Boomers

Marketing to Baby Boomers - The Power of Generational Experiences and Values

Generational Sociology and Boomers

Karl Mannheim (1893 — 1947), a founding father of the field of sociology, conceived the essence of generational theory through a seminal 1923 essay entitled "The Problem of Generations." Mannheim insisted that when a youth cohort faces substantial turmoil during its formative years between ages 12 and 25, a sense of generational identification strengthens. 

ERA march in 1976 is a precursor to the Women's Marches of 2017 and 2018

The leading-edge of the Boomer generation came of age between 1964 and 1975, an intense era of social, political, and technological changes. Protest marches, lifestyle experimentation, and social role reinvention became hallmarks of Boomer youth, a movement full of fervor, fun, and fantastical ideas about reorganizing society and culture.

Quantitative Research Supports Generational Theory

Even before I became fully aware of Mannheim's theories, and as I was finishing the first draft of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers in 2002, I was convinced that Baby Boomers had substantial generational affinity influenced by extraordinary turmoil during our youth, buttressed by a mass-market advertising industry that had targeted us since we were in diapers. 

But I had no quantitative evidence, other than the insights I have gained since 1978 from creating myriad successful advertising and promotional campaigns targeting Boomers.  

The Pew Research Center conducted a national survey from March 10 through April 15, 2015. Researchers studied 3,147 adults who are part of their American Trends Panel, "a nationally representative sample of randomly selected U.S. adults surveyed online and by mail."

Pew's study concluded that Baby Boomers have the most pervasive sense of generational identification when compared with four other living generations: The Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation, Generation X, and Millennials or Generation Y. Pew concluded: "Fully 79% of those born between 1946 and 1964, the widely used age range of this generation, identify as Boomers. That is by far the strongest identification with a generational name of any cohort."

Not only do the majority of Boomers identify with their generational label, 70 percent also feel that their assigned generational label applies to them "very well (31 percent) or fairly well (39 percent)."

Research evidence suggests that shared generational values formed during external conflicts and cultural turmoil do not perish with time passing; rather, the sociological phenomena typical of Boomer youth are finding newer ways of manifestation as the generation ages. Shared generational values can also be thought of as "collective mentalities" or "dominant ways of thinking."

How can marketers tap into the powerful influence of generational values? 

One method is to employ nostalgic memories creatively, and this has been done successfully by a number of international companies, including Subaru, GE healthymagination, and Fidelity Investments. 

Here's how Volkswagen recently delivered a nostalgic advertising message targeting Boomers for its People First Warranty: 

Another method is to examine topical issues confronting members of the generation today, such as possible exposure to the hepatitis C virus infection. Gilead Sciences directly addressed Boomers in the following commercial: 

Whichever method advertisers use to attract attention and instill positive brand impressions with Boomers, it is critical that creative directors and copywriters understand subtleties and nuances of what it means to have reached adulthood during the Vietnam War era.

Like all generations, we retain positive memories of our youthful years and struggles. Like all generations, we have contemporary needs, wants, and concerns unique to our generational journey.

Appropriated vs. Acquired Memories

Generational theory recognizes that memories we appropriate from other generations — meaning those memories we experience vicariously through stories shared by members of older generations and historical media — are not as powerful as memories we acquire through personal experiences during adolescence and young adulthood.

Picket fence behind "grassy knoll" where alleged second Kennedy assassin hid and fired.

To members of younger generations, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy represents an abstract lesson from history; to leading-edge Boomers, the killing of this president remains vivid and enduring. Every one of us born before 1957 remembers that fateful day — exactly where we were when we heard the shocking news. America changed, and the Boomer generation lost much of its innocence and trust. Kennedy's assassination persists today in our collective psyche.

To members of other generations, the Woodstock Music & Art Fair may sometimes be seen as a hackneyed cliche. To Boomers, the festival represents a time and place when everything changed in dramatic ways, whether or not as individuals we attended.

To members of other generations, being at risk for infection with Hep C may represent a moral failing of too much "free love." To Boomers, the possibility of being infected hearkens back to memories of long-lost lovers when "making love" was not seen as something awful but rather natural. 

Advertisers need cogent advice from those who understand generational nuances, not just those who are strategic and creative with marketing communications, and that, in a nutshell, is the purpose of my consulting business.

What Vincent van Gogh Can Teach Boomers (and everyone else) about Failure

Waking from a fitful dream, he struggled out of bed and stumbled to a barred window. From this perspective in the asylum, he beheld a clear night, a large morning star enchanting him. The sight of stars always inspired him. Just as we take a train from Paris to Amsterdam, he thought, we take death to go to a star.

About a year later, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. He was 37 years old.

Life started more hopefully for him. He was son of a country minister who valued education. He memorized more than three-fourths of the Bible. As a young man, he lived in Paris and worked for his uncle who was a successful art dealer. He learned and mastered four languages.

He also fell deeply in love with his landlady’s daughter, who rejected him in favor of another. This rejection devastated him and led to his being fired from his uncle’s gallery.

He decided to follow his father’s footsteps and devote his life to God. Preachers being punished by the Methodist Church were often sent off to southern Belgium to coalmining territories where retched conditions prevailed. He volunteered for this assignment, finding special inspiration working with the poor and oppressed. He was quite effective as a spiritual counselor, and the miners nicknamed him “Christ of the Coal Mines.”

Church leaders did not see him as an asset but rather as undignified, so they fired him. Again, he sought refuge in his family and even became captivated by his widowed cousin, Kate. He declared his love for her, which Kate and her parents found repulsive.

Finally, he decided to dedicate the rest of his life to pursuing art. His younger brother saw potential in his paintings and agreed to support him with a monthly stipend. An art dealer, his brother believed the older brother’s paintings might sell in Paris.

During the next ten years, he moved around Europe while befriending artist peers. He started an artist’s union in a town near Paris where notable artists visited and painted with him.

The stipend his brother, Theo, gave him was adequate for living expenses but not for models, canvases, and expensive oil paints. He often lived solely on coffee, cigarettes, bread, and the psychedelic liqueur absinthe. He had a habit of putting his paintbrushes in his mouth, exposing him to lead poisoning. He also sipped turpentine from time to time.

These horrible health practices and the hallucinogenic effects of absinthe contributed to occasional spells of madness and thus the asylum that I described at the beginning of this story.

Yet he worked at a feverish pace. He wrote, “The power of work is a second youth.”

During ten years of prodigious output, he created over 2,100 paintings. Yet he did not gain the favor of rich art collectors. People in the town where he lived treated him viciously and even signed a petition asking government officials for his removal.

During this decade of frenetic work, his younger brother was only able to sell a single painting for the equivalent of $2,300 today.

Vincent van Gogh, who preferred to sign his paintings with just Vincent, felt despondent, lonely, and rejected for most of his adult life. He shot himself in the chest as a final act of self-loathing, although he did not successfully kill himself outright. He died two days later in the arms of his devoted brother, Theo.

Today, we view Vincent as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. The 1889 painting inspired by the clear night while he was in an asylum became known as “The Starry Night” and is housed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His painting called “Irises” sold for $54 million dollars at auction. Another painting, a portrait of a doctor who cared for him in the asylum, sold for $83 million dollars.

Vincent’s story can be a lesson for all of us. He went to his grave seeing himself as a loser. He felt unloved, misunderstood, and rejected by all but his younger brother.

Most of us experience some of the pain that followed Vincent through his life. Maybe we fail to achieve our most private dream. Or we lose in love. Or we feel misunderstood. These feelings are part of the human experience.

Vincent’s story teaches us that in the end we may never know the full scope of our impact on the world. Our total influence may emerge after we are gone.

Next time things don’t work out, remember Vincent, an asylum and a painting called “The Starry Night.” It is a priceless masterpiece and one enduring legacy of a downtrodden and defeated man who created the work.