Boomers: December 2019

About Brent Green

About Brent Green
This blog is about Baby Boomers and our impact on business, society, and culture, today and in the future. Here I explore many themes relevant to those of us on a thoughtful journey to reinvent the future of aging. I am a consultant and author of six books, including "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions." I present workshops and give keynote speeches about the intersection of the Boomer generation, business, aging, and societal transformations. My company, Brent Green & Associates, Inc., is an internationally award-winning firm specializing in building brands and forming successful commercial relationships with Boomers through the unique power of generational marketing. Marketing to Boomers I welcome your comments and questions here. This blog is a continuing conversation that began in June 2005, and I'll appreciate hearing from you.

Building Boomer Business

Media relations, media interviewing, public speaking, and leadership training for senior executives provided by veterans in PR and news reporting
Discover the future with Brent Green's new book, "Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and The Future."
Internationally award-winning direct response marketing for Boomer-focused companies
Brent Green & Associates is a leading marketing company with specialized expertise in selling products and services to the Boomer male market, comprised of over 35 million U.S. adults. Click here to visit our website.

Business Experts

Lee Eisenberg
Lee Eisenberg is the author of "The Number," a title metaphorically representing the amount of resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by visionary advice from the former Editor-in-Chief of "Esquire Magazine," Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living. This is an important resource for companies and advisors helping Boomers prepare for their post-career lives.
Kim Walker
Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in Asia Pacific, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. His newest venture is SILVER, the only marketing and business consultancy focused on the 50+ market in Asia Pacific. He has been a business trends and market identifier who had launched three pioneer-status businesses to exploit opportunities unveiled by his observations.
Hiroyuki Murata
Hiroyuki Murata (Hiro) is a well-known expert on the 50+ market and an opinion leader on aging issues in Japan and internationally. Among his noteworthy accomplishments, Murata introduced Curves, the world’s largest fitness chain for women, to Japan and helped make it a successful business. He is also responsible for bringing the first college-linked retirement community to Japan, which opened in Kobe in August 2008. Hiro is the author of several books, including "The Business of Aging: 10 Successful Strategies for a Diverse Market" and "Seven Paradigm Shifts in Thinking about the Business of Aging." They have been described as “must read books” by more than 30 leading publications including Nikkei, Nikkei Business, Yomiuri, and Japan Industry News. His most recent book, "Retirement Moratorium: What Will the Not-Retired Boomers Change?" was published in August 2007 by Nikkei Publishing. Hiro serves as President of The Social Development Research Center, Tokyo, a think-tank overseen by METI (Ministry of Economy, Technology, and Industry) as well as Board members and Advisors to various Japanese private companies. He also serves as a Visiting Professor of Kansai University and as a member of Advisory Boards of The World Demographic Association (Switzerland) and ThirdAge, Inc. (U.S.).

December 20, 2019

When Old Is New Again: Apple iPhone, Aging and Intergenerational Connections

Some of us are intimately familiar with every outdated technical skills demonstrated in a classic TV ad from Apple.

The spot follows an unassuming archivist working in an ancient building. Shelves bulge with film reels, photos and negatives. With a gentle gaze, the stooping man orchestrates his antique tools to bring celluloid memories alive. The final result, a short documentary film called “Together,” appears miraculously on a young mother’s iPhone somewhere else in the world. Images of her young family fly by as Lykke Li’s moving interpretation of "Unchained Melody" calls to our memories of young love, parenting, and perhaps Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze’s poignant movie, “Ghost.”

The purpose of this ad, incidentally, is to showcase Memories, Apple’s iOS 10 app for iPhone 7 and above. The app auto-magically curates iCloud photos and videos from a time period, wedding them to music to create emotional mini-films. As if a ghost from another time, the wise, tireless archivist is always ready to help when his call light snaps on.

So is this one more ageist TV ad portraying negative connotations of aging? Or is this docudrama a positive depiction of aging and the special power of intergenerational connections? Please post your reaction and comments below.

Posted at 11:26 AM in Advertising, Marketing, Media, Social and Political Issues, Television | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tags: ageist, aging, Apple, Demi Moore, Ghost, iCloud, intergenerational, iOS 10, iPhone 11, Lykke Li, Patrick Swayze, Unchained Melody

Boomer Resources

Senior Forums
Senior Forums is a very active online community where the issues that interest Boomers are discussed, dissected, derided, defended, or downright denied in an aura of friendly chatter and banter among like-minded people. Bring your sense of humor and join a laid-back, international forum of straight talkers who generously offer common sense to support those who need it and laugh with those who embrace the funny sides of aging.
Fierce with Age
Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., invites readers and followers of her blog to join her for what promises to be an exciting, challenging and rewarding next stage, similar in transformation to earlier chapters of life that the Boomer generation traversed and reinvented over the decades. A respected Boomer business authority and author of 19 books focused on spirituality, Carol trusts that through prayer, meditation, personal and spiritual growth, Boomers have the potential to fundamentally change their lives for the good, experiencing the aging process as “a potent mix of spiritual growth and personal empowerment.”
50plusboomerlife — Boomer life - travel - fashion - facts and more!
This charming blog is written with purpose and passion by Kristine Drake, a native of Norway. I met Kristine at a magazine launch event in Stockholm, and we've remained in touch. Please keep in mind that this articulate and insightful blog is being written by someone who uses English as her second language. You'd never know it unless I told you so. Norway is a magical country, so Kristine's European perspective about life after 50 enriches us all.
Fifty Is The New Forty
Since 2007, FiftyIsTheNewForty.com has been a dynamic, trendy go-to destination for savvy and successful 50-something women. Interviews with prominent Boomers, articles, guest blogs and reviews. Fun, funny, informative, and relevant.
Mark Miller's "Hard Times Retirement"
Mark Miller, author of "The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security," is a journalist, author and editor who writes about trends in retirement and aging. He has a special focus on how the Boomer generation is revising its approach to careers, money and lifestyles after age 50. Mark edits and publishes RetirementRevised.com, featured as one of the best retirement planning sites on the web in the May 2010 issue of "Money" Magazine. He also writes Retire Smart, a syndicated weekly newspaper column and also contributes weekly to Reuters.com.
David Cravit's blog
David Cravit is a Vice President at ZoomerMedia Ltd. and has over 30 years’ experience in advertising, marketing and consulting in both Canada and the US. His book "The New Old" (October, 2008, ECW Press and recommended here) details how the Baby Boomers are completely reinventing the process of aging – and the implications for companies, government, and society as a whole.
Silver - Boomer Marketing in Asia Pacific
The only strategic business and marketing consultancy focused on 50+ in Asia Pacific, SILVER is helping companies leverage the opportunities presented by the rapidly rising population of ageing consumers throughout Asia Pacific. Founder and CEO Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in APAC, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Silver can INFORM with unique research, data and insight reports into the senior market. ADVISE to help companies increase understanding through audit of their ageing-readiness, strategic workshops, training and executive briefings. CONNECT business to the senior market through refined brand positioning plus relevant and targeted communications strategies.
VibrantNation.com
VibrantNation.com is the online destination for women 50+, a peer-to-peer information exchange and a place to join in smart conversation with one another. “Inside the Nation” is Vibrant Nation Senior Strategist Carol Orsborn's on-site blog on marketing to the upscale 50+ woman. Carol, co-author of “Boom,” as well as 15 books for and about Boomers, shares her informed opinions from the heart of the demographic.
Entitled to Know
Boomers better get ready for a deluge of propaganda about why Social Security and Medicare should not be secure and why these programs must be diminished and privatized. This award-winning blog, sponsored by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides an in-depth resource of breaking news and cogent analysis. You've been paying for these programs since inception of your career; now it's time to learn how as individuals and collectively we can preserve them for all generations.
Time Goes By
This is the definitive blog to understand what is happening to a generation as it ages. Intelligent. Passionate. Humanistic.
Route 50Plus
Produced by the Dutch organization Route 50Plus, this website brings news, knowledge, and information about the fifty-plus population. The Content and links can be found from more than 4000 national and international sources. Topics include fifty-plus marketing, media, new products, services, and trends. Partners of Route 50Plus include Plus Magazine, 50 Plus Beurs, SeniorWeb, Nederland Bureau door Tourisme & Congressen, Omroep MAX, De Telegraaf, MediaPlus, and Booming Experience.
Dr. Bill Thomas
Under the leadership of Dr. Bill Thomas, ChangingAging.org seeks to elevate elders and elderhood in our society by taking-to-task the media, government and other interest groups who perpetuate a declinist view of aging.
Serene Ambition
Serene Ambition is about what Boomers can do, and more importantly, who Boomers can be as they grow older. Blogger Jim Selman is committed to creating a new interpretation or paradigm for the second half of life
The Boomer Chronicles
The Boomer Chronicles, an irreverent blog for baby boomers and others, is updated every Monday through Friday, usually several times daily. Host Rhea is a Boston-based journalist and a Gemini who grew up in a small town in New Jersey. She has written for People magazine and The Boston Globe. She was also managing editor of Harvard University’s newspaper, The Gazette. She wrote the “Jamaica Plain (Boston)” chapter of the book WalkBoston (2003; Appalachian Mountain Club) and started a popular series of Jamaica Plain walking tours in 1996.
LifeTwo
LifeTwo is a community-driven life planning and support site for adults who have recognized the speed at which days are passing by. This often begins to happen in-between the mid-30s and the mid-50s. Sometimes this recognition is triggered by a divorce, career change, personal loss or some other significant event and sometimes it is just the calendar hitting 35 or 40. The hosts' goal is to take what otherwise might become a midlife "crisis" and turn it into a positive midlife transition.
BoomerCafé.com
BoomerCafé is the only ezine that focuses on the active, youthful lifestyles that boomers pursue. Instead of a brand new edition every week or every month, BoomerCafé is changing all the time, which means there’s often something new to read each time you go online at www.boomercafe.com.
Jean-Paul Tréguer
Jean-Paul Tréguer is the author of "50+ Marketing" and founder of Senioragency International, the first and only international marketing and advertising network dedicated to Boomers 50+ and senior consumers.
Dick Stroud
Generational and 50+ marketing is taking off in Europe, with no small thanks to the author of newly published "The 50+ Market."
David Wolfe
Respected widely for his thought-leading book, "Ageless Marketing," the late David Wolfe established an international reputation for his insights, intellect and original thoughts about the future of aging. This blog carries on ageless marketing traditions in honor of David.
Matt Thornhill
Boomer pundit Matt Thornhill has taken new ground with his path-breaking Boomer research. When you need fresh Boomer insights, contact Matt for original research, both online and focus group.
Chuck Nyren
Chuck Nyren, author of "Advertising to Baby Boomers," is a seasoned creative director and copywriter with talent to match. Ad agencies absolutely need his counsel about any of their clients planning to target Boomers.

Boomer Opportunity Links