Boomers

Gender and Generational Hallmarks Influencing Boomer Men

Middle age, edging toward old age, presents many unique challenges for men, and these momentous changes—biological, social and cultural—become greatly magnified when around 5,500 men cross the threshold of 65 every day. For eighteen years, beginning in 2011 and until 2029, roughly two million men can be expected to traverse annually the journey across the age 65 horizon. Being 65 and beyond can be viewed, in a sense, as an enormous population of men experiencing the same lifestage at once. They are simultaneously dealing with the idiosyncratic vagaries of physiological changes (such as andropause, obesity, and diseases of aging), while confronting a social milieu that is often ageist and unaccommodating. The U.S. is evolving into a nation addressing an old age imbalance for the first time in its history.

Marketing implications include the rise of grandfathers as a market force, as well as other markets demanding new strategies from companies to take advantage of patriarchy.

Being Boomer Male and Feminism

Boomer men were and are widely supportive of feminism, especially those aspects of the social movement focused on economic equality and full participation in institutional society. Many recall early encounters with feminism during their teen years: perhaps a polite request not to open the door for a young woman passing by, or a more vociferous denunciation by being called a “male chauvinist pig.” The experiences of feminism often served to confuse Boomer men; they wanted to please their female counterparts but did not necessarily wish to relinquish some of the privileges and territory of maleness as their fathers and grandfathers had defined it. Boomer men often feel caught between opposing values about sexual roles: those celebrating full equality between the sexes, and those that honor the special privileges of manhood such as classic corporate and institutional power. Many privileges under onslaught today spring from ancient religious traditions and time-honored customs when men practiced rituals of initiation, preferred separation from females during specific periods and seasons, and developed their own language nuances and culture.

Boomer Men versus Health and Wellness

Baby Boomer men are dichotomous with respect to health & fitness. They grew up in a time when the adult population was largely ignorant of today’s diet and health maxims. For example, I recall consuming a steady diet of high-fat foods, prepared and presented by my well-meaning mother. My mother’s refrigerator was always stocked with cheeses, bacon, whole milk, bologna, and sundry cheese casserole leftovers.

On the contrary, this generation also discovered outdoor sports and jogging in their twenties, influenced an explosion in the fitness facilities industry throughout their thirties and forties, and escorted many diet and weight-loss fads to popular and economic prominence. Thus, when it comes to health and wellness, this is a bifurcated generation. About 40 percent are overweight or obese; a smaller but nevertheless significant percentage is dedicated to maintaining fitness, with accelerating commitment to workout regimens. An entire new category of master athletes has become prominent in the last few years.

Marketing to Boomer Men as Healing

Boomer men are moving into a period of their lives representing unprecedented opportunities for growth, service, community, and fraternity. Along this path, dangers lurk: irrelevance, anger, depression, lack of appropriate role models, obesity, and a general dearth of purpose. The impact can lead some men to make abrupt and unwise changes, from quitting a job to leaving a marriage.

What might be the source for these challenges of male aging? According to Jed Diamond, Ph.D., author of Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome, acting out by older males involves much more than external stresses. “Often a man’s restlessness and irritability come from the pull of his inner world, not a pull from outside. He may think he needs to leave his family, have an affair, change jobs, run away from home, leave the country. The real longing may be to fulfill his soul’s calling.”

These potential illnesses of the body and soul need healing, and this is the service that many companies in the future can provide. Marketing can be restorative when insights gleaned positively change the way men think about themselves as husbands, partners, fathers, grandfathers, and mentors. Just as marketers have been instrumental in teaching women about breast cancer, so can marketers take a leadership role in helping men understand their own needs and positive ways to address what they want through the choices they make as consumers.

Marketers can teach environmental awareness, the special role of fathers in the nation’s future, and how men and women can co-evolve, wherein both sexes share equally in the American dream.

The most powerful marketing premise of the next ten years will be healing. In healing the nation’s aging men, insightful and courageous companies will also heal many ills besetting the nation and the globe. Along this fruitful path, enlightened companies will also experience the economic and psychological rewards of making a substantive difference, while elevating late-life manhood to a status worthy of esteem and aspiration by younger generations.

Toward Relevance and Reinvention

Although late middle age has been traditionally associated with predictability, quiescence and gradual withdrawal from mainstream society, Boomer men are poised to shatter these stereotypical expectations, challenging, for example, barriers to employment for those over age 65 or even 75. The softer side of maturity is a quest for reinvention and self-actualization. Boomer men have spent decades focused on their responsibilities as employers, employees, fathers, husbands, partners, and business and civic leaders. The stage of life after 65 presents renewed opportunities to reach for greater idealism and relevance in life. It’s a time to discover life anew, and this perpetually seeking cohort will pursue later life with questions, a search for meaning, and by finding ways to bring life into perspective while leaving behind meaningful contributions to society.

Excerpted from Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and the Future. Now available on Amazon. 

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.

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

Generational Sociology and Boomers

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

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

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

Quantitative Research Supports Generational Theory

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Appropriated vs. Acquired Memories

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boomers Are Ready and Willing to Engage Churches in a New Ministry Movement

Churches have had declining attendance for several decades, and today only 20% of Americans attend weekly services. Between 4,000 and 7,000 churches close their doors yearly.

Can churches turn this around?

In my keynote address at a national conference for leaders of The United Methodist Church, appropriately called Boomerstock, I emphasized novel generational strategies, coupled with intelligent branding and marketing tactics.

My recommendations boil down to two fundamental marketing principles: 1) understand the target market — in this case Baby Boomers — through nuanced psychological and sociological insights; and 2) develop the product and evolve branding to satisfy market needs, including current religious, spiritual and socioemotional motivations.

Boomers, as they are today, must become the renewed priority of churches. Dr. Steve McSwain, religious thought leader and communications professor at the University of Kentucky, stressed this demographic priority in his Huffington Post article:

America is aging. Go into almost any traditional, mainline church in America, observe the attendees and you’ll quickly see a disproportionate number of gray-headed folks in comparison to all the others. According to Pew Research, every day for the next 16 years, 10,000 new baby boomers will enter retirement. If you cannot see where this is headed, my friend, there is not much you can see.

I would modify Dr. McSwain's conclusions slightly: every day 10,000+ Boomers reach age 65, or traditional retirement age. They do not all retire. Many continue working beyond the traditional retirement age. However, with aging comes renewed interest in deeper existential questions and fundamental religious concerns. Erik Erikson's notion of generativity prevails. Searching for spiritual answers is becoming part of the generational zeitgeist once again, somewhat reminiscent of the spiritual and religious movements of the 1960's and 1970's. The explosive growth of mega-churches showcasing contemporary worship themes is partly testament to this trend.

Boomers today have the money and latent motivations to revitalize churches throughout the nation. This opportunity is awaiting enlightened church leadership ready to envision and co-create religious institutions for the 21st century.  

Here are a few excerpts from my speech:

 

Related articles

Wildlike Challenges Boomer Males to Become Better Men

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

Boomers Are Ready to Engage Churches in a New Ministry Movement

Gender and Generational Hallmarks Influencing Boomer Men

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Boomers Guaranteed to Inspire A Revolution ... in Aging

A Relentless Sense of Generational Identification Inspires Boomers to Change Aging and Dying

Back in June 2000, I grabbed the newest issue of TIME magazine from an airport newsstand. One of the articles teased on the cover had an arresting title: "Twilight of the Boomers."

The generation at that point ranged in age from 36 to 54. Twilight? Really?

Boomers were then in the peak years of middle age, hardly time for a twilight. I kept reading to discover one disparaging assertion after another.

Daniel Okrent, the author, had written a jeremiad insisting that Boomers had nothing left to anticipate but a teeth-chattering downhill thrill ride. In a baby buggy. To oblivion.

Seventeen years later, the aging of the Boomer generation continues to inspire critics, cynics, and doomsayers as acknowledged by a continuing parade of media articles brimming with disaster forecasts.

The oldest Boomers began reaching the eighth decade of life in 2016, so it is fitting to forecast another decline -- "a continuing lament"-- as they trade off independence for assisted care, nursing homes, hospice, and death. Sucks to be us, Boomers.

Alternatively, let's reconsider the meaning of aging through a generational lens to reveal what really is new and transformative about Boomer aging.

Durability of Generational Values

Karl Mannheim, 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.

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.

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

That is, until recently.

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 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.

Just as I reacted with disgust when reading Daniel Okrent's TIME magazine article informing me that I had reached the twilight of my life at age 51, outspoken Boomers today forcefully challenge the language and images of ageism.

Challenging the Meaning of Aging

Jenny Sasser, co-author of one of the leading college textbooks on aging, is addressing discontinuities between classic precepts of her field and realities of a generation captured with an aphorism: "Be the change you seek."

The author declares in her "Gero-punk Manifesto" some uplifting sensibilities about gerontology:

"to be a true punk of any sort is to live experimentally, to live in love with emergence, with the unexpected, the chaotic, the improvisatory, to live with your arms wide open to complexity, guided by your own star, fueled by a good measure of playfulness and well-intentioned rebellion."

A spirited attitude permeates her challenges to worn-out intellectual constructs about aging. Sasser foretells a revolution in thoughts and actions associated with the field of gerontology. She also believes that Boomers will change social and cultural conceptions of aging while rebutting stereotypical dismissals by critics.

Boomers will not rattle downhill in baby buggies, horrified by the physical and psycho-social limitations imposed by aging. They will not forget that spark of youth when everything was possible, inspiring them now toward innovative strategies addressing what it means to grow old.

There is a payoff for the rest of society: This generation will provoke reinvention of the industries that have traditionally served society’s oldest adults, creating trillions in added economic value.

Is this the best television ad currently targeting Baby Boomers?

I am sometimes asked my opinion about which national consumer brands are truly successful from a generational marketing perspective.

Matt Thornhill, founder of the Boomer Project and Generations Matter, sent me a recent email to solicit my opinion so he could better inform a magazine journalist about which marketers are most effective. Matt wrote:

The actual major brands that demonstrate intelligence on how to reach Boomers are few and far between. Any that come to your mind? Frankly, I'm pretty stumped.

One problem with the question is that brands shift strategies all the time. A case in point is Fidelity. I admired their 2007 campaign featuring Paul McCartney, which wasn't totally about nostalgia for the Beatles but more about "...never stop doing what you love."

The advertising strategy involved enlisting a Boomer rock music icon as representative of later life reinvention and moving forward with core youthful values still intact.

The integrated marketing campaign hit all the right notes including television, website, public relations, sales promotion, personalized direct mail, etc. The VP in charge of this campaign left the company, and Fidelity then turned toward a more predictable nuts-and-bolts approach about its value to investors as a retirement planning service.

Alas, the marketing quants prevailed over the advertising creatives.

Given that caveat, the brand I'm admiring most right now is Subaru, a perennial Boomer favorite. One could even conclude that Boomer money built the company as we turned away from Detroit's gas guzzlers during the 1970's. We started shopping for higher-mileage, 4-wheel drive vehicles with a premium on safety to protect precious cargo: all those Millennial "Babies on Board."

I like the commercial called "Memory Lane," which clearly involves a bit of stereotyping with a rather ditsy grandmother who is nostalgic about meeting her future husband at Woodstock and sharing this momentous historical moment with her family. (Kids: "Here is where I had a chance encounter with the man who would become your father and grandfather.")

Subtle Boomer humor makes this TV spot work, and I don't grow tired of it with multiple viewings. It's the perfect Boomer context for a multi-generational family road trip. Beyond the obvious allusions to hippiedom, there is something also very powerful in this brief message: generativity.

Generativity appears during the seventh stage of Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development, one of the best-known theories of personality in psychology. This stage takes place during middle adulthood between the ages of approximately 40 and 65.

Contributing to society and taking actions to benefit future generations are important psychosocial needs at the generativity stage of adult development. During this time of life, adults strive to create or nurture things that will outlast them, often by parenting and grand-parenting. 

Consider the relationship between Grandma Woodstock and her precocious Generation Z granddaughter, as depicted so cleverly in this Subaru television commercial. Grandma's motivations for intergenerational sharing of wisdom and family history — such as how to zip line naked in Belize — are also widely shared today among her peers, Boomer grandparents. The strategy probably even works for brand development with Generation X kids who are now the middle-aged adults and chauffeurs.

Do you admire any contemporary TV spots for some of the same "generational marketing" reasons I appreciate the Subaru TV ad? If so, share your suggestions in the comments section. I'll be watching!