows the person to see the forest as well as the trees, rising above minutia to understand the bigger picture. The thinker is thus not trapped in personal and petty issues.

Throughout his long career, Dr. Cohen distinguished himself for his vision, kindness and unyielding commitment to the field of aging and improving health of older adults.

After graduating from Harvard College and Georgetown University School of Medicine, he began shaping the field of geriatrics through his work at the National Institute of Mental Health in the early 1970’s. He was the first chief of the Center on Aging and Director of the Program on Aging.

During his early years at NIMH, he took interest in minorities by supporting research on mental health of impoverished and homeless, leading to Medicare changes allowing for reimbursement of mental health services (beyond the original annual $250 limit).

He continued his commitment to biological, psychological and social issues in geriatric medicine at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health where he served as Acting Director, helping grow the institute budget into the hundreds of millions and catapulting the field of aging into a global spotlight.

He authored over 150 publications in the field of aging including, The Creative Age: Awakening the Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, published in 2000 and most recently, The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain. The former book is groundbreaking in its revelations about creativity and aging.

Dr. Cohen also acted as the first director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University where he held positions of Professor of Health Care Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

His hobbies reflected his professional interests. A blossoming game inventor after age 50, Dr. Cohen demonstrated that creativity and untapped potential are possible for older adults. His most recent game, Making Memories Together, assists families and caregivers of Alzheimer’s disease patients.

As I prepared this tribute, I recalled that someone once snapped a photo of Dr. Cohen with me at a meeting of The Society, a global think-tank founded by esteemed author David B. Wolfe and focused on business, marketing and aging. This photo memory is a wonderful gift from Dr. Cohen to all of us dedicated to changing aging:

Do not go gently, indeed. This is a lasting message from a man who has dramatically influenced the profession of aging, instilling more clarity about the unique contributions of aging adults in an aging society, and he did so while fighting prostate cancer for fourteen years.

Automotive Advertising to Boomers and Ford's Lincoln MKS - Burnin' for You

We can critically analyze many ramifications of “advertising to Baby Boomers” by surveying the fields of consumer psychology, generational sociology, cultural anthropology, and age demographics.

We can seek informed authorities on psychosocial development, cohort effects, life-stage interventions, brain changes due to aging, and emotional processing. We can do all this just to warm up.

We can also flip off all the left-brain analysis for a moment and just take a look at some ads that have powerful branding energy. So I’ve selected two ads for your viewing enjoyment, ads built around a rock ‘n’ roll spirit. Ads successfully reaching through media clutter to make consumers stop and take notice.

For many months I have been appreciating recent television commercials from Lincoln MKS. The first in this highly produced campaign features a cover of David Bowie’s signature song, “Space Oddity.”

Released within weeks of this post, the second ad has also caused me to feel the rush of “my music,” featuring a signature hit rock song from Blue Oyster Cult, “Burnin’ for You.”  

If you’re interested in further dissecting how to create effective automotive advertising targeting Boomers, perhaps I should first reiterate why you should think about it. Boomers are responsible for over half of all luxury car sales. According to a recent article in Barron’s magazine:

The median age of all luxury-car buyers is 52, by some estimates, and shoppers 50 or older account for the highest proportion of purchases or leases of luxury-car makers’ most expensive models; they have worked the longest, have accumulated the most assets and have money to spend on themselves.

Here are some thoughts about why Lincoln MKS may be squarely hitting the Boomer branding bulls-eye:

1) Lincoln MKS adds emotional catharsis to the spots by employing hit classic rock music from significant artists, including David Bowie and Blue Oyster Cult. Classic rock music can get our attention.

2) However, the music beds don’t just replay the old music; they update these tunes with performances by cover artists who deliver exciting new interpretations, and therefore bring new life to these old songs.

3) My colleague Chuck Nyren, author of the seminal Advertising to Baby Boomers, has often commented that classic rock music can be a deterrent to effective Boomer advertising since the music potentially pulls the viewer’s mind into a state of nostalgic rumination, causing the receiver to completely ignore the ad’s sponsor or purpose. (Great tune... but I’m now thinking about 1969 and a former girlfriend who symbolizes that song in my life.) This can be true, and Chuck has made a very astute observation, so…

4) Lincoln successfully integrates enormously powerful visual imaging with flawless editing to render the songs organic to the overall message gestalt. These ads create a state of suspense for viewers, making us want to keep watching. The television spots drive viewers forward with the speed they can expect from a Lincoln MKS.

5) The second ad featuring the Blue Oyster Cult tune centers its appeal on a mysterious new technology called “EcoBoost.” Although in 30 seconds we don’t know what this means, for those of us who are trying to incorporate “conscience consumerism” into our lives (and Boomers over-represent this burgeoning LOHAS market segment) probably the mere suggestion of new ecological advantages to be found in a Lincoln MKS 2010 is enough to inspire wanna-be Tesla owners (who can’t afford the hip car) to jump online for more details.

Lincoln MKS has, in my opinion, aptly demonstrated how to create a branding overlay that’s nuanced to attract Boomers but certainly can be seen as appealing to others who didn’t grow up with David Bowie and Blue Oyster Cult. We see great visual effects integrated with damn good rock music, leaving viewers with the simple impression that these cars are hot to trot.

I hope you enjoyed the Lincoln MKS ads as much as I do. If you did or did not, please let me know what you think.

For those of you who have become accustomed during the last year to reading blog articles here that are more like longer essays, I decided this time to give both of us a break. But if you’re interested in reading more, take a look at my newest article on Huffington Post about how age discrimination in the workplace can and shall be overcome (we hope).

The National Parks, Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan and Baby Boomers

My previous two posts reviewed the extraordinary lure of Europe to members of the Baby Boomer generation. Whereas Boomers are positively predisposed to travel to Europe, this generation is also today confronting enormous economic hurdles, making European travel less accessible and attractive.

One alternative for travel-hungry but budget-conscious Boomers unfolded before a national television audience beginning September 27 in a spectacular documentary series by filmmakers Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. During six consecutive nights and twelve hours of programming, Burns and Duncan shared chaotic and inspirational history of our national parks.

This story began in 1851 when white men first beheld a valley that would become known as Yosemite. Their primary mission then was to expel Native Americans from the valley. Twenty-one years later, in 1872, Yosemite became the first national park. A unique idea to preserve and protect wild and beautiful places eventually led to a park system that today encompasses almost 400 sites and protects 84 million acres.

Creation of almost every park required enormous political will, as nearly every acre represented economic opportunities for private interests, from lumber to mining and water resources to tourism. Almost every park owes its existence to a few passionate protectors who fought against powerful lobbies that would have preferred exploitation over preservation.

As these filmmakers wisely observe, the original idea of a national park system is unique to America. In the Old Continent, the most compelling and memorable natural landscapes tend to be owned by aristocracy and private interests, and if these places become available for the general public to experience, they do so because of benevolence and generosity of landowners. “Only a democracy could have thought that land could have been set aside, not for the rich and nobility, but for everybody for all time,” Burns said in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor.

In America, vast tracts of wilderness have been preserved for perpetuity, owned equally by all the nation’s citizens rather than a minority or elite. These landscapes constitute an incomparable bequeathal to the future and generations yet to be born. Whereas Europe has majestic cathedrals, America has majestic canyons and mountains of equal spiritual import – “cathedrals of God’s handiwork.”

The film trailer intones, “As Americans, we’re not only connected to this land, we’re connected by it.” And this is how Boomers became part of the history of the national parks. Many remember at least one special trip to a park shared with parents and siblings during the 1950s or 1960s.

I recall visiting Rocky Mountain National Park many times with my parents: a vivid tableau of majestic mountain landscapes, a pungent pine aroma from blue spruce following afternoon rains, a comical encounter with chipmunks begging for peanuts as we gazed at inspirational beauty from an observation point. This is how my parents taught me about the importance of wilderness preservation, at just about the time when Congress passed the Wilderness Preservation Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson 45 years ago on September 3, 1964.

These two filmmakers are also members of the Baby Boomer generation who reaffirm by their achievements many core values important to the generation. This includes respect for the nation’s pioneering traditions, drive to capture history artfully through modern media, commitment to an enduring conservation ethic, love of wilderness trekking through low-impact sports such as backpacking and cross country skiing, and veneration of shared egalitarian values.

Ken Burns, born in July 1953, is quintessentially an American born of the Boomer generation, still wearing a longer hair style reminiscent of the 1970s. Nominated for two Academy Awards and recipient of several Emmy Awards, Burns is son of a homemaker and anthropology professor. After receiving a B.A. from Hampshire College, he avoided a corporatized path to success but instead chose to become an entrepreneur and cofounder of Florentine Films. Since 1975 he has become an innovator of many of the most significant techniques in modern documentary filmmaking. His filmography includes several critically acclaimed PBS series: Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, and The Civil War, which set a benchmark for viewership on public television by attracting 40 million for the premiere in 1990.

Dayton Duncan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 and is author of ten books, including Out West: A Journey through Lewis & Clark’s America. He has served as a consultant and writer for many of Ken Burns’ documentaries including The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz. He has written a critically acclaimed children’s book, The West, An Illustrated History for Children. He has also been a political operative in the Democratic Party, serving as chief of staff to New Hampshire Governor Hugh Gallen and as national press secretary for Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential bid.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan can also be seen as a compelling invitation for Baby Boomers to preserve their legacy. Americans are “co-owners of some of the most spectacular scenery on earth,” Burns said. “And all you’ve got to do is go out and visit your property now and then, and make sure it’s being taken care of. And put it in your will for the next generation.”

Boomers and Travel in Europe on Just $500 Per Day

When you’re down and troubled
And you need a helping hand
And nothing, whoa nothing is going right.
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest nights.

As we walked under a low archway heading down a narrow passageway on an ancient cobblestone street, I heard lyrics as true and clear as James Taylor had ever sung them. I assumed someone was listening to one of Taylor’s albums, perhaps in a nearby apartment, and his ballad echoed brilliantly off surrounding brick walls.

Then, at the end of the passageway, we came upon a young Italian street performer singing “You’ve Got a Friend.” He played percussion by stomping his feet, to which he had cleverly attached a maraca and tambourine. His voice rang melodic and pure. His interpretation of the classic James Taylor song lacked perfection only due to mispronunciation of a few English words – totally understandable and excusable.

And I thought to myself: Why would a young Italian street performer choose to cover James Taylor’s catalog and play these sweet, sentimental American songs just a few yards from a museum housing Peggy Guggenheim’s art collection... in Venice, Italy? 

We lingered, appreciating this young man’s joyful enthusiasm and interpretation. His performance earned a few discretionary Euros from us, and as we hesitated to enjoy his music, others near our age also stopped to watch this gentle performer. They also tossed coins in the musician’s open guitar case, which I estimate had accumulated at least 50 Euros.

Then the answer to my rhetorical question came to me. This performer understands how to leverage an economic opportunity obvious to anyone traveling in Europe during the last few weeks. Boomers are everywhere. And if you’re going to sing for your dinner, covering James Taylor is a smart choice. Boomers, both American and European, will happily part with their money for those who deliver authentic experiences.

This young man isn’t just a talented folk singer and guitarist; he’s also a shrewd businessman. And he could teach European tourism officials some valuable lessons in marketing to the vast U.S. Boomer market: It's called value.

As I traveled through Italy during mid-September, I encountered and conversed with Boomers who had chosen to dig deeply into their bank accounts to afford an increasingly unaffordable yearning: the Old Continent and all the rich beauty it offers.

Several days before exploring Venice, for example, I came upon a group of American Boomers who were involved in an educational travel experience under the supervision of a young Chicago-based artist. Poised and painting above Cortona in the Tuscan hill country, these aspiring artists had been learning the ancient craft of oil painting.

Except for the well-to-do, Europe has become barely an affordable travel experience during the last few years. And this sits in striking contrast to the way things were. Many who backpacked and traveled through Europe in the 1960s and 1970s remember the legitimate opportunity to discover European art, history and culture on merely five dollars a day.

As I write this, every Euro costs $1.46 American dollars. Budget hotels in some of Europe’s great cities can be found for a mere €120 per day (which works out to $175.00 U.S. dollars). A reasonable daily food budget might be around €100 for a couple hoping not to dine at ubiquitous McDonald’s restaurants. And the prudent travel budget needs to accommodate a few attractions and museums (or why bother). When you factor in the cost to fly to Europe, suddenly, a “reasonable” European vacation can easily require not $5.00 but $500.00 per day.

There are many reasons why Europe is so alluring to Boomers.

Art

Culture

Scenery

Agriculture

Cuisine

Europe may lose a significant share of its forthcoming Boomer business opportunities if somehow the European travel experience cannot be rendered more affordable. The great American middle class, hit hard by current economic realities and shrinking prospects for unfettered retirement assets, may choose not to travel to Europe in large numbers. Rather, American Boomers may opt to explore their own country or travel to foreign destinations where currency exchange rates and inflation are not so punishing.

In spite of the plethora of Boomers I saw during my travels through Italy this past month, a number of business owners confessed to me that Europe has been hit hard by global recession. Americans are noticeably in short supply. This may continue to be the future for Europe. And it's too bad because Europe used to be one of the Boomer generation's most economical friends.

Boomers and Business in the U.S. and Europe: It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll

Baby Boomers in the U.S. and Europe are changing aging as profoundly as they changed youth. Their demographic might, coupled with a revolutionary spirit, guarantees radical changes ahead for institutions and businesses worldwide.

Over 45 years ago this generation chose rock music as its preferred form of entertainment and a force for social change. And the soundtrack of their lives is still influencing who they are today, even as they age.

And I'm running down the street of life
And I'm never gonna let you die
And I'm never ever gonna get old

British songwriter and performer David Bowie, author of the lyrics above, built his renowned career around it. So did Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, and Phil Collins.

It is a thread connecting disparate members of a generation; it ties New Yorkers to Californians and the Dutch to Brits. That rainbow-colored thread is rock ‘n’ roll, the album of tens of millions of European and American lives: an audio collage of incense and peppermint; of jungle green, Agent Orange and blood red; of young and mature love; of peace signs and pro-life placards.

It is memories and money, idealism and capitalism.

And rock ‘n’ roll is today ushering Baby Boomers into their third age: For many, the beginning of an adventurous new life stage; for others, a long, slow slide downhill. But whichever view of a rapidly-aging Western society dominates, optimistic or pessimistic, Boomers mean money — lots of it.

By 2015, Boomers on both sides of the Atlantic will have a combined net worth of €17 trillion, the one-year gross domestic product for the US and the eurozone, combined.

Rock Me

In recent years, consumers have heard a succession of former hit rock songs become embedded in advertising.

Apple Computers began selling multihued iMacs with The Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow. Wrangler Jeans drafted Fortunate Son, Credence Clearwater Revival’s anti-Vietnam War anthem. The Who’s Roger Daltry once sang, “The things they do look awful cold, (talking ’bout my generation), I hope I die before I get old.” And Boomers could only let out a collective gasp three decades after the song’s introduction when they heard Won’t Get Fooled Again in Nissan commercials.

Rod Stewart sells Pampers. Queen urges consumers to buy Aiwa stereos. Steppenwolf showcases Chevy’s ‘American Revolution’ with Magic Carpet Ride. Paul McCartney sells Fidelity Investments. Multi-millionaire Steve Winwood sells investment advice for Ameriprise. Bono, the charismatic lead singer for U2, sings hit song Vertigo to proffer greater profit margins upon Apple’s iPod.

Instant Karma: We All Shine On

The future of business with this insatiable generation is a set of possibilities, full of speculation and spin.

Earnest executives around the globe are strategizing in corporate boardrooms; entrepreneurs are dreaming up best-case and worst-case scenarios. Idealistic change agents propose halcyon visions of social evolution, an Age of Aquarius in gray tones. Disagreement abounds over which developmental pathways this fickle generation will follow.

Some critics view this generation’s alleged degeneration into materialism during the 1980s and 1990s as a presage of the future. Debt-ridden Boomers — purportedly over 25 million in the U.S. with net assets of $10,000 or less — will continue to tap into materialism, from Wal-Mart to Harrods, purchasing more and more and more, beyond necessity or practicality.

Boomer advocates, a less aggressive lot, see the future with the generation investing prudently in co-housing retirement communities, educational travel expeditions, grandchildren, and wellness pharmacopoeias.

A generation of wise mentors, attracted to learning, continuous self-development and social activism, will change the character of nations, making them wiser and kinder. Boomers will invest their social capital; Western countries will become much better places to grow old.

The one thing not being debated is demographic destiny. In 2010, about one-third of the U.S. population will be over 50. When 2020 rolls around, one in five American adults will be over 65. Half of Holland will be over 50 in 2012. Half of Norway and Italy already are.

The Boomer “age wave” will also have colossal impact in Europe, which already has 19 of the world’s 20 oldest countries. Over one-fourth of Europeans will be 65 or older in 2030.

Just as economists are predicting trouble ahead for Social Security and Medicare in the U.S., the Boomer aging trend will mean increased strain on European healthcare and pension systems.

Lookin’ Out My Back Door

Contrary to popular myth, Boomers have not been the only generation to challenge older generations and compel large-scale change. Young adults in the 1920s set many new standards for sexual liberation, obsessed about materialism, popularized self-improvement, and revered spiritual self-discovery and personal autonomy.

However, the Boomer generation is a byproduct of enormous population size connecting with art and technology at exactly the right moment in history.

Although the Baby Boom Generation is typically defined as those born after World War II and between 1946 and 1964, baby booms also occurred in Europe. The inclusive birth years of this generation in European countries are:
 
• France 1946-1974
• United Kingdom 1946-1971
• Finland 1945-1951
• Sweden 1946-1952
• Denmark 1946-1950
• Netherlands 1946-1972
• Ireland 1946-1982
• Iceland 1946-1969

A nearly universal and unexpected population explosion in the Western world dovetailed emergence of another phenomenon: broadcast television, reflecting and enlarging a generation’s unique sense of shared experiences.

Boomer children in the U.S. received steady doses of encouragement from the Howdy Doody Show and the My Three Sons. Many adult programs showcased idealized images of family life with Boomer kids as the centerpiece.

But the power of television to create generational consciousness around a continent and across the Atlantic found its true momentum on February 9, 1964.

By the time The Beatles debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show, six of their songs were playing continuously on the radio; two albums were running up the charts; and I Want to Hold Your Hand, a wistful ballad about puppy love, was one month into its dominance as Billboard Magazine’s No. 1 song.

The Beatles not only stimulated collective Boomer consciousness with messages of young love and social optimism; the Four Lads changed conceptions of everything from fashion to swagger.

Flaunting a thoroughly European sense of style, their mop-top hair looked weirdly out of place next to their crew-cut elders, and their lean legs finished defiantly in pointed boots. They boogied on Sullivan’s stage that night with focused exhilaration, as if to ease the mass hysteria overwhelming the television studio full of adulating teenage girls.

It was an incomparable moment of youthful celebrity uncorrupted, where rock ‘n’ roll became fully a generation’s chosen art form and a looking glass into the forthcoming countercultural years.

And 73-million Americans were watching all at once. The largest TV audience ever in the U.S. included the next generation of Boomer rock stars, most barely in puberty, sitting cross-legged in front of their TV sets — from Billy Joel to Gene Simmons of Kiss. Bruce Springsteen went shopping the following day and bought a guitar amp. “Most of us guys were screaming on the inside,” said Steve Van Zandt, guitarist for Springsteen’s E Street Band. “It was absolutely life-changing. There was no Plan B. There was no choice.”

Rock ‘n’ roll led the cultural bandwagon, and Boomers grew up confident, brash, independent and avid about owning things. They still are.

Never Get Old

David Robert Jones, a.k.a. David Bowie, personifies the dynamic changes guiding business today, a collective refocus on aging markets.

Bowie once tried to deny the reality of his possible irrelevance as an over-the-hill idol. But he is a chameleon who has adapted to change, continuously reinventing himself and updating an impressive catalogue — a 2003 addition to which is appropriately called, Reality.

Today he is comfortable with his musical shadow, with the person he is at heart: song-writer, performer, musician … Boomer. This 60-plus-year-old post-modernist rock legend isn’t finished rocking — not just yet — and neither is the generation that made him a star.

Feed Shark

The Personal is Mass Marketing: Boomers, Advertising and Social Commentary

Those who follow my writing know that I delve into many subjects concerning the social and political phenomena surrounding the Boomer generation. I have been confronted several times with a question: What do social and political issues have to do with marketing to Boomers?

Invariably, my answer is, “Everything.”

During my career, now spanning three decades, I have learned that some of the most powerful marketing strategies follow, reflect and sometimes move slightly ahead of larger social and political contexts in which we operate our contemporary lives.

This rings true when I see a financial services company heralding a novel life stage for Boomers instead of invoking an out-of-date construct called “retirement.” This rings true when an over-the-counter pain medication has less to do with overcoming pain than as an enabler of a continuing athletic lifestyle, long after joints have been barking their protests. This rings true when pundits reassign the birth year of a newly elected Boomer president (born in 1961) to another generation, rather than accept the dominant demographic delineation of his generational affiliation.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s the second wave of feminism inculcated a revolutionary idea that “the personal is political,” simply meaning that every aspect of our personal lives can be affected by the political environment in which we live and operate. Our personal lives can be conditioned by political and social forces. I submit that the milieu in which this Hegelian Dialectic occurs is often through marketing communications and mass media.

In contemporary marketing communications, Unilever’s Dove soap integrated “the personal” with “the political” through a spectacular advertising campaign designed to strengthen the brand by repositioning “antiaging” with a new product line called Pro Age. Dove set out to attract favorable attention from roughly 40 million Baby Boomer women, many of whom seek mitigation of wrinkles and other obvious cosmetic signs of aging but who also resent unrealistic and limiting portrayals of beauty.

Dove took a direct approach by unveiling a provocative new marketing idea: instead of demonizing or denying wrinkles and other signs of aging with illusions of perfection widely perpetuated by antiaging product marketers, Dove chose instead to celebrate aging by showcasing real middle-aged women, untouched by Photoshop or digital video equivalents.

In the spring of 2007, Dove unveiled its new campaign featuring magnificent photography shot by celebrity photographer and Boomer Annie Leibovitz. (Leibovitz, born in 1949, began her illustrious career in 1970 as a staff photographer for Jann Wenner’s iconic Boomer magazine, Rolling Stone, capturing memorable images of many rock ‘n’ roll notables such as John Lennon, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, David Cassidy, Sting and Bruce Springsteen.) The Pro Age print, television and Web ads feature full-figured women, none of whom are models and all of whom are over age 50.

Take a look at this television commercial, which was banned from broadcast television for being too provocative:

The stakes in the cosmetic industry are slightly greater than high. Antiaging skin care products have been projected to reach worldwide sales of $13 billion by 2010, yet Dove’s management found something disrupting through a study conducted in nine countries: “91% of women over 50 feel they're not represented realistically in the media.” By implication, Boomer women feel nearly invisible in typical cosmetic advertising that has traditionally glorified impossibly perfect complexions of girls barely out of puberty.

According to Nancy Etcoff, a psychologist at the Harvard Medical School and author of Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, “We're seeing a real shift in how people are approaching beauty. Up to now, it’s been about fighting aging with everything you have. Now you have a choice not to.”

Millions of Boomer women, most of whom grew up embracing the ideals of women’s liberation and other social movements to eliminate sexism from American business and society, are now pushing those cathartic values into the marketplace where antiaging morphs logically into Pro Age. The personal becomes political once again. Or visa-versa.

In a never-ending quest to be relevant and arresting, marketing campaigns invariably tap into a current zeitgeist about our complex social and political relationships. This became apparent again to me when I observed a recent ad campaign produced by Bacardi Rum, which I discuss in detail in a previous post.

A television commercial involves a young male protagonist walking through a stylish nightclub but simultaneously walking back through time. During one segue, he passes through dancing couples set in the 1940s or1950s, and viewers see a quick glimpse of an African American man dancing with a Caucasian woman. This image is historical revisionism because people of mixed races would not dance together in the 1950s or earlier – certainly not in large, mainstream public venues.

But historical revisionism about racial relations reflects a contemporary mindset of inclusiveness in American society, the capstone of which has been election of racially mixed Barack Obama as President of the United States. In a rum advertising campaign broadcast widely on television during the past summer, the advertisement’s creators reflect a larger societal context of a nation finally coming to grips with its demonic history of slavery. The Bacardi ad plays one small part in changing our “collective mentality” about men of women of mixed races being together.

Is the Bacardi mojito ad an example of marketing or social commentary? I submit: both. It is marketing because it positions the brand of Bacardi Rum in a favorable context, showcasing the libation as post-racial, inclusive and hip to current standards of correct social behavior. It is social commentary because this brief image announces the extent to which the nation has evolved in our collective acceptance of racial integration and interracial dating.

My writing consistently juxtaposes complex social and political issues in the context of marketing communications. This point-of-view probably reflects my formative years after college working as a counseling psychologist, someone who constantly searched for motivations behind behavior. The behavior of advertising often manifests nuanced motivations that spring from our psychological evolution as social creatures: a hopeful quest for greater inclusiveness across races, cultures, nationalities and generations. Inclusiveness includes age acceptance and racial integration in the truest meaning of those ideals.

The personal is political. The personal is mass marketing.

Baby Boomers and Woodstock 2009

What does the Woodstock Music & Art Fair of 1969 have to do with 2009? Well, depending on your point of view, almost everything… and almost nothing.

The original Woodstock Festival has been ballyhooed as the defining Baby Boomer cultural event: a watershed moment when the generation symbolically came together for rock ‘n’ roll and rebellion. It was an unprecedented amalgam of party and protest.

Since the original festival, several previous anniversary clones have attempted to recapture the superficial manifestations of Woodstock, the mega-concert, if not the authentic spirit. Previous reenactments, ambitious as some were, have failed to live up to history’s ideals.

As the 40th anniversary finally approaches August 15-17, 2009, we can think of Woodstock as existing on three levels: 1) the merchandizing event; 2) the media event; and, 3) the sociological event.

Woodstock, the merchandizing event, is jamming away full bore and with some success. Dozens of musical compilations, documentary movie re-masters, and retrospective books have appeared on Amazon.com since May. Boomers and lovers of Boomer culture can shop for director’s cuts of the eponymous film documentary, a new book about the story of Woodstock by one of its organizers, and new musical compilations from classic rock legends Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Johnny Winter. Late August promises unveiling of a major movie comedy event, yet to be congratulated or criticized by critics: Taking Woodstock, based on the Elliot Tiber book (and directed by Ang Lee of Brokeback Mountain fame).

Woodstock, the media event, has yet to engage fully, but reasonable expectations place the seminal rock concert as a lead story in some national media. For example, I would expect CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 to include Woodstock remembrances as a story in its newsmagazine line-up on August 14. Acknowledgements of the actual anniversary should appear on network news broadcasts. A weekly magazine and major newspapers might feature the story, including pundits trying to grapple with “what it all means.” While I don’t expect the anniversary to pass unacknowledged by media, I also am not expecting the event to carry as much media heft as the 40th anniversary of Americans landing on the moon.

Restaging the event is a nonstarter. Michael Lang, one of the original four promoters of the 1969 festival, announced in March 2009 that he was planning a 40th anniversary concert. Then on August 3, 2009 he cancelled the tribute concert stating lack of money and sponsors as his primary reasons. When you consider that this anniversary has been on the radar for at least a year by those who are launching merchandizing spin-offs, a major concert announced less than six months out and canceled less than two weeks out points to an obvious conclusion: Woodstock 2009 never had enough momentum to succeed. And, quite amazingly, a Heroes of Woodstock concert, organized by the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts for August 15, had not sold out at the time of this post. This is a small concert venue by Woodstock standards.

Woodstock, the sociological event, is least likely to gain traction in 2009. By “sociological event,” I mean a collective reliving of what this event meant in the historical narrative of the last half of the 20th century — and what the 1969 festival means today in terms of the nation’s evolving values.

Woodstock was “three days of peace and music.” Mud and illegal drugs notwithstanding, it represented a rare moment when thousands of strangers congregated together, suspending fear and suspicion and feeling intrinsic connections with their peers, an unparalleled intermission of social harmony. Typical crowd behaviors, such as avoiding eye contact, suspended for three days, leading to everything from unabashed public nudity to strangers hugging and high-fiving. More important than actions were feelings: a sense that a generation had come into its own, an experience of optimism in spite of the divisive Vietnam War, a moment of idealism that innate human hostility and warring could be rocked into irrelevance.

It is unlikely that the spirit of Woodstock could have been recaptured again in 2009, whether or not an anniversary concert happened. Watershed events are rare and ephemeral for a reason. They come just once and change our nation, never to be repeated but in caricature or parody.

Most Boomers who attended (or claim they did) are now into their mid-fifties to mid-sixties. Aging has changed them across 40 more years of living. Their fervent sense of shared mission has dissolved with the years. Getting “back to the garden” now means growing vegetables in the backyard, maybe to reduce household expenses in a recessionary economy. 

Yet, some of the values associated with Woodstock persist within the heart of this generation. These include a belief in the perfectibility of the human condition, yearning for a healthier planet unscathed by industrial and consumer waste, belief in inherent equality across races and cultures, and an atavistic love of rock ‘n’ roll music that remains forever youthful in spirit despite aging bodies.

Three days of peace and music have become frozen in time, thawing only partially every five or ten years to remind us of how much a nation needed to change in 1969 and how much a generation wanted to be a change agent. It was one tangible manifestation of our youthful location in history, whether we were in Bethel, New York, or not. Its powerful messages of liberation didn't stay local but traveled organically across the nation, from college campus to university town.

Only history can judge if the ideals of an “Aquarian Exposition” in August 1969 have become part of contemporary value consensus. But this is certain: to some Boomers today,Woodstock still beckons with the spirit of those three days.

“We are stardust wishing bombers into butterflies.”

Boomer Apologists vs. Boomer Entrepreneurs

 

As a wordsmith for over 25 years, unique and powerful words matter to me. I love to discover yet another word conveying a commanding and complex concept, succinctly. When thinking of specific words, I also recall consequential times from my past.

I remember when a brash and brisk college roommate referred to everything as copacetic. This was his vigorous way of saying something is excellent. For awhile, copacetic became one of my favorite words. Successful conclusion of a college final exam was copacetic. An alluring brunette who I took to a rock concert was copacetic. You get the idea.

As my copywriting career became active in the 1980’s, another word came to my attention, a transitive verb that implied a powerful intersection of thoughts: juxtaposition. It means “to place two or more things together, especially in order to suggest a link between them or emphasize the contrast between them.” After I learned this word and began to use it — perhaps too liberally for a time — I started seeing many aspects of my experiences with a sense of juxtaposition.

And so I return to this word now because it works well to help describe what I’m going to convey. I will use this word with a favorite modifier: ironic juxtaposition. Two disparate news stories about the Boomer generation have appeared recently that can be thought of side-by-side, strengthening ramifications for each article.

First, the darker story:

A column in the Wall Street Journal reported an astounding development in the content of many college commencement addresses: from Colorado Senator Michael Bennet to Indiana Governor Mitchell Daniels, some keynote speakers have become apologists for the Baby Boomer Generation.

In his commencement address to Colorado College, Senator Bennet said, “We have limited the potential of future generations by burdening them with our poor choices and our unwillingness to make tough ones.”

As a retort to the Journal’s columnist, who essentially agrees with the apologists, I submitted my reaction to the sudden barrage of critical commentary by Boomers about Boomers:

Let’s put today’s state-of-the-union situation in perspective. When I graduated from college, Boomers faced an arduous job market due to large numbers and a tired industrial economy running out of jobs. Interest rates had started escalating to unprecedented heights. Housing prices began inflating beyond reach of many first-time homebuyers. Severe segregation controlled the nation’s social and cultural institutions. President Richard Nixon’s Watergate crisis had become the obsession of news media. Industry routinely assaulted the environment, with Love Canal being paradigmatic. The Vietnam War was by then inspiring outrage from most corners of society while draining the U.S. Treasury. An OPEC oil embargo hovered on the horizon.

This was the status of the nation handed Leading-edge Boomers by the much-lauded and idealized GI Generation. Did commencement speakers back then condemn the generation that fought in World War II for our freedom? On the contrary, we graduates knew that the nation we were inheriting was imperfect, but we also had a sense of what our parents had given us: a robust economy through childhood, much material satisfaction, relative safety in a dangerous world, and a media culture that honored intergenerational cooperation, exemplified by family television shows such as Ozzie & Harriet. Many of our parents’ generation were also our heroes: from John Wayne to John Kennedy.

Yes, Boomers have nurtured a much more egalitarian society where minorities and women have a better shot at the American dream. But that isn’t the end of it. Boomers have infiltrated every sector of business, culture, science and the arts with idealism and collective will to change America for the better.

Boomers’ children have learned important life lessons from brilliant storytellers such as Steven Spielberg and his Oscar-winning movies Shindler’s List and Munich. Millennials have become the economic beneficiaries of Boomer-led industries, from Bill Gates’ Microsoft to Steven Jobs’ Apple Computer. Millennials have witnessed inspired leadership on television with Oprah; in science with Craig Venter and Francis Collins (genome sequencing); and in literature with Pulitzer-prize winners Michael Cunningham (The Hours) and Richard Russo (Empire Falls).

Today, we experience the Boomer legacy through inclusive institutions, through innovation and entrepreneurship, and through worldwide media clout. The nation is not perfect, but America percolates with opportunities awaiting optimists open to new possibilities rather than pessimists bearing grudges and casting blame.

Even though the nation is embroiled in two wars, Generation Y males do not face conscription upon graduation. Even though times are rough economically, hordes graduating from colleges today demonstrate the extent to which their parents have advocated and enabled post-secondary education. Even though traditional American industries are under enormous pressure to change, the nation charges forward with innovation in biotechnology, healthcare, alternative energies and the internet.

The nation is experiencing difficult times, but our problems run much deeper and wider than the actions or non-actions of a single generation. Every generation has fallen short of perfection. Every generation has helped make the nation a more perfect union. Every generation has confronted and surmounted its own challenges at the beginning of adulthood.

I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now the brighter story:

According to a headline in Forbes magazine, “Boomers Move to Self-Employment: Rising Unemployment Reinforces Their Entrepreneurial Bent.”

This article leads with grim facts about the current recession and joblessness among older workers. “Unemployment rates in June (2009) continued to climb for those aged 55 and older — to 7.7% for men and 6.4% for women, up from 3.1% and 3%, respectively, in December 2007.”

Although unemployment among older workers falls lower than the June 2009 national average of 9.5%, it’s much more difficult for older workers to find new jobs once unemployed. So how are members of this generation dealing with twin disasters of unemployment and a bleak employment future due to advancing age?

Many are becoming entrepreneurs and starting new businesses. According to Dane Stangler, senior analyst at the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Missouri, charity devoted to entrepreneurship, during the last ten years the 55 to 64 age group has led the pack in new-business creation. As Mr. Stangler suggested to Forbes, “The image of the 20-something entrepreneur obscures the trends that have persisted for a decade.”

According to Emily Brandon, reporting about the Kauffman study for U.S. News & World Report, a Duke University professor further found that “twice as many U.S.-born tech entrepreneurs start ventures in their fifties as do those under age 25.”

Kauffman Foundation’s Stangler predicts a “new entrepreneurial era,” where the nation’s path out of deep recessionary morass may be paved by a rich new period of business creation, with Boomers leading the way.

Should Boomer political leaders continue to apologize for Boomers about the current mess? Or should these leaders congratulate their peers for demonstrating entrepreneurial verve in a time of national malaise? Which kind of generational leader do you prefer to inspire young entrepreneurs of the future?

As part of my wordsmith tool kit, juxtapose has traveled with me as a well-considered friend for more than twenty years, and it seems apropos even now.

Juxtapose Boomer apologists with Boomer entrepreneurs. Ironic isn’t it?

Baby Boomer Men Are Ready to Spend in Current Recession

 

NEWS RELEASE

 

Recession? What recession? Boomer men are ready to spend – today.

Analysis of Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) survey data plus new insights about Boomer male sociology demonstrate that marketers should not ignore this cohort.

(July 8, 2009) – Brent Green, author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers and Boomer marketing authority, and Steve French, Managing Partner of NMI, today revealed analysis of findings from NMI’s annual Healthy Aging/Boomer Database® consumer research. The survey was fielded in January 2009 among 3,100+ U.S. general population adults.

These findings corroborate emerging cultural changes and marketplace behaviors that, when combined, point to a consumer revolution around aging and masculinity. “An abundance of 50+ Boomer men promises to inculcate new vitality to masculine aging,” said Brent Green. “Boomer men are making deliberate and proactive lifestyle choices, and this is being revealed through NMI research, consumer behavior, and brilliant marketing nuanced for generation and gender.”

While much has been written recently that identifies women aged 40+ as today’s power consumer, NMI’s Managing Partner Steve French cautions that Boomer men should not be ignored by marketers. “Boomer men are less affected by the recession than women. In fact, forty percent of men do not feel the amount of stress in their lives has increased due to the current economy while less than thirty percent of women feel that their stress level has not increased. Men are also more likely to spend versus save and make impulse purchases. They represent tremendous targeting opportunities across a range of industries.”

With more than $1 trillion in spending power, Boomer men are also more likely than women to buy brand name products, particularly at the grocery store. NMI found that about half of men are willing to purchase national brands over store brands as opposed to one-quarter of women. While shopping was once considered a woman’s domain, men are increasingly playing a role or even becoming the primary shoppers for their families. Less than a decade ago, men accounted for only twenty percent of primary grocery shoppers, but today one-third are doing the majority of their household grocery shopping.

More information can be found in this new white paper entitled Back in the High Life Again: Soaring Opportunities to Market to Baby Boomer Men, which was co-authored by NMI’s Steve French and Brent Green of Brent Green & Associates, Inc.

To receive a copy of the white paper, email Brent Green. To learn more about marketing to Boomer men, visit this website.

Feed Shark

The LOHAS Forum and the Future of Conscience Consumerism

“Stop, children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”

Buffalo Springfield’s chart-topping protest song entitled “For What It’s Worth,” written by Stephen Stills and released in 1967, anticipated social turbulence and confrontations of the late 1960s. This anthem has been often associated with anti-Vietnam War fervor of that time; yet today it resonates as a memorable melodic signature of momentous societal and cultural change.

This classic folk-rock song kept running through my mind as I listened to dozens of speakers articulating context for another revolution. The 13^th annual LOHAS Forum at the St. Julian Hotel in Boulder, Colorado, June 17 – 19, 2009, showcased impassioned visionaries who are humming notes of historic change in the way this nation consumes and discards — how we choose to live our lives in a time of global warning, economic turmoil, diminishing natural resources, and population explosion. Dramatic and determined thought-leaders possess many unique points of view, but they share a familiar message: an influential, irrevocable transformation is underway.

LOHAS, an acronym that stands for Lifestyles of Health & Sustainability, is a lifestyle and consumer cohort identified in the late 1990’s, which has grown to become a $209 billion global market segment. Consumers described as LOHAS are passionate about sustainability, health & wellness, personal development, resource conservation, corporate social responsibility, social justice, and natural/organic living.

According to Natural Marketing Institute (NMI), the Pennsylvania-based company that has for years conducted groundbreaking original research describing this segment, LOHAS consumers comprise 17% of the U.S. population. The Boomer generation over-represents the segment: 21% of Boomers are LOHAS consumers (24% higher than average).

An intrinsic connection between Boomers and LOHAS becomes more obvious when considering historical context. Launched on April 22, 1970, birth of Earth Day, the modern environmental movement barnstormed a nation through myriad protest marches and civic activism of this generation. Boomers created overwhelming political pressure, leading to the Environmental Protection Agency and passage by Congress of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. In conjunction with awakening to environmentalism, Boomers found sustenance in organic and natural foods popularized by nutritionist and author Adelle Davis; discovered the viabilities of aerobic fitness from running advocate Dr. Kenneth Cooper; and immersed deeper into spirituality with wise counsel from new gurus such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. From among their ranks came LOHAS-style businesses such as Wild Oats, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Stonyfield Farms, Silk Milk, and Celestial Seasonings.

As NMI proposes, the substantial influence of LOHAS consumers turns the 80/20 rule upside down. Also known as the Pareto Principle, this economic imperative maintains that 80% of a company’s income typically comes from 20% of its customers. Opinionated, outspoken, omnipresent and representing nearly 20% of the U.S. population, LOHAS consumers today are shaping core eco-values of 80% of the population. 80/20 has become 20/80.

This also leads to a new business imperative: pay attention to LOHAS consumers and their evolving preferences and behaviors; anticipate trends that will soon emerge broadly in the national population. LOHAS consumers are a fountainhead of what’s to come in the marketplace. They are precursors… progenitors.

An intense, mind-spinning emersion into the future of western lifestyles and consumerism, The LOHAS Forum cannot be condensed into a single post. Here I've posted some representative insights and comments from those who are leading the charge toward “responsible capitalism”: the men and women driven by deep-seated commitment to global sustainability and human health.

Ray Anderson

In the early 1990s, industrialist Ray Anderson experienced an epiphany when reading Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce. His carpet manufacturing company, Interface Global, Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial floor coverings, is nearly half way to achieving his vision of “Mission Zero” – zero scraps into landfills and zero emissions into the ecosystem.

Embodied Energy: the energy actually expended to create a tangible product

Biophilia: the nearly universal human desire to be outside in nature and to experience serene moments

“The cheapest energy is the energy not used.”

“You can’t create green products in a brown company.”

“Sustainability can be the most significant competitive advantage in a recessionary economy.”

“LOHAS means more happiness with less stuff.”

Steve French

Steve French is Executive Vice President and Managing Partner of Natural Marketing Institute, the research firm that has played a leading role in defining, tracking and articulating the LOHAS segment.

Current hurdles to LOHAS adoption:

1) Price sensitivity due to economic recession

2) Trust in companies because of proliferating “green” marketing messages

3) Product selection: finding environmentally friendly packaging and products across all categories

4) Sacrifice avoidance: increasing unwillingness to buy higher-priced, environmentally friendly products

5) Conflicting desire to reduce all consumption, even sustainably manufactured products

6) Time scarcity: consumers do not have time to investigate company claims of social responsibility and sustainability

Hunter Lovins

President and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions, Hunter Lovins educates senior decision-makers in the areas of sustainable development, globalization, energy and resource policy, economic development, climate change, and land management.

350 ppm: the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere; scientists measured 385 ppm in the 2007 atmosphere

Green buildings improve labor relations, health, worker productivity and business efficiencies. This has been demonstrated empirically by none-other-than Wal-Mart and the giant retailer’s new holistic green initiatives.

Business needs a new business case for survival, which Lovins calls Climate Capitalism.

Wade Davis, Ph.D.

 

Wade Davis is an Explorer-in-Residence for the National Geographic Society. He has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.” Author of nine books, including the international bestseller, “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” Davis is indeed a poet’s scientist and a scientist’s poet who shares impactful stories about the world’s vanishing cultures.

“Together the myriad of cultures of the world make up an intellectual, social and spiritual web of life that envelopes the planet and is as important to wellbeing of the planet as is the biologic web of life that you know as a biosphere.”

“You can think of this cultural web of life as being an ethnosphere, and you can define the ethnosphere as being the sum total of all thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.”

“The ethnosphere is humanity’s legacy and a symbol of all that we’ve achieved and the promise of all that we can achieve as a wildly creative species.”

“When each of you in this room was born, there were 7,000 languages spoken on earth. Now a language isn’t just a body of vocabulary or set of grammatical rules; a language is a flash of the human spirit. It’s a vehicle to which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind, a watershed of thought, an ecosystem of social and spiritual possibilities. And of those 7,000 languages spoken the day you were born, today fully half are on their way to extinction.”

Listen to CBS Radio’s “Massey Lectures,” entitled The Wayfinders, to discover more about Wade Davis’ astounding insights connecting the value of ancient wisdom with our modern lives.  

Hunter Lovins articulated one essential ethos of the LOHAS movement: “Real leadership is extraordinary courage by ordinary people.” Like Lovins, many of the movement’s leaders are also Boomers who for several decades have been drawing the battle lines between those who waste and exploit and those who preserve and protect natural and cultural resources for the future.

The people who belong to the LOHAS movement are certainly extraordinary — and often courageous. They are visionaries inspiring ordinary people to do amazing things: to bring sustainability into mainstream value consensus; to change our national focus from wasteful consumerism to “conscious” or “conscience consumerism”; and to motivate the next generation of leaders to be creative, bold and committed to restoring the nation’s fundamental values of preservation, idealism and individual initiative.

A generation ago, folk-rocker Stephen Stills sang, “There’s something happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear.” The journey toward a healthier, less materialistic, more altruistic and sustainable society isn’t always clear.

But it’s happening.

Additional General Session Speakers:

Ted Ning

Ted Ning: Director, LOHAS

Gwynne Rogers

 

Gwynne Rogers: Lohas Business Director, Natural Marketing Institute

John Marshall Roberts

 

John Marshall Roberts: Author, Igniting Inspiration

Robyn Griggs Lawrence

 

Robyn Griggs Lawrence: Editor-in-Chief, Natural Home magazine

Adam Lowry

 

Adam Lowry: Co-Founder, Method

Wolf Ludge

 

Wolf Ludge: CEO, hessnatur

Mallika Chopra

 

Mallika Chopra: Founder, Intent.com

Adam Werbach

Adam Werbach: Global CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S

Carly Wertheim

Carly Wertheim, Co-President, Teens Turning Green

All photos in this post: Copyright 2009, Brent Green & Associates, Inc.