Boomers

Why those who oppose the word "generation" and reject "generational framing" do not understand or practice modern marketing

Louis Menand, a staff writer at The New Yorker and professor with Harvard University, wrote a combative article entitled: It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations.” His subtitle then draws a line in the sand: From Boomers to Zoomers, the concept gets social history all wrong.

His op-ed piece denouncing the construct of “generation” mirrors articles by other pundits and social critics, including anti-ageism author and activist Ashton Applewhite and sociology professor Philip Cohen for The Washington Post.

Menand may be a brilliant writer and Harvard professor — even the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize — but he is not a marketer who has conceived and executed generational marketing programs with measured results for 40 years.

Case studies back up my claim that he is shortsighted.

First, a little background about direct mail testing. What does it takes to "beat a control" subscription pitch for a major magazine or newspaper? Once a publisher discovers a winner, their control direct mailers get tested against all the time, and challengers often fail. A direct mail pitch for the Wall Street Journal remained unbeaten for over 25 years. Martin Conroy, who created the famous control mailer and mentored me, brought in a staggering $2 billion in subscription sales for the newspaper, mainly because his captivating publisher letter was pitch-perfect and motivating.

Here are two control-breaking direct mail packages that I conceived and wrote by applying knowledge of generational sociology:

1. A direct mail campaign for Natural Home magazine specifically targeted Baby Boomer women, beating the client’s control mailer and gaining a profitable volume of new subscribers while giving content editors and article writers fresh strategic insights: https://bgassociates.com/marketing-baby-boomers/boomer-marketing-case-studies/natural-home/
2. A Men’s Fitness magazine campaign for Weider Publications targeted Millennial men, when they were in their late teens and twenties, and beat the long-term circulation direct mail package: https://bgassociates.com/b-2-c-3/fitness-magazine/

My firm's case studies are as close to hard science as social science gets because we measure human behavioral responses to emotional triggers presented through advertising, including timing, subscriptions, source lists, demographics, renewals, and cross-promotional activities.

When critics, such as Menand and Cohen, declare that generational constructs are irrelevant and ineffective in the marketplace where the rubber meets the road, I say: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

One does not even need to use a generational label to create effective cohort-sensitive advertising and direct mail programs. One merely needs to understand and communicate deeper “collective mentalities” inculcated by membership in a distinct generational cohort. Generational research from significant companies such as Pew Research Center can inspire profound insights into dominant and dynamic shared values. These insights can be transformed into subscriptions and sales.

What about Menand's denunciation of accepted Baby Boomer social history? The professor declares: “Most young people in the sixties did not practice free love, take drugs, or protest the war in Vietnam.” He asserts: “In a poll taken in 1967, when people were asked whether couples should wait to have sex until they were married, sixty-three percent of those in their twenties said yes, virtually the same as in the general population. In 1969, when people aged twenty-one to twenty-nine were asked whether they had ever used marijuana, eighty-eight percent said no. When the same group was asked whether the United States should withdraw immediately from Vietnam, three-quarters said no, about the same as in the general population.”

Aside from the fact that I was in college during those years with observations that contradict his poll summary, I would ask the professor: “So when did you come to believe that people respond truthfully to poll questions that are potentially incriminating and uncomfortable to answer?” Or “Why would you expect Boomer respondents to be candid about personal beliefs and behaviors during a time they had deep suspicions of authority figures, including researchers?”

Menand does not get a pass from me as merely a “sociology pundit.” He asks: “Are they (generations) a helpful way to understand anything?” I have answered his question.

Marketing is what makes everything in society prosper, including Harvard University, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. If we eliminate the construct of generation from our lexicon in the name of social equity, why don't we also eliminate imprecise descriptors such as women, African Americans, adolescents, and college professors?

My counterarguments aren't mere opinions borne from a well of righteous indignation. My conclusions are straightforward: consumer cohorts (a.k.a. generations) have collective mentalities instilled during adolescence and early adult years, and, when presented with creative and impactful interpretations of those shared worldviews, they respond by subscribing, buying, joining, giving, and investing, etc. Generational collective mentalities are salient and can trigger desired economic behaviors.

In conclusion, Menand thrums his rhetorical question as if a dare: “Are they (generations) a helpful way to understand anything?” My answer is yes. Generational sociology helps marketers understand how to communicate with and trigger desirable responses from targeted cohorts.

I'm willing to look at other perspectives about the validity and usefulness of “generation,” but contrarian views need to be tied to equally rigorous experimentation rather than stand unchallenged as asserted opinions, no matter how fervent and articulate the messengers.

Marketing to Baby Boomers - The Power of Generational Experiences Applied to Television Advertising

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: 

This ad scored an 85 percent positive "sentiment rating" on iSpot.tv. 

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: 

Also ranking high for viewer reception, this ad scored an 82 percent positive "sentiment rating" on iSpot.tv. 

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. 

The inexorable journey of contemporary aging includes novel opportunities to reach and motivate Boomers+ through TV advertising that rings insightful, authentic, and compelling.

3 Ways to Market to Baby Boomers: Ageless Marketing, Life-Stage Marketing and Generational Marketing

In the realm of marketing to adults older than 50, vigorous debates arise about how best to construct advertising messages and frame offers in memorable and compelling ways. Pundit opinions fall into three overlapping theoretical camps.

Some are proponents of “Ageless Marketing” as conceived and articulated by my late colleague David Wolfe. Ageless Marketing is “marketing based not on age but on values and universal desires that appeal to people across generational divides. Age-based marketing reduces the reach of brands because of its exclusionary nature. In contrast ageless marketing extends the reach of brands because of its inclusionary focus.”

Some are impassioned about “Life-Stage Marketing,” which understands the consumer from the life-stage they’re experiencing in the present. So, for example, adults between 50 and 60 today have a lot in common such as children in high school or college, the beginning of caregiving for aging parents, accumulation of significant consumer debt, and so forth. Further, stage of life implies psychological priorities. Thus, some argue that middle-age or the “Fall Stage” includes a reduction of material pursuits in favor of accumulating experiences.

And some are committed to “Generational Marketing,” an approach for which I’m a proponent. As I write in my book, Generation Reinvention:

“… a generation implies membership in a unique group, bound by common history, which eventually develops similar values, a sense of shared history, and collective ways of interpreting experiences as the group progresses through the life course.

“One way to describe this phenomenon of generational identification is the concept of cohort effect, which sociologist Karl Mannheim wrote about as ‘the taste, outlook, and spirit characteristic of a period or generation.’ He also referred to the notion of zeitgeist, the idea that a generation has a collectively shared sense of its formative historical period.

“Marketers tap into the cohort effect when they remind consumers of cherished events and experiences from the past and connect these acquired memories with brand identity.”

Some critics deride Generational Marketing as superficial: feckless attempts to connect nostalgic memories with products. Boomers aren’t invested in their formative years, critics argue, they’re looking ahead. Formative experiences are of little contemporary consequence. What’s done is done.

Aside from my assertion that humans always recall nostalgic moments with enduring and emotionally powerful reflections—and therefore these memories can become potent motivational triggers in contemporary marketing communications—sophisticated new consumer research substantiates the affirming power of nostalgia.

Authors of a multi-continent research study, published by the Association for Psychological Science, determined that feelings of loneliness—emotions such as unhappiness, pessimism, self-blame and depression—reduce perceptions of social support. Loneliness can be alleviated by seeking support from social networks. And here’s the surprising psychological insight: nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, increases perceptions of social support. A sense of social connectedness nourishes the soul. Nostalgia functions similar to optimism in maintaining health. Nostalgia, appropriately harnessed, inspires positive feelings, including positive brand associations and affinity. (APS, Vol. 19, #10)

This does not mean that creating an advertising strategy around shared generational experiences is always on target or well-executed. Creative problems begin when brand associations are hackneyed or arbitrary.

Misjudgments sometimes occur when those outside a generational cohort superficially interpret generational experiences. We’ve seen recent ads targeting Boomers that connect brands with peace symbols, classic rock music, and the rebellious spirit of Boomer youth. Once potentially powerful as a creative approach, connecting brands to the spirit of the sixties has been done.

Other marketers create messages where psychic connection between nostalgic memories and a brand have little in common; that is, brand utilities have nothing to do with the creative message.

St. Joseph Aspirin launched a TV ad featuring Ken Osmond, the actor who played Eddie Haskell, cheeky friend of Beaver Cleaver in the hit 1950s sitcom, Leave It to Beaver. Significantly, this is the first situation comedy ever written from a child’s viewpoint, thus elevating potential for nostalgic resonance with the children of that time: Leading-Edge Boomers.

Although this ad deserves acknowledgement for resurrecting an actor who is part of Boomer nostalgia in a fairly big way, we are left wondering what Eddie Haskell has to do with headache pain relief. (Maybe the product is a palliative for the headaches Eddie often caused Beaver’s parents, June and Ward.) But brand connections between Eddie and an OTC analgesic are vague. Even minor copy changes could have strengthened ties between Eddie, the obnoxious neighborhood headache, and a popular aspirin brand of the same time. To the credit of this advertisement’s creators, contemporary Eddie helps re-position the brand for what Boomers need today: cardiovascular health. (A note of caution: Ad critiques rarely consider sales or measured changes in brand awareness/preference generated by a campaign, and these performance measures are, indeed, the bottom line in judging marketing effectiveness.)

A more recent television advertisement aptly demonstrates nuances that successfully connect a car brand with Boomer nostalgia. 

I appreciate this ad because it has several multi-generational, cohort-sensitive qualities, including clever use of nostalgia. This Boomer grandmother teaches her Generation Z grandchild about zip-lining naked in Belize, albeit to the consternation of the child’s Generation X parents, especially her perturbed daughter-in-law. Yet, one instance at a farmer’s market—an insightful moment of awareness by the daughter-in-law as the grandmother acknowledges her ability to talk with cats—conveys the value of generativity: critical teaching and mentoring moments between old and young. After several ironic twists in the ad, careful observers learn that the family had been visiting the area where the 1969 Woodstock Festival took place.

Which generation is this Subaru ad targeting? I suggest two. Boomers have had a longstanding and positive relationship with Subaru, an import that became popular during the oil shortage crises of the 1970s and continues in popularity today as a safe and durable SUV brand. The ad reinforces this relationship by evoking collective nostalgia for magical moments from the Woodstock era, such as meeting a future spouse under a stately tree near the rock music festival. Further, the ad also suggests Subaru’s contemporary relevance and value to members of Generation X as portrayed by the son and daughter-in-law. Themes of vehicle safety and off-road capacity also have been cleverly woven into the ad’s story-line. 

Successful Generational Marketing requires mastery of nuance and meaning. Linkages between a brand and nostalgic meaning must make sense. Further, all formative life experiences of a generation, from early childhood through young adulthood, have potential for development. Boomers possess a rich repertoire of shared experiences beyond those that occurred between 1967 and 1973. Potential nostalgic motivational triggers go way beyond Woodstock.

Based on thirty years of experience marketing to Boomers, I can affirm with my career and portfolio that Generational Marketing succeeds when executed properly. I have created numerous ad campaigns and promotions, dating back to 1981, that performed by generating sales, memberships, donations, inquiries, and leads.

Some argue that Generational Marketing is exclusionary:  marketing messages that appeal to a specific generation exclude members of other generations who might not identify with the message or conclude that the product is not for them.

I say, “Welcome to market segmentation.” Target marketing forces choices about who is most likely to buy a product, their common characteristics, and the most potent ways to evoke an emotional connection, to inspire a brand-consumer relationship. These choices force exclusion. As one of my mentors once instructed, “Brent, always make your easiest sales first.” Some of my successes in advertising and marketing correlate with the degree to which my team was effectively exclusionary.

Further, big brand marketers create and target messages to multiple segments for the same brand. When I handled advertising and sales promotions for McDonald’s in Colorado, we executed campaigns targeting young parents, children, Latinos, African Americans, and older customers. Each of these segmented campaigns involved sophisticated messaging that considered cultural and social nuances of the segment. McDonald’s meant slightly different things to different segments.

As I have written and instructed in my speeches, Boomers, particularly Leading-Edge Boomers (born between 1946 and 1955) have a sturdy sense of generational identification. This is due to two factors.

First, the Leading-Edge grew up during significant cultural and social upheaval. Karl Mannheim and several social science researchers have confirmed that turmoil in youth strengthens generational identification and durability of formative experiences.

Second, Boomers comprise the only generation to have grown up with just three monolithic television networks. No generation older or younger experienced this convergence of technology with youth. Boomers growing up in Alaska and Florida shared many of the same televised moments and thus learned the same cultural and social messages. We watched Eddie Haskell weekly in dominant generational percentages. We either liked or disliked Eddie, but we all recall his shifty character. This isn’t about the past or future; it’s about who we are: the sum-total of our life experiences.

Research conducted by Pew Research Center last year underscores how pervasively Boomers identify with their generational cohort, which also means this generation continues to connect with nostalgic images and metaphors from a tumultuous and transformative youth.

Almost 80 percent of Boomers identify with their generational label (and the experiences and values associated with the label), compared with just 18 percent of the Silent Generation and 40 percent of Millennials. As I've insisted for more than a decade of writing and speaking, Boomers are uniquely bound by their formative years and social history and in greater proportions than any other living generation.

Nevertheless, as a marketer, I’ve always maintained a full toolbox. The three Boomer marketing approaches discussed here can succeed when well executed. All three approaches can fail when creators have inadequate understanding of the market, message, methodology or meaning conveyed through their ads.

Ageless Marketing can inspire advertising messages that appeal across generational divides because of commonly shared values, such as the nearly universal desire for a cleaner environment. Boomers and their Millennial children share passion almost equally for greener living and sustainability.

Life-stage Marketing can offer another path to success for those who connect a product or service with a stage need. Many Boomers today need help in understanding their caregiving challenges and responsibilities. This hallmark of their current life-stage predisposes them to offers of caregiving support and education.

And Generational Marketing can create powerful associations between a brand and a segment’s formative experiences. These nostalgic associations can become instant shorthand for positioning a contemporary brand constrained by cluttered media and product/service parity. Nostalgia is rich with opportunities for deeply personal brand interactions.

Those who insist that Generational Marketing is the least effective way to create advertising targeting Boomers may simply not understand this approach at a level of expertise necessary to be successful.

Boomers: Transformation of the Travel Industry and The Future of Tourism

With nearly 10,845 Baby Boomers reaching age 65 daily during 2018, a transformative portrait of retirement travel is emerging.

Boomers view travel as fundamental to their next chapter, a time they anticipate being the most enjoyable and liberating of their lives. They have an annual travel spending power of $120 billion. (Skift) The opportunities for suppliers of travel experiences have never been greater.

According to Age Wave and Merrill Lynch, Boomer retirees will celebrate over 125 billion hours of potential leisure time in 2018. 

Concerning travel, their primary goals include staying healthy (83 percent), intergenerational family connections (53 percent), “peak experiences” (48 percent), and adventure (45 percent). (Age Wave) More than 50 percent of Boomer travelers choose a destination based on its cultural value. (TripAdvisor) They seek educational enrichment with every tour decision.

Recent consumer research has disclosed other salient business facts about the future of Boomer travel:

1. Ninety-nine percent of Boomers will take at least one leisure trip in 2018, with an average of five or more trips expected throughout the year (AARP);
2. “Bucket List” trips are the most significant motivation for international travel (AARP;
3. Fifty-two percent say they would like to visit specific cities or towns;
4. Boomers have an average of eight places they hope to visit;
5. A laid-back and relaxing vacation is the most desired type of trip (AARP);
6. Boomers are slightly more likely to prefer domestic travel (53 percent) to international destinations (47 percent).

1. 

While these statistics help validate a compelling case for targeting Boomers, one significant question remains: “How can travel marketers, tour operators, and destinations take advantage of this unprecedented marketing opportunity through strategic brand development and competitive differentiation?”

As a travel industry veteran with career experience marketing resorts, hotels, and destinations, my keynote speeches present compelling and actionable strategies to propel the travel industry to the next level of business success.

Other questions answered during my presentations include:

1. What are the salient business facts about Boomer travel today that justify a substantial generational marketing focus by tour operators, destination managers, and travel planners?

2. What are some of the most successful strategies and tactics employing generational marketing, and how can these insights be applied specifically to tour and travel offerings?

3. What are the future Boomer trends and opportunities that will continue to transform travel for the next twenty years?

Client reactions to these travel industry presentations:

“I can’t thank you enough for adding the fuel to our marketing planning meeting. Feedback on your presentation and material was very good, both your content and the fact that you did such a good job integrating your material with our products. It truly was a practical connection between customer insights and marketing action.”

— Steve Born, Vice President of Marketing, Globus Family of Brands

“Based on extensive and prolific attendee accolades received for the Educational Travel Consortium, the conference was an unqualified success. Brent Green’s contribution hugely facilitated this success, and helped us raise the bar for another great ETC meeting experience. His wonderful encore performance at ETC … received a 4.68 rating out of a possible 5.0. Our colleagues very much enjoyed his presence. He brought an ‘A Game’ to ETC and is a consummate professional. I have very much enjoyed working with him over these past years. It has been a pleasure and honor.”

— Mara DelliPriscoli, founder of the Educational Travel Consortium

Contact me for more information about these transformative travel industry marketing presentations.

Boomers Be Wary of Long-Term Care Insurance

We know the long-term care (LTC) insurance industry wants to storm America with its expensive and nebulous products, but few "experts" present a complete picture: the economic downsides of LTC insurance, the alternatives, and the possibilities for better insurance products in the future. 

Here's a truer picture of your possible future as an LTC insurance customer:

"The John Hancock Life Insurance Co. just asked insurance regulators whether it could increase premiums by, on average, a whopping 45.9% on some 8,600 long-term care insurance policies now in force in Connecticut. And, if approved, annual premiums on those policies will rise from the current range of $950 to $2,500, to a new range of $1,246 to $3,280. Experts says older policies, especially those that have a lifetime benefit and include a 5% annual growth compound option, are the ones most likely to have rate increases." (USA Today: March 16, 2014)

Consider this hypothetical scenario: At age 90 and now facing deteriorating health, I am aghast at the spurious new LTC insurance rates, which I’ve been paying for almost thirty years. I can no longer afford the premiums, which have been jacked up more than 100 percent during the life of my policy. 

What am I going to do? I can cut policy benefits in half to keep the policy active. 

Or, how about taking the same initiative that I can with inflated health insurance or automobile insurance policies I no longer can afford: I can shop competitive companies in an industry with a lot of competition! The marketplace works for me.

NOT going to happen with LTC. I'm too old at 90. No other insurance company would sell me LTC insurance, certainly with premiums less than I'm now paying. So I'm stuck. My original LTC insurance company holds all the cards and I lose. The marketplace works against me.

An insured faced with spurious LTC rate increases can exercise a non-forfeiture clause or "modify the benefits." What does that mean in insurance lingo? 

"Often a nonforfeiture clause will only stay in effect for a certain time period or it may only become active if the policy has been in force for a certain amount of time."

So these clauses can be full of insurance company caveats and exclusions. 

An insured could lower the policy benefits to keep rates affordable, but at what point do the benefits paid out recompense decades of insurance premium investments, especially when, for economic necessity, those benefits must be reduced late in the life of the policy?

Prospective LTC insurance buyers, you have alternatives to consider. 

Self-fund your possible future LTC needs instead of buying insurance. Allocate some of your savings just for long-term care. You may not need the monies, but if you do you have a backup plan.

For those without savings, there's another option.

Medicaid’s Personal Care Option Program is available in some states to those who qualify and require assistance with activities of daily living, including chronically disabled citizens, whether elderly or not.

Medicaid will compensate caregivers, which can be family members or even neighbors under external supervision, for such services as meal planning, grooming, dressing, feeding, errands, transportation to medical appointments, light housekeeping and more. With supervised and compensated care, beneficiaries remain at home and engaged with their families and communities. 

This is in lieu of a nursing home-only option and actually a smart response to demographic, economic, and socio-cultural facts. 

Many articles about the virtues of long-term care insurance are now appearing in financial media almost daily. Some of these “objective news articles” are actually native advertising, not true journalistic examination. In other words, these articles have been written by independent experts who are actually promoting the LTC insurance industry: incomplete and biased. 

Prospective LTC insurance buyers … be wary. 

Boomer Women, Photoshop, Fashion Advertising, and the Future of Beauty

Beauty is only skin deep.

A time-honored idiom recognizes an inexorable truth of human aging: that exterior beauty is fleeting and superficial.

Now this olden expression has found more contemporary implications in an era when digital photo editing challenges another long-established idiom: Seeing is believing.

The British government may force advertisers to divulge Photoshop perfecting of fashion and cosmetics models. As reported by the Associated Press, “Next month, (U.K.) officials are sitting down with advertisers, fashion editors and health experts to discuss how to curb the practice of airbrushing to promote body confidence among girls and women.” As this article substantiates, many consumers do not consciously realize that scores of models in magazines today are “neither real nor attainable.”

“Coming just after London Fashion Week,” continued the AP article, “it’s the latest initiative in a long-running battle to force the fashion industry to show more diverse — and realistic — kinds of beauty.”

Clearly the public has cause for concerns about the extent to which photo editing has led to impossible representations of beauty, much to the detriment of young girls reaching puberty, contributing to health hazards such a bulimia, anorexia and depression.

But another side of this story is the extent to which Boomer women have also been Photoshop manipulated, underrepresented or even ignored in contemporary advertising, a topic that I’ve addressed several times in this blog, especially with respect to models gracing the pages of Chico’s catalogs.

In my most recently published business book Generation Reinvention, I analyze a number of social and political issues from the perspective of modern-day advertising and marketing. One of the topics is beauty marketing in a time when about one-third of all adult women in the U.S. are over age 50.

During the 1960s and 1970s 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. Political and social forces can condition our personal lives. 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 “anti-aging” with a new product line called Pro Age. Dove set out to attract favorable attention from roughly 40 million 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 anti-aging 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. 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.

My colleagues Carol Orsborn, Ph.D. and Marti Barletta, both authors of compelling books about marketing to Boomer women, speak and write with force and insight about the value of reaching today’s middle-aged women with messages respectful of their self-perceptions, aspirations, and practicalities about aging. They caution marketers to avoid the pitfalls of idealizing youth while avoiding realistic (but nevertheless aspirational) glimpses of middle-aged beauty.

The stakes in the cosmetic industry are slightly greater than high. Anti-aging skin care products reached worldwide sales of $13 billion in 2010, yet Dove’s management found something disturbing 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 glorifies 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, many 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 values into the marketplace where anti-aging morphs logically into Pro Age. The personal becomes political once again. Or visa-versa.

Society finally recognized the deleterious consequences of cigarette advertising and its impact on teenagers in puberty, susceptible to both peer pressure and advertising mythologies. Now U.K. officials are looking at forcing advertisers to identify perfected beauty in advertising for what it is: fictional representations, unattainable in real life.

This could help young women accept more realistic portrayals of beauty. A forced transparency policy could also help their mothers — Boomer women — make it back onto the pages of fashion advertising, portrayed as they are in Pro Age ads: realistically beautiful.

Not only is the emotional health of young women an issue of grave concern, Boomer women (and the men they love) have a significant stake in this battle between the beauty marketing industry and the British government.

A beautiful song by Colbie Caillet addresses the spirit of what I'm trying to communicate:

Winning this policy battle in favor of truth-in-advertising could be one additional step toward a fully inclusive society in which people are judged more by the content of their character than by the color — or age — of their skin.

Excerpt from Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and the Future by Brent Green. 

Boomers and the Future of Technology - Part 3

So, finally, below I've provided a final chapter excerpt from my newest book, Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and the Future. This 279-page book explores a growing body of research, arguments, insights, and speculation over how Boomers are impacting aging and commerce.

Implications from my book are monetary and personal, local and international, intergenerational and multicultural. To learn why these conclusions are significant for your work and future, you can get a copy from online book retailers, including Amazon. Thank you for following my blog and, of course, your interest in Generation Reinvention. You can read Part 1 of this trilogy by clicking here. And Part 2 by clicking here.

Boomers and the Future of Technology - Part 3

Michael Pollan, a prolific book author and writer about food forThe New York Times brilliantly condensed his manifesto about eating:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Allow me to condense Boomers and the future of technology to the simplest declaration:

• Boomers like and adopt new technologies

• Not unnecessary complexity or useless frills

• Mostly for learning, entertainment, and communication

Here is part three of this three-part series:

Mostly for Learning, Entertainment, and Communication

Few Boomers are interested in technology for its own sake. Geeks within the generation are in a minority. Most Boomers purchase technologies to achieve other goals—or values—and those motivations generally center on learning, entertainment, and communication.

Today, learning involves accessing the Internet’s nearly limitless repository of information and knowledge. According to a study published by the Nielsen organization in November 2009, the primary online destination for seniors (including members of generations older than Boomers) was Google Search, tallying 10.3 million unique visitors.

Most Boomers have learned basic skills needed for online information research, and they will use this “universal library” for many reasons as they age, not the least of which will be to research diseases and conditions of aging. It’s not a coincidence that Boomers and those over 50 are the most active users of WebMD.com, the comprehensive online medical resource.

 

From Left: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan; Discovery founder and CEO John Hendricks; Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings

The Nielsen study further validated something that anyone who understands the Boomer generation already has realized: members of this generation are online daily seeking answers to healthcare questions. They are studying travel destinations for historical and cultural background while planning their vacations. They are reading online magazines and newsletters such as Huffington Post. And the most ambitious are taking online college courses to facilitate career transitions.

 

But the Internet is not just a learning tool. The online world presents a plethora of opportunities for those seeking new forms of entertainment. Boomer colleagues frequently send me links to entertaining videos posted on YouTube, covering every conceivable topic. More and more movies have become available online for instant download. The online world of video games has seen enormous expansion, with some significant growth among Boomer women.

In the future, more traditional entertainment such as movies and television will expand online user experiences with unique content and depth. An example is the complementary websites to James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar. Online content for this movie includes in-depth morphological information about the animals and plants that inhabit the fictional world Pandora. A blog and forum allows movie fans to interact, ask questions, and speculate about Cameron’s plans for a sequel. Of course, the Avatar website includes provocative movie trailers designed to nudge web surfers into movie theaters or to purchase the DVD for home viewing.

Communication is perhaps the most compelling virtue of the Internet and fundamental to Boomers’ use of technology in the future.

It used to be true that if friends did not reach a clear and mutual agreement to stay in touch upon parting ways, such as after high school graduation, they probably would lose touch for life. The cost and effort to find a friend would outweigh the psychic benefits of reestablishing a relationship.

The Internet has changed this since finding an old friend may require nothing more than a single Google query. The Internet has spawned hundreds of innovative applications for social networking during the last few years, from Classmates.com to LinkedIn.com. An article in USA Today conveyed the increasingly central role of online communications for Boomers—not just an amusement but also a necessity: “Whether it’s congressmen Twittering during presidential speeches, parents connecting with high school flames on Facebook or empty-nesters planning group outings on grown-up sites such as Eons.com, Baby Boomers are speeding up the Web’s ongoing metamorphosis from limitless void to global watering hole.”

Further, the newspaper article provided some stimulating statistics that pointed to a growing trend: “Currently, 16.5 million adults ages 55 and older engage in social networking, according to Internet monitoring site comScore. Facebook is seeing the most growth among users age 30 and older. MySpace, with 130 million users, is enjoying a surge among the 55-plus set, which total 6.9 million users and spend an average 204 minutes a month on the site. And in just one year since AARP.org unveiled its social networking platform, about 350,000 users have created 1,700 groups celebrating everything from gardening to social activism.”

Internet analysts propose many theories as to why Boomers and older generations have been swarming to social networking sites as these platforms have gained greater sophistication, coupled with ease of use. But it all comes down to two obvious motivations: staying in touch and getting in touch.

Today, many families have become scattered across the nation and around the world and social networking websites provide instantaneous daily communications among family members. Boomers keep tabs on their friends, children, and grandchildren, gaining a sense of “being there” when they are not. Robust online multimedia capabilities allow dispersed families to share photos, videos, and recorded messages. These demands for sharing multimedia content have been successfully addressed by a number of online platforms, especially Ning.com, a social networking solution that requires very little time to set up and administer.

Entrepreneur and marketing executive Martin Diano launched a Ning platform social networking website in 2009 called Boomer Authority, “a professional association for experts and organizations that specialize in the 50+ Baby Boomer demographic.” The community rapidly gained momentum, with many industry notables becoming founding members, and more than a 1,000 new professional members jumping on the bandwagon in less than a year.

Communications through technology are also serving a very primal need. Around 40 percent of adults 45+ are single, so those lacking love are turning more frequently to online platforms to discover new romantic interests. According to Pew Internet, one in ten Internet users has jumped online to dating websites, and “37% of Internet users who say they are both single and looking to meet a romantic partner have gone to a dating website, which represents about 4 million people.”

While at this time online daters tend to skew younger, it’s reasonable to predict that in the future more of those over 45 will use online dating as one accepted approach to finding romantic partners. Online dating reduces some of the randomness of dating, diminishes geographic limitations for those who live in rural communities, and allows online daters to meet many more prospective partners in a shorter period.

One of my colleagues turned 50 in 2008, and he has never married. A busy traveling consultant, he believes that he does not have time to organize his limited spare time around traditional dating pursuits, including meeting women in his age range at local bars and nightclubs. He once shocked me with a revelation that in a single weekend he had scheduled six “meet-to-get-acquainted” dates using online matching to meet women with compatible interests and values. Finding this number of potentially compatible partners, setting up dates, and meeting them might have taken a year or more through traditional dating channels and practices.

 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Predicting major technology innovations two, five, ten, and twenty years from now can be difficult, if not next to impossible. To many futurists and experts in technology, it’s a fool’s game. A senior editor for Wired magazine put it this way: “It’s incredibly difficult to predict which specific gadgets and applications will take off two years from now, let alone 10 years from now. It’s far easier to predict in general terms, based on the direction that technology seems to be evolving: TVs will be bigger and thinner, they’ll have higher-resolution displays, computing power will be cheaper and more ubiquitous, wireless data will achieve higher speeds, etc. But predicting specific hit devices—and the apps that they engender— is next to impossible. Who could have foreseen the iPhone, or its huge impact on the cell phone industry, even one year before it came out?” 

Yet, lacking clear foresight about gadgets and software applications of the future, most experts agree that the Boomer generation, with its enormous economic and cultural clout, will foster another revolution in healthcare driven by rapid technology adoption and adaptation. As Boomers age, they’ll seek insights into their age-related illnesses through self-directed online research and consultations with peers and medical authorities. They’ll adopt and adapt emerging technologies to monitor, measure, and mitigate disease conditions.

Larry Press, an academic with California State University, foresees remarkable escalation of consumer-driven healthcare: “Healthcare will see new applications—driven in part by financial necessity and in part by expanded possibilities. Individuals will play a larger role in their own healthcare. We will monitor and treat ourselves and electronic communication with medical professionals will be common.”

Boomers and their appetite for technology innovation have not gone unnoticed by Best Buy, the multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products and services. Writing for CNBC, Best Buy CEO and Boomer Brian Dunn reiterated that Boomers drive technology innovations by adopting and adapting on their terms, primarily to meet three core motivations:

• Desire for connectivity. Yes, the kind that comes from devices talking to one another, but more importantly, the kind that enables interaction with other human beings. This is a generation that refuses to allow physical disabilities or other barriers to get in the way of contact with friends and family. No wonder Baby Boomers are among the most active in social networks today.

• Demand for ease. Apple’s launch of the iPad last month caused some bloggers to quip, with no little amount of sarcasm I might add, that this device is merely an iPhone for the elderly. To which I respond, “You gotta problem with that?” It’s a tool with touch pads you can easily see and logical functionality that makes sense to me and my Boomer brethren … and millions of other Apple fans out there.

• Delight in invention. Don’t tell me that the generation that popularized lava lamps, macramé wall-art and many other more interesting but questionably legal expressions of creativity would somehow retire from its spirit of inventiveness. In fact, it’s the Boomer-consumer’s input that fuels multiple product development streams at Best Buy and elsewhere within the broader technology industry.

Although much of the technology future remains a mystery even for technology experts, product developers and marketers expect with certainty that Boomers will rapidly incorporate new technologies into their lives, especially technologies and applications that simply and fortify their abilities to learn, communicate, and be entertained. Further, substantial innovations will spring from the core needs of an aging generation that has historically shifted the balance of power from healthcare providers to individual consumers, launching an industry called consumer-driven healthcare.

Strategic Implications

Planning consumer technologies and online applications for the Boomer generation simply involves addressing my declaration at the beginning of this chapter: Understand that Boomers are not technophobes and have been accepting new technologies throughout their lives; and they embrace technological change when change makes their lives easier, more rewarding, and vital. But also realize that technology today has the benefit of nearly unlimited data storage capabilities in miniaturized components; thus, technology innovators can truly achieve the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Product developers can layer easy-to-use graphical interfaces over more complex functions.

Clearly, product designers need to be attuned to the perceptual and sensory deficits that accompany aging; they must design interfaces and menus that are easy to see, read, and understand. Finally, product innovators need to understand that for most Boomers, technology is not the end but the means to achieving other goals such as staying connected with family members, finding romantic partners, enjoying rich multimedia learning experiences, empowering consumers with access to information, and discovering how to cope with disabling and handicapping medical conditions. By understanding how technology innovations address Boomer core values and emerging needs at this life stage, product developers will be one step closer to creating innovations, online and offline, which become synonymous with Boomer aging. And they’ll become wealthy because they understand how to integrate technology with a generation.

Subscribe to this blog now and be sure not to miss the unfolding saga of economic opportunities for companies focused on Boomers and aging. 

Boomers and the Future of Technology - Part 2

Below I've provided a chapter excerpt from my newest book, Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and the Future. This 279-page book explores a growing body of research, arguments, insights, and speculation over how Boomers are impacting aging and commerce.
Implications from my book are monetary and personal, local and international, intergenerational and multicultural. To learn why these conclusions are significant for your work and future, you can get a copy from online book retailers, including Amazon. Thank you for following my blog and, of course, your interest in Generation Reinvention. You can read Part 1 of this trilogy by clicking here.

Boomers and the Future of Technology - Part 2

Michael Pollan, a prolific book author and writer about food forThe New York Times brilliantly condensed his manifesto about eating:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Allow me to condense Boomers and the future of technology to the simplest declaration:

• Boomers like and adopt new technologies

• Not unnecessary complexity or useless frills

• Mostly for learning, entertainment, and communication

Here is part two of this three-part series:

Not Unnecessary Complexity or Useless Frills

My earliest confrontations with an over-priced home computer demanded that I learn nuances of the DOS operating system, which I obliged thanks to tutoring by one of my geeky colleagues. Understanding how to format a floppy disk or move computer files from hard drive to floppy didn’t require technical genius or a degree from MIT, but it did require enormous patience and practice with arcane, non-intuitive methods. I remember panic attacks when my computer would freeze up, thinking that I had permanently destroyed documents.

I remember reading thick manuals trying to figure out how to attach peripherals to my computers. This, in a nutshell, is what Boomers hate about some new technologies. When a product requires us to turn our lives over to the product so that we can master its nuances, then we’ll look for alternatives that insulate us from maddening minutia.

Michael Rogers’ summary of focus group commentary for the AARP/Microsoft white paper echoes my own frustrations: “The group made it clear that there are two aspects to ease of use. The first is learning how a device operates. The second is fixing it when something goes wrong.”

Technology companies that address Boomers’ collective motivations to buy products that are easy to use and then easy to fix will win discretionary income.

Another concern relates to diminished physical capacities as Boomers age. If Boomers can’t see a cell phone keyboard or computer interface easily, then they will seek alternatives that accommodate middle-age presbyopia (loss of visual acuity due to hardening of the lens of the eye after age 50). It’s simply more difficult to use a product consumers can’t easily see.

So, technology innovation winners with this generation will create products that are intuitive to learn, easy to interact with, and effortless to repair when things go wrong. When manufacturers design simplicity into their technology products, they appeal to all generations, not just Boomers. Nobody wants to be bogged down by technological convolution.

In some of the AARP/Microsoft focus groups, insightful Boomers proposed an intelligent interface idea for future cell telephones:

“Consider the perennial problem of too-small visual displays that wash out in bright light. One solution that came up at the dinners was the use of miniature digital projectors built into cell phones, technology already available in Asia that will soon be introduced in the United States.”

Recognizing loss of visual acuity in Boomers not as a problem but an opportunity, Japanese consumer electronics giant LG has introduced its new “Expo” phone as the first smartphone with a built-in digital projector.

The next edition of this blog will address Part 3 of my Boomers-and-technology manifesto: Mostly for Learning, Entertainment, and Communication. Subscribe to this blog now and be sure not to miss this unfolding saga of economic opportunities for technology companies. In the final installment of this trilogy, I'll include specific strategic recommendations that technology companies can undertake to improve marketing to Boomers.