Boomers

The Problem with Baby Boomers and “Free” Offers in Advertising

We consumers are inundated with offers of free products and services. Just turn on your television and wait until the next commercial break. Chances are some company will offer you something for free. The irony is that most of these offers are disingenuous and manipulative.

As Robert Heinlein popularized in his 1966 science-fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”

Other than promotional offers designed to generate leads, when a company gives targeted consumers something in exchange for identifying personal information, most ads proposing a free-something-or-other are discounts. We give the company money and the company gives us something back as a value-added incentive … that’s paid for with our money.

Baby Boomers have been at the epicenter of marketing since they were in diapers. Trillions have been spent. Every marketing ploy that the human imagination can conceive has been tried, and tried, and tried. We are sophisticated consumers—and jaded. We know lunch and dinner are not free.

I could suggest dozens of examples of misleading free offers, but a mass-market TV ad caught my attention and serves as a case-in-point of how to create a cloying "free" ad:

When I learned the copywriter’s craft, the rule-of-thumb was that a 30-second TV commercial allowed for no more than 70 words of announcer copy, at the outside. More copy shoehorned into thirty seconds makes the ad frenetic, busy, car-dealer like. Less verbiage is usually better, especially when targeting older adults.

The advertising agency for Golden Corral restrained themselves by limiting narrated copy to 86 piping-hot, world-famous words. Additionally, the commercial uses the spoken word “free” five times. The free offer is also presented twice visually.

I guess they get their point across, and anyone paying attention has a brighter day knowing that he will get six free “piping hot delicious yeast rolls” to take home after consuming the legendary dinner buffet for one low price. The offer requires purchase of two adult dinner buffets, communicated in squint type on-screen for 1.6 seconds. A few perceptive viewers may notice, but the offer restriction conveniently appears twice in case we blink and miss it the first time.

I assume that Golden Corral paid a significant budget allocation for production of this television commercial. And it shows. The food videography is top-notch. Depicted buffet items are all-American “comfort foods,” including crispy fried chicken. The piping hot delicious yeast rolls do look piping hot as they appear from an oven in small batches. Happy customers, including possibly a Boomer mom, do indeed look happy.

Cinematography aside, Golden Corral has conceived another free offer that isn’t free; it‘s cloying, especially to this jaded Boomer consumer. And I think the ad must be annoying to others in my generational cohort who also learned from Mom and Dad that there are no free lunches.

Some viewers will be annoyed by the misuse and overuse of the word free. This is exacerbated by one of the most abused combination of words in the English language: “absolutely free.”

From a grammatical standpoint, something is free or it isn’t. “Absolutely” is superfluous, but copywriters have called upon this brassy adverb to add force to the overused promise of free everything. The next generation of copywriters may be forced to embolden their faux free offers with “absolutely, unrestrictedly, totally, utterly, and positively FREE.”

Other viewers will be annoyed by the nutritional truth of “piping hot delicious yeast rolls.” While this ad visually portrays something wholesome and yummy, in reality these rolls appear to be made from white flour, and the recipe probably includes doses of sugar and/or honey and some kind of mystery fat. Boomers today are becoming more nutritionally conscious as many struggle with being overweight or obese (allegedly 40 percent or more). White flour and sugar are two dastardly culprits contributing to modern diet-related diseases.

The “big idea” behind this ad probably came from a corporate marketing person or team nurturing dreams of industry acclaim. Imagine all the handsomely paid marketing folks and their ad agency colleagues getting excited about this breakthrough advertising strategy. This is how legendary reputations get built.

The offer strategy and copy certainly passed through many layers of approval but still reek of formulaic inexperience.

So what might be effective with Boomer consumers? First, and in a word, authenticity. B. Joseph Pine II and Jim Gilmore have written an excellent treatise on the importance of authentic branding and marketing today. 

What could be more authentic to Boomers than six free piping hot delicious yeast rolls? There are many possibilities, but one is an offer that embraces grandchildren.

Comfort food has its appeal to all of us, diets notwithstanding. Including the grandkids makes dining there all the more enticing. In addition to showcasing warm-fuzzy buffet food, Golden Corral could portray charming and motivating glimpses of authentic engagement between generations over dinner. Authentic food. Authentic family connections. If the marketing situation demands a motivating response kicker, then Golden Corral can offer a value-added incentive especially for the grandkids. 

Seasoned copywriters — those who have been engaged in the craft for decades, not merely months or years — have attuned their judgment to understanding the differences between fake and authentic portrayals of clients’ products and services. They stopped depending on outdated copywriting formulas such as nauseating repetition of the word “free,” especially when the free offer is a value-added discount or bonus for purchasing something.

There is no free lunch, and there are no shortcuts to reaching Boomers today. It takes maturity, sophistication, and deeper consumer insights. This does not come by believing ad industry mythology that offering something free is the only direct and certain path to the consumer’s heart ... or stomach.

Two Major Wellness Goals for Your Aging Body: End of Sarcopenia, Compression of Morbidity

The aged man struggled to get out of his recliner. His leg muscles could not lift his weight into a vertical position, so he fell back into the chair, exhausted. He sat there for a few minutes, trying to command his weak muscles to help him stand. He barely had strength to push upwards with his hands against armrests.

Finally in a single determined push with arms and forward momentum from rocking, he stood, though unsteadily. It took a few seconds for him to find his balance so he could then shuffle from his recliner to reach the bathroom. There he would need to sit again, and he knew that leaving the stool would be equally arduous — maybe impossible. How he dreaded the idea of becoming immobilized and unable to escape the prison of sitting.

One morbid challenge confronting Boomers as they age many not ring familiar to you. But when you think about it, you might consider aging from a different perspective.  Called sarcopenia, this challenge involves muscle wasting due to aging.

Sarcopenia derives from the Latin roots, "sarco" for muscle, and "penia" for wasting, making it a “muscle wasting disease.” Sarcopenia is a byproduct of the aging process, the progressive loss of muscle fiber that begins in middle age. The process starts in our 30s but, unchecked, leads to rapid deterioration in strength and endurance in the mid-60s. Without intervention, adults can lose as much as 8% of muscle mass every ten years.

Sarcopenia propels a cascade of other medical problems. Less muscle mass and strength leads to faster fatigue. Chronic fatigue leads to less physical activity and a more sedentary lifestyle. Less activity results in fat gain and obesity. Excess weight contributes to glucose intolerance, type II diabetes and a condition called metabolic syndrome. This syndrome can then cause hypertension and increasing risk for cardiovascular disease. The end-state of sarcopenia is death.

Muscle wasting contributes dramatically to eldercare costs. Once older patients become incapable of the activities of daily living, such as rising unassisted from a recliner, they are usually institutionalized in nursing homes and assisted living facilities where most remain until death.

I participated in an Innovators Summit: “a unique forum where leaders representing a variety of sectors join together to design new business models, network about possibilities, and spawn new insights around the aging marketplace of the future.” Staged at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, where I was formerly advertising and public relations director, the Summit brought together professionals involved in aging services, home healthcare, architecture, homebuilding, academics, medicine, technology, wellness, retailing, and of course, marketing. Participating organizations included Ecumen, Eskaton, IDEO, GE, Pfizer, Intel and AARP.

A significant part of this exercise in “deep conversation” involved forming interdisciplinary innovation groups addressing seven topical areas, including “home based care,” “new financial models,” “dementia and cognitive health,” and “livable communities.” I joined a group discussing the future of “prevention and wellness,” an area that his interested me for decades and has involved clients of Brent Green & Associates, such as Experimental and Applied Sciences, Men’s Fitness magazine, the Institute for Health Realities, Men’s Health magazine, and Nestle.

Although wellness encompasses a vast array of subspecialties, from nutrition to socialization, I suggested we focus our discussion on sarcopenia. Knowing that this clinical-sounding word needed a more innovative title, a preventative medicine physician on our team suggested “Strong Muscle, Strong Living” as a friendlier, more benefit-oriented statement of purpose.

From this starting point, the innovation team began envisioning business possibilities. We summarized our innovation as follows:  “An integrated package of products and services with substantial media messaging dedicated to empowering the 50+ market to maintain muscle strength and mobility across the life span. This package includes assessment, nutrition science, exercise technology, positive messaging, mobility health and education.”

Imagine a public service media campaign developed to help adults 50+ become more aware of the hazards and risks associated with unchecked muscle wasting. What if the alien word “sarcopenia” or a friendlier euphemism became as familiar to the public as ED — erectile dysfunction? Could this campaign reduce healthcare costs by focusing 50+ adults on muscle maintenance long before the pernicious downward spiral toward frailty begins?

Our innovation team then imagined some business implications of sarcopenia mitigation as a public health priority. The first obvious area of opportunity lies in nutrition science.

Abbott, for example, introduced a brand extension of Ensure, its nutritional beverage supplement often associated with eldercare institutions. The company has named its new product Ensure High Protein. Flavored shakes include 16 grams of protein, 24 vitamins and minerals, and a quixotic new ingredient Abbott calls “Revigor,” an amino acid metabolite.

Beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, popularly referred to as HMB, is a supplement that may act as a “protein breakdown suppressor” and thus can serve as a performance facilitator for resistance training such as weight lifting. According to some proponents, HMB boosts strength levels, enhances gains in muscle size and strength, and prevents post-workout muscle tissue breakdown. Clearly, nutrition science can become the wellspring of future supplemental food products that lessen sarcopenia progression while improving strength and endurance in older adults.

Proponents of HMB and other supplements insist that nutrition by itself will not prevent muscle wasting. Thus, opportunities abound for fitness equipment designers to develop machines and training regimens that can help Boomers work out more effectively and frequently. A fitness machine has yet to be invented that takes a lot of the work out of working out, thus helping users push through psychological resistance to resistance training.

The next successful video workout program may be waiting for a superstar proponent. For example, Jane Fonda’s Workout has been credited for launching the fitness craze among Boomers who in the 1980s were arriving in middle age.

The Oscar-winning actress introduced in 2010 a DVD set targeting older adults called Jane Fonda Prime Time. Two videos are entitled “Walk Out” and “Fit and Strong,” with the first focused on aerobics and the second on strength training. This regimen is heading in the right direction, but the exercise level required to participate is more suited to those already experiencing handicapping physical limitations. The most on-target innovation may be a hybrid series of workouts: less aggressive than youth-oriented P90X and more challenging than Fonda’s tamed-down workout for folks already significantly limited by disabilities.

Sarcopenia, a mystical word not to be confused with a Greek isle in the Aegean Sea, stimulates grand possibilities for innovation… in nutrition science, fitness equipment, video training programs, retirement community social engineering, public education, consumer products, and marketing budgets to sell all the aforementioned opportunities. Our innovation team agreed that not only can a national focus on sarcopenia potentially mitigate premature aging and death, but this agenda could further reduce spurious healthcare financial burdens confronting the nation.

Strong muscles mean stronger, sometimes longer lives. Through sarcopenia mitigation, Boomers can compress their morbidity — thereby lessening the burdens of old age illnesses by compressing an unwanted time of life into the shortest period possible before the final exit.

To visualize this cultural and business revolution personified, think of Jack LaLanne, a pioneer in fitness and strength training, who had a robust and productive life until age 96, dying from pneumonia after just a few weeks of illness. Strong muscles, strong life, quick death from natural causes. The circle of life doesn’t come full circle any better. 

Today’s Technologies Already Changing Aging for Boomers

Many older adults have a yearning technically called “compression of morbidity.” They desire more than life expansion; they hope to stay active and independent until the end and then pass away quickly from terminal illnesses without suffering. Almost every major industry recognizes opportunities implied by this human aspiration.

Forrester Research has projected that in-home medical monitoring could reach $34 billion in 2015. Accordingly, Independa, an award-winning tech startup, provides care recipients with social and community content and appointment and medication reminders through flat-screen televisions and tablets. This cloud-based package of mHealth services delivers remote support for independent caregivers, as well as staff efficiencies for senior living communities, CCRCs, and nursing homes.

Intel is on a growing list of companies developing technologies to help people avoid nursing homes. Called Care Innovations, Intel’s strategic alliance with GE aims to commercialize home-based monitoring to improve quality-of-life while reducing national healthcare costs.

Age management, or anti-aging, has inspired breakthrough practices to slow the aging process. Some medical doctors advocate hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to diminish loss of muscle mass and prevent chronic fatigue. Many fitness facilities offer computerized, pneumatic plyometric machines for low-impact core training, diminishing wear-and-tear on joints and tendons. Pharmaceutical companies have over 400 drugs under development to tackle aging.

Homebuyers over 50 are downsizing and right-sizing. Some are adopting active-adult communities wired for the future and nostalgically reminiscent of the past. Others are occupying classic high-rises retrofitted with fiber optic cables and discrete accessibility features. Virtual retirement villages are springing up across the nation. Members pay a yearly fee to gain conciergelike, internet-based access to vetted services providers as well as social connections through group activities that help them age in place.

One of the newest categories in grocery stores is called “functional foods,” exemplified by GoodBelly probiotic juice drinks. Containing Lactobacillus plantarum 299v, GoodBelly’s designer beverages have been formulated to stimulate optimum digestive health.

Car manufacturers are designing third-age vehicles to address late-life mobility aspirations. For example, the Hyundai Genesis features an advanced Automatic Emergency Braking system that uses cameras and radar sensors. If a crash becomes imminent and a driver does not react, the system deploys, braking the vehicle from speeds as high as 50 MPH.

Blazing trails for the financial services industry, Merrill Lynch recently rolled out iPad software to help their advisors map retirement plans based around seven life priorities: health, family, finance, leisure, home, giving, and work. Merrill’s advisors can now amplify retirement planning meetings with discussions focused on “How’s your life?”

Thanks to technological revolutions in most industries today, the future of aging should be a lot less morbid, with time spent declining much more compressed for many.

LOHAS, Baby Boomer Men, and the Future of Healthy Aging

From their ranks came the leaders of Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods, Starbucks, Silk Milk and Celestial Seasonings.

Their vision for prosperous businesses sprang from idealism they had embraced in the 1960s and 1970s. Their names are synonymous with Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability, long before LOHAS had a name.

Cohen. Greenfield. Mackey. Schultz. Demos. Siegel.

They tapped into an anti-plastic food zeitgeist that would shatter complacency and move markets toward healthy, natural, organic, ecofriendly and socially responsible products. They were the visionaries who first grasped and then capitalized on the changing moods of a generation.

They are Baby Boomers. They are men. And they launched an industry.

That’s why farsighted LOHAS marketers are taking another look at these men, both the innovators and the legions who buy their products. Millions of men, infused with idealism and health-seeking values, constitute an enormous segment that’s only going to become more lucrative in its aging.

Steve Demos, founder of WhiteWave and NextFood, already foresees the next giant marketing opportunities to target a generation. Simplistically, they are still Boomers, and they are aging, and they are changing aging.

They’re in play for new products that deliver substantive health and chronic disease mitigation benefits. So Demos has launched GoodBelly, a line of stomach-soothing probiotic juice products developed for Boomers. He’s made a good decision, even if it’s daring.

The market rewards daring. The market rewards clarity about the market.

Why This Generation, Why Men?

Never before in the history of this nation have so many men entered the 50+ lifestage. Nearly six thousand Baby Boomer men turn 50 every day, and a Boomer male turns 60 about every 15 seconds. This generational march to 60+ will continue for the next seventeen years.

Demography by itself does not predict the future course for this generation. The idiosyncratic Boomer value set, inspired by the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960’s and 1970’s, adds dimension to future scenarios. How so for Boomer men?

First, this generation of men has experienced the consumer power that came with being at the top of the nation’s traditional social hierarchy. When they were young adults, Boomer men were favored with jobs, wage and salary advantages, and access. Social status influenced them to resonate with heroic marketing archetypes such as the Marlboro Man and the Shelby Ford Mustang. They like mythologies around conquering individualists such as Ben & Jerry.

Second, they remember standing side-by-side with female peers during long months of struggle to achieve greater economic and social equality for women. Many protested for greater racial inclusiveness. A man coming of age in the sixties and seventies learned to empathize with the underdog and challenge authority. An iconic magazine ad campaign for the Volkswagen Beetle – “Think Small” – embodied the underdog achieving celebrity status. The movement toward local growers of organic foods is thinking small but with big implications.

Third, Boomer men have a feisty history, and they’ve transformed every lifestage they’ve occupied. For example, they ushered in the yuppie and gravitated to products such as the BMW sports car and Mont Blanc pen, reflecting their well-honed sense of technology, design and luxury. Starbuck’s and Whole Foods executives understand how to create the “being places” that cause Boomer men to linger…and buy: holistic, healing, eco-green places, down to earth.

Powerful Influences of Gender on Attitude

Natural Marketing Institute (NMI), based in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, has been conducting consumer research into the Boomer generation mindset since the beginning of this decade. Boomer men and women share many core values. For example, based on NMI’s Healthy Aging/Boomer Database, 81 percent of Boomer women and 78 percent of Boomer men strongly or somewhat agree with taking responsibility for health matters:  I’m very concerned about my personal health and am actively managing it.

Both sexes strongly or somewhat agree that exercise is a primary way to promote healthy aging (94% of women and 92% of men). Both sexes strongly or somewhat believe vitamins and nutritional supplements promote healthy aging (75% for both genders). Both sexes believe that maintaining independence as they age is of highest priority (98% of women and 96% of men).

However, upon closer study of NMI data, noteworthy gender differences emerge. Steve French, managing partner of NMI, believes many attitudes have distinct gender influences that marketers can use to construct and target commercial messages.

“NMI research follows the opinions of 10,000+ Boomer men and women, and our survey data is revealing surprising gender insights,” said NMI’s French. “For example, Boomer men are more likely to aspire to live very long lives, but they are less likely to embrace the behaviors that correlate with longevity, such as prioritizing a healthy diet and pursuing supportive social networks. Differences between men’s aspirations and reported behaviors create opportunities.”

When asked if they would like to live to 100-plus years old, 61 percent of Boomer men strongly or somewhat agree, while 53 percent of Boomer women hope for such advanced old age. Concerning a belief that the best years of life are still ahead of me, 77 percent of women strongly or somewhat agree while 68 percent of men share this degree of confidence in the future.

A large percentage of Boomer men aspire to long lives; yet, many do not have faith that bonus years will be so golden. A gap between ambition and outlook is an underdeveloped opportunity for marketers promoting products that empower Boomer men in their quest for self-directed health care and healthy living.

Organic products. Natural products. Nutriceuticals. LOHAS products.  

Boomer men are more prone to spend discretionary dollars during the economic crisis. They are more likely to make impulse purchases than women (25% men versus 9% women). They are more apt to spend than save (37% versus 28%). They are more self-directed on investment decisions (70% versus 46%). At the grocery store, they are more willing to buy national brands over generic store labels (46% men vs. 26% women).

Research and market observations point toward a new sociological construct for maleness after 50. It's a construct that includes awareness of natural and organic products, ecological living, holistic health modalities, social accountability, and integrative alternative medicine.

Boomer men are changing the meaning of aging and masculine identity and will expect more, acquire more, challenge more, and give more than their predecessors.

Founders of the LOHAS movement, many of them Boomer men, already know this, and they’re acting on it. 

2012 LOHAS Forum: Where Boomer Mentors Shared Wisdom with Younger Generations

LOHAS is an acronym for Lifestyles of Health & Sustainability, a values-driven consumer cohort identified in the late 1990s. Consumers described as LOHAS are passionate about sustainability, health and wellness, personal development, resource conservation, corporate responsibility, social justice, and natural and organic products. They annually purchase $350 billion in goods and services worldwide.

Early adopters by nature, LOHAS consumers shop for energy-efficient electronics, green household products, natural personal products, organic foods, hybrid automobiles, green building products, socially responsible investments, and alternative health care services.

According to the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI), a Pennsylvania-based company that annually conducts original research examining this segment, LOHAS consumers comprise 18 percent of the U.S. population. The Boomer generation over-represents this segment: 21 percent of Boomers are also LOHAS consumers.

Steve French, executive vice president and managing partner of NMI, emphasizes a significant correlation between LOHAS and post-50 consumers:

“Many Americans reached adulthood in the 1960s and 1970s during the emergence of a global environmental awareness and greater focus on personal health, and they maintain those same values today. The major difference today is that they have considerable financial resources and commitment to search for and buy products and services that serve their long-term environmental and health goals.”

LOHAS leaders, natural products entrepreneurs and corporate executives gather every June in Boulder, Colo., for an intense three-day Forum. This intimate conference blends presentations from personal development educators, academicians exploring the edges of sustainable technologies, corporate pioneers who have embraced LOHAS values, and inspirational entertainers.

Representing widely diverse industries and age groups, attendees nevertheless share a passion for creating a healthier, more sustainable future. For example, one post-50 speaker at the 2012 Forum is busy teaching new conceptions of corporate leadership, insights he achieved through much personal distress and soul-searching.

In 1987, at age 26, Chip Conley started Joie de Vivre (JDV), a hospitality company based in San Francisco. He began by transforming a squalid 1950's Tenderloin District dive into Phoenix Hotel, a celebrated rock 'n' roll destination catering to celebrities such as David Bowie, Linda Ronstadt and Nirvana.

JDV then expanded into a collection of more than 35 award-winning hotels, restaurants and spas, with more than 3,000 employees -- with each property conveying a unique persona often influenced thematically by a popular magazine.

Author of several best-selling business books, his most recent The New York Times best-seller is titled Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success.

 

Bounding onto a general session stage, he announced: “What I've learned in 25 years of being a CEO, from a startup to growing into a big company, is that we as leaders are the emotional thermostats of the groups that we lead.”

Chip then disrobed, literally and figuratively. After stripping off his business suit onstage to reveal a runner's outfit underneath, he shared several moving stories about his recent trials, similar in essence to challenges experienced by many post-50 adults because of aging: with advancing age often comes loss and illness.

His struggling company almost ran out of money during the 2008 economic downturn. His son was wrongly incarcerated for eight months in San Quentin. A long-term loving relationship ended, and his closest friend, also named Chip, committed suicide. He felt anguish in his heart, imprisoned by the responsibilities of being a CEO. While giving a speech in Saint Louis about self-actualization, his heart stopped beating. An EMT's cardiac monitor projected a grim prognosis: his heart flat-lined eight more times.

In his travel backpack he had carried a book titled Man's Search for Meaning, written by the influential 20th century psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Dr. Viktor Frankl. While reading this book during recovery, Chip came upon a poignant passage:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our glory and our freedom.”

Chip then experienced an epiphany: suffering is part of the human condition; live long enough and afflictions will come. But then he understood his first emotional equation: despair equals suffering minus meaning. Thus, while meaning does not stop suffering, it can ameliorate despair, as Dr. Frankl discovered in the horrific Nazi concentration camps.

For 24 years Chip Conley performed successfully as a CEO, and that responsibility almost killed him because he was distraught about executing his duties. But underneath the suit was a human being full of emotions. And he finally realized that Chief Executive Officers are really Chief Emotions Officers. CEOs are the emotional thermostats for the people they lead.

Effective leaders make a difference by understanding what's going on under the surface; they allow themselves to emotionally strip away protective layers. As Dr. Abraham Maslow, founder of humanistic psychology and creator or the famous “hierarchy of needs,” wrote in his diary: “Great leaders create great psycho-hygiene.” Thus, leaders are responsible for creating organizational catharsis. And the best of them share daily gratitude with employees for minor accomplishments and company milestones.

At the LOHAS Forum, Chip Conley conveyed intuitive emotional equations that can guide present and future CEOs. And in doing so, this “undressed speaker” modeled resilience typical of those who have been tested, gained wisdom, and become resolute to transfer survival insights across generations.

 

His lessons are about a new conscious capitalism emerging from the LOHAS movement, fostering egalitarian leadership with a focus on stakeholders -- creating organizations to serve the self-actualizing and health-seeking quest of values-driven consumers.

 

ADDITIONAL BOOMER MENTORS SPEAKING AT THE 2012 LOHAS FORUM

Bryan Welch, Publisher, Ogden Publications

Douglas Gayeton, Filmmaker, Lexicon of Sustainability

Dr. John Francis, Founder, Planet Walker

Elizabeth Candelario, Marketing Director, Demeter USA

Steve Demos, Founder, Good Belly & White Wave Foods

Steve French, Natural Marketing Institute

Paul Stamets, Mycologist, Fungi Perfecti



2011 LOHAS Forum: Boomers Driving Market Growth, The Urgency of Now

The 2011 LOHAS Forum continued a 16-year tradition by gathering thought leaders and speakers from across the green, sustainability, natural, and organic sectors.

LOHAS is an acronym for Lifestyles of Health & Sustainability, a market segment representing one in five U.S. consumers—those who are passionately focused on health and fitness, the environment, natural and organic products, personal development, sustainable living, and social justice.

This powerhouse conference illuminates the LOHAS market and reveals insights not otherwise accessible. The Forum delivers an organic energy that infuses attendees with deeper comprehension and commitment to values connected with human health and long-term environmental sustainability.

This year during the June 22 – 24 conference, staged at the St. Julien Hotel in Boulder, Colorado, a unifying message from many speakers focused on the urgency of now: a sense that this is the time for bold action to avoid cataclysmic consequences, whether introduced by population growth, climate change or declining oil reserves.

 
Ted Ning, Executive Director, LOHAS

Their concerns and cautious warnings also became tempered by optimism. Most of the visionaries expressed hopefulness that our species can transcend current threats, leading us toward a healthier, more humanistic future.

Steve French and Gwynne Rogers of the Natural Marketing Institute (NMI) emphasized that the Boomer generation is today’s priority target for those marketing green and natural/organic products.

“The LOHAS market, regardless of market sector or geography, is driven by an older consumer,” said Steve French. “In the U.S. and Western Europe, it’s the Baby Boomers.

“They’re voting with their money as they control the nation’s wealth: $3.2 trillion dollars in spending power. Boomers over-index as LOHAS consumers. They’re the most passionate about sustainable agriculture, protecting the environment, and using renewable energy. Their attitudes translate into behavior as measured by actual product purchases.”

The LOHAS movement continues to be embellished and honored by stalwart consumer brands, with 2011 conference representation from significant companies such as Whole Foods, Silk Milk, Coca Cola, New Belgium Brewery, Mohawk, Ogden Publications, and Patagonia. Yet, opportunities remain for growth of corporate engagement among other leading companies that have driven stakes into the LOHAS market, such as General Electric, Starbuck’s, Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson.

Future LOHAS Forums can host and educate more executives from larger corporations and nonprofits dedicated to health and sustainability consumers. These values-driven stakeholders are the future, and, as NMI research has demonstrated many times, LOHAS consumers are shaping mainstream value consensus.

Here, then, are some of the speakers and thought leaders who attended the 2011 LOHAS Forum, with excerpts from their presentations.

 
Dr. Jean Houston, Founder, Human Potential Movement

“We are now a geological force not simply a human force. We have changed the shape of the world, right now for worse – soon, as we all wake up, for much, much better. So we are being re-scaled to planetary proportions. And the earth within us gives us the corollary and wisdom to know our place and our tasks in this era of stupendous, stupendous change. And the mutations of present time seem to be asking no less than the immediate transmutation or radical growth of ourselves. I’m addressing you, dear friends, as passionate practitioners of world making.”

 

 
Terry Kellogg, CEO, 1% for the Planet

“An amazing thing happened when the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ came out. It was just enough in terms of a bump in overall awareness levels and appetite to engage on the part of customers. It totally changed the context in which we were operating. And it made possible all kinds of innovations.”

 

 
 
Chris Kilham, Founder, Medicine Hunter

“This is our time. It’s a time that requires boldness; it’s a time that requires tremendous energy. It’s a time that requires that we throw ourselves into this positive work … this humanity, with the fullness and total capability of everything that we can bring to the table.”

 

 
Steve French, Managing Partner, Natural Marketing Institute

“The greenest product you can buy is the one you don’t buy. ‘Shopping our way to sustainability’ is inherently an oxymoronic statement. Almost half the U.S. population is mending and fixing things now. Seven out of ten consumers are really thinking deeper about whether they need to buy the thing that they’re buying.”

 

 
Dan Millman, Author, The Peaceful Warrior

“I ended up teaching an approach to living with a peaceful heart, acknowledging that we’re all striving to live with a peaceful heart, but there are times we need a warrior’s spirit. Because it takes courage to live in this world, to love in this world, to raise children in this world, to start a new business in this world. That’s what I mean by the term peaceful warrior: peaceful heart, warrior’s spirit.

“There are only two things we have to do in life: we have to die someday and we have to live until we die. But all the rest we make up based on our choices.”

 

 
John Peterson, Founder, Arlington Institute

“Remember the first law of discordianism: convictions cause convicts. Whatever you believe imprisons you. Open yourself up to this amazing time of transition and this amazing new world that we’re moving into. Build this new world; become these new humans.”

 

 
Casey Sheanan, CEO, Patagonia

“What is Conscious Leadership? It’s the energy and attitudes you project to others. The words you say can have a positive or negative effect on those around you. Leaders who learn to unlock the power of this can be very effective because they can shift entire organizations very quickly. I believe there is no global transformation possible without personal transformation. It starts with us.”

 

OTHER NOTABLE LOHAS FORUM THOUGHT LEADERS:

 
Gwynne Rogers, LOHAS Business Director, Natural Marketing Institute

 

 
Michael Besancon, Senior Global VP of Marketing, Purchasing and Distribution, Whole Foods Market

 

 
Freddie Ravel, Tune Up to Success

 

 
Bryan Welch, Publisher and Editorial Director, Ogden Publications

 

 
Theo (Lucifury) Wilson, Poet

 

 
John Rook, CEO, SOAP Group

 

 
Kim Jordan, CEO & Co-Founder, New Belgium Brewery

 

Finally, Dr. Jean Houston, the remarkable and articulate founder of the Human Potential Movement, emphasized importance of post-menopausal women to LOHAS, representing 70% to 80% of its stewardship. During a separate interview with me she provided further thoughts about the critical role of Boomer women.

 

“Among Baby Boomer women I’m seeing a heightened sense of response-ability. They know that they’re going to live much longer lives. There is a rising mythos – that they are part of this larger story and have been given challenges that have never been there before in human history, called the earth herself. A lot of these women have depth, education and sense of purpose and feel profoundly called to make a difference. Many of these Boomer women are rising up, and without fanfare they are taking responsibility.” 

All photos in this post: Copyright 2011, Brent Green & Associates, Inc.