About Brent Green This blog is about Baby Boomers and our impact on business, society, and culture, today and in the future.
Here I explore many themes relevant to those of us on a thoughtful journey to reinvent the future of aging. I am a consultant and author of six books, including "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers: Perceptions, Principles, Practices, Predictions."
I present workshops and give keynote speeches about the intersection of the Boomer generation, business, aging, and societal transformations.
My company, Brent Green & Associates, Inc., is an internationally award-winning firm specializing in building brands and forming successful commercial relationships with Boomers through the unique power of generational marketing. Marketing to Boomers
I welcome your comments and questions here. This blog is a continuing conversation that began in June 2005, and I'll appreciate hearing from you.
Media relations, media interviewing, public speaking, and leadership training for senior executives provided by veterans in PR and news reporting
Discover the future with Brent Green's new book, "Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and The Future."
Internationally award-winning direct response marketing for Boomer-focused companies
Brent Green & Associates is a leading marketing company with specialized expertise in selling products and services to the Boomer male market, comprised of over 35 million U.S. adults. Click here to visit our website.
Lee Eisenberg Lee Eisenberg is the author of "The Number," a title metaphorically representing the amount of resources people will need to enjoy the active life they desire, especially post-career. Backed by visionary advice from the former Editor-in-Chief of "Esquire Magazine," Eisenberg urges people to assume control and responsibility for their standard of living. This is an important resource for companies and advisors helping Boomers prepare for their post-career lives.
Kim Walker Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in Asia Pacific, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. His newest venture is SILVER, the only marketing and business consultancy focused on the 50+ market in Asia Pacific. He has been a business trends and market identifier who had launched three pioneer-status businesses to exploit opportunities unveiled by his observations.
Hiroyuki Murata Hiroyuki Murata (Hiro) is a well-known expert on the 50+ market and an opinion leader on aging issues in Japan and internationally. Among his noteworthy accomplishments, Murata introduced Curves, the world’s largest fitness chain for women, to Japan and helped make it a successful business. He is also responsible for bringing the first college-linked retirement community to Japan, which opened in Kobe in August 2008.
Hiro is the author of several books, including "The Business of Aging: 10 Successful Strategies for a Diverse Market" and "Seven Paradigm Shifts in Thinking about the Business of Aging." They have been described as “must read books” by more than 30 leading publications including Nikkei, Nikkei Business, Yomiuri, and Japan Industry News. His most recent book, "Retirement Moratorium: What Will the Not-Retired Boomers Change?" was published in August 2007 by Nikkei Publishing.
Hiro serves as President of The Social Development Research Center, Tokyo, a think-tank overseen by METI (Ministry of Economy, Technology, and Industry) as well as Board members and Advisors to various Japanese private companies. He also serves as a Visiting Professor of Kansai University and as a member of Advisory Boards of The World Demographic Association (Switzerland) and ThirdAge, Inc. (U.S.).
Some of us are intimately familiar with every outdated technical skills demonstrated in a classic TV ad from Apple.
The spot follows an unassuming archivist working in an ancient building. Shelves bulge with film reels, photos and negatives. With a gentle gaze, the stooping man orchestrates his antique tools to bring celluloid memories alive. The final result, a short documentary film called “Together,” appears miraculously on a young mother’s iPhone somewhere else in the world. Images of her young family fly by as Lykke Li’s moving interpretation of "Unchained Melody" calls to our memories of young love, parenting, and perhaps Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze’s poignant movie, “Ghost.”
The purpose of this ad, incidentally, is to showcase Memories, Apple’s iOS 10 app for iPhone 7 and above. The app auto-magically curates iCloud photos and videos from a time period, wedding them to music to create emotional mini-films. As if a ghost from another time, the wise, tireless archivist is always ready to help when his call light snaps on.
So is this one more ageist TV ad portraying negative connotations of aging? Or is this docudrama a positive depiction of aging and the special power of intergenerational connections? Please post your reaction and comments below.
It's noteworthy that with the introduction of iPhone 14 in September 2022, Apple has adopted the creative theme of "Far Out." Younger readers may not connect with this as historically significant, but Baby Boomers will recall this declarative statement as part of our coming-of-age journey back in the 1970's. "Far Out" was part of our unique slang lexicon, as was "Dream on," "Peace and Love," "Boogie," "Whatever," "Groovy," "Uptight," and "Can you dig it?"
Apple has made a smart choice with this creative concept because Baby Boomers have accumulated the financial resources needed to purchase Apple's newest products, with iPhone price points heading to the stratosphere.
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.
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:
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.
We consumers are inundated with offers of free products and services. Just turn on your television and wait until the next commercial break. Chances are some company will offer you something for free. The irony is that most of these offers are disingenuous and manipulative.
As Robert Heinlein popularized in his 1966 science-fiction novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
Other than promotional offers designed to generate leads, when a company gives targeted consumers something in exchange for identifying personal information, most ads proposing a free-something-or-other are discounts. We give the company money and the company gives us something back as a value-added incentive … that’s paid for with our money.
Baby Boomers have been at the epicenter of marketing since they were in diapers. Trillions have been spent. Every marketing ploy that the human imagination can conceive has been tried, and tried, and tried. We are sophisticated consumers—and jaded. We know lunch and dinner are not free.
I could suggest dozens of examples of misleading free offers, but a mass-market TV ad caught my attention and serves as a case-in-point of how to create a cloying "free" ad:
When I learned the copywriter’s craft, the rule-of-thumb was that a 30-second TV commercial allowed for no more than 70 words of announcer copy, at the outside. More copy shoehorned into thirty seconds makes the ad frenetic, busy, car-dealer like. Less verbiage is usually better, especially when targeting older adults.
The advertising agency for Golden Corral restrained themselves by limiting narrated copy to 86 piping-hot, world-famous words. Additionally, the commercial uses the spoken word “free” five times. The free offer is also presented twice visually.
I guess they get their point across, and anyone paying attention has a brighter day knowing that he will get six free “piping hot delicious yeast rolls” to take home after consuming the legendary dinner buffet for one low price. The offer requires purchase of two adult dinner buffets, communicated in squint type on-screen for 1.6 seconds. A few perceptive viewers may notice, but the offer restriction conveniently appears twice in case we blink and miss it the first time.
I assume that Golden Corral paid a significant budget allocation for production of this television commercial. And it shows. The food videography is top-notch. Depicted buffet items are all-American “comfort foods,” including crispy fried chicken. The piping hot delicious yeast rolls do look piping hot as they appear from an oven in small batches. Happy customers, including possibly a Boomer mom, do indeed look happy.
Cinematography aside, Golden Corral has conceived another free offer that isn’t free; it‘s cloying, especially to this jaded Boomer consumer. And I think the ad must be annoying to others in my generational cohort who also learned from Mom and Dad that there are no free lunches.
Some viewers will be annoyed by the misuse and overuse of the word free. This is exacerbated by one of the most abused combination of words in the English language: “absolutely free.”
From a grammatical standpoint, something is free or it isn’t. “Absolutely” is superfluous, but copywriters have called upon this brassy adverb to add force to the overused promise of free everything. The next generation of copywriters may be forced to embolden their faux free offers with “absolutely, unrestrictedly, totally, utterly, and positively FREE.”
Other viewers will be annoyed by the nutritional truth of “piping hot delicious yeast rolls.” While this ad visually portrays something wholesome and yummy, in reality these rolls appear to be made from white flour, and the recipe probably includes doses of sugar and/or honey and some kind of mystery fat. Boomers today are becoming more nutritionally conscious as many struggle with being overweight or obese (allegedly 40 percent or more). White flour and sugar are two dastardly culprits contributing to modern diet-related diseases.
The “big idea” behind this ad probably came from a corporate marketing person or team nurturing dreams of industry acclaim. Imagine all the handsomely paid marketing folks and their ad agency colleagues getting excited about this breakthrough advertising strategy. This is how legendary reputations get built.
The offer strategy and copy certainly passed through many layers of approval but still reek of formulaic inexperience.
What could be more authentic to Boomers than six free piping hot delicious yeast rolls? There are many possibilities, but one is an offer that embraces grandchildren.
Comfort food has its appeal to all of us, diets notwithstanding. Including the grandkids makes dining there all the more enticing. In addition to showcasing warm-fuzzy buffet food, Golden Corral could portray charming and motivating glimpses of authentic engagement between generations over dinner. Authentic food. Authentic family connections. If the marketing situation demands a motivating response kicker, then Golden Corral can offer a value-added incentive especially for the grandkids.
Seasoned copywriters — those who have been engaged in the craft for decades, not merely months or years — have attuned their judgment to understanding the differences between fake and authentic portrayals of clients’ products and services. They stopped depending on outdated copywriting formulas such as nauseating repetition of the word “free,” especially when the free offer is a value-added discount or bonus for purchasing something.
There is no free lunch, and there are no shortcuts to reaching Boomers today. It takes maturity, sophistication, and deeper consumer insights. This does not come by believing ad industry mythology that offering something free is the only direct and certain path to the consumer’s heart ... or stomach.
For over seventeen years, I have argued in favor of Generational Marketing — an approach to brand development that connects products and services to generational nostalgia, merging past with present.
This approach to building brand identity and product awareness has critics. Some believe nostalgia borrows too much attention away from a product: consumers get caught up in an ad’s nostalgic moments and then ignore or forget the product being promoted. Some insist that nostalgia is focused on the past, and Boomers today are looking ahead: past experiences divert thinking to bygone life chapters that have been read, closed and preferentially forgotten.
My arguments about the efficacy of Generational Marketing throughout this blog and in my book, Generation Reinvention, are based on rigorous social science research and sociological theory. This line of reasoning appeals to critical thinking but possibly does not drive my points home with emotional clarity.
In this post I am sharing a few visceral experiences of the past. Consider a futuristic advertisement for Coca Cola:
For movie fans among you, does the setting appear vaguely familiar? The image became part of cultural history in 1982 through a Stanley Kubrick movie entitled Blade Runner. And in 2011 a striking manifestation of this memorable movie moment emerged through a powerful digital art form.
So, is this cinematic moment an image of the past, present or future? Could the power of generationally shared nostalgia give consumers another memorable brand impression, increasing awareness of and consideration for Coca Cola?
Artist Gustaf Mantel has created an extraordinary series of animated GIFs that bring new resonance and emotional endurance to cultural history. Called cinemagraphs, these subtle animations merge the powerful selectivity of still photography with video to portray “something more than a photo but less than a video.”
Now, let me ask you if this copy seems familiar:“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” If this statement does not strike a responsive chord, perhaps Mantel's GIF will transport you back to an eerie moment 40 years ago:
What if a contemporary marketer for a brand of blue jeans integrated this memorable image of Jack Nicholson in The Shining with a product message aimed at Boomers — something about the iconic comfort of chic casual blue jeans? Or what might a tennis ball marketer do with such a moving and memorable vignette?
Generational nostalgia can be captured in many ways, especially when marketers merge the newest technologies with shared experiences and an art form that gives new meaning to hard-wired memories.
If a marketer wants to stir up anti-authoritarian feelings in a generation — the sense of being outcast for superficial reasons such as appearing older in a youth-oriented society — the marketer might resurrect dialogue from another classic movie: “Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.”
And then the marketer can share a visual reminder of what it felt like to be dismissed during youth for arbitrary fashion reasons:
This anti-authoritarian declaration is taking on new meaning during the era of COVID-19, when many Boomer men are allowing their hair to grow for months because of virus infection risks associated with getting a haircut.
In a direct mail campaign my team created for Orange Glo International and its OxiClean brand, we transformed a photographic image with nostalgic appeal into a brochure cover — tapping a memory buried in the psyche of almost any Boomer who in childhood took a lingering bubble bath while playing with a favorite toy:
With cinemagraphic technology, we could have expressed our idea in another, perhaps more memorable way:
“When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.” The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Some viewers looking at these moving images will see merely photographs enhanced by motion-capture technology, perhaps experiencing some charming interpretations of bygone times. I see something more. I see potential for product marketers — particularly those employing online media channels — to reach the hearts and minds of a generation with nostalgic moments reinterpreted for contemporary times and products.
This may not have been the primary intention of artist Gustaf Mantel, but his captivating art form has thought-worthy implications for marketers trying to create brand impressions in a cluttered online world:
Two very different chapters of history have recently occupied my mind.
In an interesting TIME magazine article about The Civil War, 150 Years After Fort Sumter: Why We're Still Fighting the Civil War, author David Von Drehle develops cogent arguments for the idea that this horrific war began five years before Fort Sumter with a massacre of abolitionists in Lawrence, Kansas, in May 1856. People died because they preferred to live in a “free state.” I attended the University of Kansas and did not know this sobering fact about the home of my Alma mater.
It’s not entirely due to my ignorance.
After the war and until the beginning of the modern civil rights movement, historians and public intellectuals typically packaged the purpose of this war for reasons other than the divide over slavery. According to the opinion of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, for example, this war was a battle for “liberty, property, honor and life.” Slavery became but a footnote if mentioned at all in the years following the war. It is only just now, 159 years after the war officially began at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, that the rationale and true context for the war has become fully manifest.
During one of my Generation Reinvention podcasts, I interviewed Rob Kirkpatrick, author of 1969: The Year Everything Changed. Rob has undertaken a scrupulous initiative to document many facets of a year that did, indeed, shape the nation—history he does not personally recall since he was merely two-years-old then.
For example, we discussed the Vietnam War and a deadly battle for control of Ap Bia, a 3,000 foot mountain near the Laotian border. As Rob wrote, this battle would become “a microcosm of the strategic hardships experienced by American forces in Vietnam.”
This became the first significant battle in which American soldiers openly questioned with national news media the strategic wisdom of their commanders in a battle eventually called Hamburger Hill, a raw metaphor for the human carnage, a watershed turning point in popular support of the war. Although the battle was a victory for the US, with 84 fatalities compared to over 600 North Vietnamese deaths, American media and the nation’s antiwar majority started demanding, “What are we fighting for?” This is a question that has resurfaced with every subsequent war in which the US has engaged since Vietnam.
Two very different historical chapters and their contemporary implications emphasize how critical it is that we accurately understand bygone times to avoid repeating mistakes of the past or revising the record, rendering the past mythical rather than factual. The Civil War and 1969 are too often misunderstood or misrepresented today.
Rob Kirkpatrick also shares my observations about how marketers sometimes borrow emotionally charged symbols and slogans from popular culture as a way to brand and sell consumer products, a process called co-optation. I wrote about historical revisionism and marketing co-optation in Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers:
When some media today choose to report about “the sixties,” they often derive background coverage and image positioning from distorted archival reports, thus perpetuating simplistic stereotypes and generalizations as valid truths.
The media, sometimes sympathetic to students and their political demonstrations, chose then, and often still choose, to reflect inaccurately the true context of the era. Media bias has led to distorted reification of Baby Boomers as a construct through persistent presentation of outlandish personalities and the antics of notorious celebrities connected to student demonstrations. Some journalists and news accounts actually encouraged an escalation of militancy, theatrical expression, and a turn toward revolutionary behavior.
Thomas Frank, author of The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, provides substantial evidence of mobilization of bias in his critique of business and the sixties. He observes that mentioning the sixties and associated images arouses in some “an astonishing amount of rage against what many still imagine to have been an era of cultural treason.”
Although the sixties’ era has been commonly positioned as a time of narcissism and social destructiveness (the popular movie character Austin Powers notwithstanding), on the contrary, most young people in my experience consciously embraced a philosophy of non-violence while opposing the horrific violence of racism, poverty, environmental assaults, and American bombardment of Vietnam.
I write from personal experience to this point: Most Boomers were going about the business of earning college degrees and/or starting careers—albeit sometimes in slow motion because of the social and cultural struggles—while playing active roles in grassroots mobilization, and they were motivated by a sense of obligation to others far more than self-gratification.
Another interesting but complex concept has played a role in manufacturing what society now thinks of as “the bad sixties.” This is the theory of co-optation or the tendency of the marketing industry to have quickly embraced the powerful iconographic images and metaphors of young Boomers, transforming them into commercial messages. Thus, the symbols of the social revolution became distilled into come-hither selling images in magazine ads and television commercials; the creative revolutionaries in the advertising industry chose to mimic and mass-produce counterculture so that their corporate clients could cash in on the youth psychographic. The more ardent proponents of this theory even claim that the co-optation process helped to nullify the revolutionary aspects of the counterculture, thereby mollifying its threat to mainstream value consensus.
I believe, at the very least, that co-optation by the marketing industry, my industry, helped to synthesize in society’s collective memory the most superficial, unsavory, cynical, pugnacious images of the antiwar and democratic mobilization movements of the sixties and seventies. Businesses also made money through co-optation, which, by itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. When this commercially manufactured history becomes history, however, many start having a problem with the prevailing official record, as do I.
The Civil War and 1969 have little in common, other than being periods of extreme internal strife within the borders of the nation. Contemporary beliefs about what happened during both historical chapters are amorphous. History has sometimes been revised. Products and brands have been sold following symbol and slogan homogenization.
Consumer marketing sometimes takes hold of the symbols and slogans, decontextualizes and simplifies them, rendering them meaningless beyond positioning goods and services in consumers’ minds. Responsible marketing begins with respect for the true historical record. Neither consumers nor society wins when we collectively forget or fail to heed the truths and lessons of history.
I believe an optimum intersection exists between historical accuracy and marketing, and, in fact, marketing can be conceived that helps clarify the historical record so more Americans better understand their legacies and moral responsibilities going forward.
When it comes to 1969, and the sixties more broadly, an education about what happened and insights about what these events mean today can commence with Rob Kirkpatrick’s thorough exploration, 1969: The Year Everything Changed.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention my collaborative book on the same subject: 1969: Are You Still Listening? Written with seven co-authors, all of whom experienced 1969 first hand, our book shares deeper insights into what we experienced as a generation, how the events of that year became significant formative experiences impacting us today, and what we learned from our youth revolution.
The aged man struggled to get out of his recliner. His leg muscles could not lift his weight into a vertical position, so he fell back into the chair, exhausted. He sat there for a few minutes, trying to command his weak muscles to help him stand. He barely had strength to push upwards with his hands against armrests.
Finally in a single determined push with arms and forward momentum from rocking, he stood, though unsteadily. It took a few seconds for him to find his balance so he could then shuffle from his recliner to reach the bathroom. There he would need to sit again, and he knew that leaving the stool would be equally arduous — maybe impossible. How he dreaded the idea of becoming immobilized and unable to escape the prison of sitting.
One morbid challenge confronting Boomers as they age many not ring familiar to you. But when you think about it, you might consider aging from a different perspective. Called sarcopenia, this challenge involves muscle wasting due to aging.
Sarcopenia derives from the Latin roots, "sarco" for muscle, and "penia" for wasting, making it a “muscle wasting disease.” Sarcopenia is a byproduct of the aging process, the progressive loss of muscle fiber that begins in middle age. The process starts in our 30s but, unchecked, leads to rapid deterioration in strength and endurance in the mid-60s. Without intervention, adults can lose as much as 8% of muscle mass every ten years.
Sarcopenia propels a cascade of other medical problems. Less muscle mass and strength leads to faster fatigue. Chronic fatigue leads to less physical activity and a more sedentary lifestyle. Less activity results in fat gain and obesity. Excess weight contributes to glucose intolerance, type II diabetes and a condition called metabolic syndrome. This syndrome can then cause hypertension and increasing risk for cardiovascular disease. The end-state of sarcopenia is death.
Muscle wasting contributes dramatically to eldercare costs. Once older patients become incapable of the activities of daily living, such as rising unassisted from a recliner, they are usually institutionalized in nursing homes and assisted living facilities where most remain until death.
I participated in an Innovators Summit: “a unique forum where leaders representing a variety of sectors join together to design new business models, network about possibilities, and spawn new insights around the aging marketplace of the future.” Staged at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, where I was formerly advertising and public relations director, the Summit brought together professionals involved in aging services, home healthcare, architecture, homebuilding, academics, medicine, technology, wellness, retailing, and of course, marketing. Participating organizations included Ecumen, Eskaton, IDEO, GE, Pfizer, Intel and AARP.
A significant part of this exercise in “deep conversation” involved forming interdisciplinary innovation groups addressing seven topical areas, including “home based care,” “new financial models,” “dementia and cognitive health,” and “livable communities.” I joined a group discussing the future of “prevention and wellness,” an area that his interested me for decades and has involved clients of Brent Green & Associates, such as Experimental and Applied Sciences, Men’s Fitness magazine, the Institute for Health Realities, Men’s Health magazine, and Nestle.
Although wellness encompasses a vast array of subspecialties, from nutrition to socialization, I suggested we focus our discussion on sarcopenia. Knowing that this clinical-sounding word needed a more innovative title, a preventative medicine physician on our team suggested “Strong Muscle, Strong Living” as a friendlier, more benefit-oriented statement of purpose.
From this starting point, the innovation team began envisioning business possibilities. We summarized our innovation as follows: “An integrated package of products and services with substantial media messaging dedicated to empowering the 50+ market to maintain muscle strength and mobility across the life span. This package includes assessment, nutrition science, exercise technology, positive messaging, mobility health and education.”
Imagine a public service media campaign developed to help adults 50+ become more aware of the hazards and risks associated with unchecked muscle wasting. What if the alien word “sarcopenia” or a friendlier euphemism became as familiar to the public as ED — erectile dysfunction? Could this campaign reduce healthcare costs by focusing 50+ adults on muscle maintenance long before the pernicious downward spiral toward frailty begins?
Our innovation team then imagined some business implications of sarcopenia mitigation as a public health priority. The first obvious area of opportunity lies in nutrition science.
Abbott, for example, introduced a brand extension of Ensure, its nutritional beverage supplement often associated with eldercare institutions. The company has named its new product Ensure High Protein. Flavored shakes include 16 grams of protein, 24 vitamins and minerals, and a quixotic new ingredient Abbott calls “Revigor,” an amino acid metabolite.
Beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate, popularly referred to as HMB, is a supplement that may act as a “protein breakdown suppressor” and thus can serve as a performance facilitator for resistance training such as weight lifting. According to some proponents, HMB boosts strength levels, enhances gains in muscle size and strength, and prevents post-workout muscle tissue breakdown. Clearly, nutrition science can become the wellspring of future supplemental food products that lessen sarcopenia progression while improving strength and endurance in older adults.
Proponents of HMB and other supplements insist that nutrition by itself will not prevent muscle wasting. Thus, opportunities abound for fitness equipment designers to develop machines and training regimens that can help Boomers work out more effectively and frequently. A fitness machine has yet to be invented that takes a lot of the work out of working out, thus helping users push through psychological resistance to resistance training.
The next successful video workout program may be waiting for a superstar proponent. For example, Jane Fonda’s Workout has been credited for launching the fitness craze among Boomers who in the 1980s were arriving in middle age.
The Oscar-winning actress introduced in 2010 a DVD set targeting older adults called Jane Fonda Prime Time. Two videos are entitled “Walk Out” and “Fit and Strong,” with the first focused on aerobics and the second on strength training. This regimen is heading in the right direction, but the exercise level required to participate is more suited to those already experiencing handicapping physical limitations. The most on-target innovation may be a hybrid series of workouts: less aggressive than youth-oriented P90X and more challenging than Fonda’s tamed-down workout for folks already significantly limited by disabilities.
Sarcopenia, a mystical word not to be confused with a Greek isle in the Aegean Sea, stimulates grand possibilities for innovation… in nutrition science, fitness equipment, video training programs, retirement community social engineering, public education, consumer products, and marketing budgets to sell all the aforementioned opportunities. Our innovation team agreed that not only can a national focus on sarcopenia potentially mitigate premature aging and death, but this agenda could further reduce spurious healthcare financial burdens confronting the nation.
Strong muscles mean stronger, sometimes longer lives. Through sarcopenia mitigation, Boomers can compress their morbidity — thereby lessening the burdens of old age illnesses by compressing an unwanted time of life into the shortest period possible before the final exit.
To visualize this cultural and business revolution personified, think of Jack LaLanne, a pioneer in fitness and strength training, who had a robust and productive life until age 96, dying from pneumonia after just a few weeks of illness. Strong muscles, strong life, quick death from natural causes. The circle of life doesn’t come full circle any better.
The Internet provides single individuals with the most potent medium in history to effect change, nearby and far away. Social networks are no longer merely local and temporal but rather global and eternal. We have daily opportunities to influence hundreds, thousands or even millions with a single Tweet, Facebook post, or Linked-In update. One brilliant blog article can transform nations.
The power of these 21st century technologies became clearer to me when watching an extraordinary YouTube video entitled “Where the hell is Matt?” Matt Harding’s contemporary story reminds me of a younger version of me — full of adventure and idealism during college. Like many of us back then, he is a young iconoclast stubbornly intent on making the world better while having a blast doing it.
Matt traveled to 42 countries in 14 months to create a 4-minute, 30-second video showcasing his silly dance. Through the YouTube social network he enlisted thousands of strangers to silly-dance with him. His video has attracted over 52 million views. That’s over 52 million impressions of an uplifting metaphor: a message underscoring we’re fundamentally all the same regardless of nation, race or culture. That’s an idealistic coming-of-age theme, flung into hyperspace with a social networking tool that didn’t exist before February 2005. His viral success led to a follow-up video four years later -- delivering 19.7 million views:
My contemporaries are no longer swarming college campuses where many staked their idealistic claims on the future. We’ve grown up and apart, geographically and mentally. Author David B. Wolfe wrote about the inexorable influence of aging on adult psychological development. As we age we become more “individuated, introspective and autonomous.” Intrinsic connections to generational peers become misty and diffuse.
This has all transformed since Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989 while working for the European Particle Physics Laboratory. (Tim is a Boomer born on June 8, 1955 in London, England.) Burgeoning online social networks that have since emerged create new pathways into generational consciousness. The Internet allows legions to reach across geographic boundaries, to find like-minded contemporaries, and to discover universal life themes and passions.
Online social networks offer rich potential for connecting, learning, engaging, and changing the status quo, much as our colleges offered us in youth. The Internet creates the campus experience for us today, a melange teaming with ideas, insights and camaraderie.
I submit that one critical “why” of building worldwide social networks is to come together, right now. Online and interconnected we can tackle challenges of shared concern: climate change; ageism; age discrimination in the workplace; third-age careers; availability of affordable healthcare; viability of social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare; and, ultimately, legacies of generations, whether environmental, technological, or social. We can focus attention on public education for grandchildren, or saner immigration policies, or more funding for research into “orphan diseases.” We can nurture vanishing art forms such as quilt making or angler’s fly tying. We can raise money to do all this.
It’s through our expanding online networks that we can debate the issues we once deliberated late-at-night in dorm rooms throughout the nation’s college campuses. We can find closeness with contemporaries we’ll never meet face-to-face. We can remain intimate and current with far-flung children and grandchildren and use the network to assure intergenerational transfer of values. We can organize our thoughts and plan actions through distributed teams. We can link, tweet, and write articulate blog arguments to improve “collective mentalities” around the worth of people at every age.
We can even bring fame to new artists and thought revolutionaries who often herald possibilities before change takes hold in mainstream beliefs and values. Susan Boyle showed us one way in 2009.
Susan, age 48 at the time, a church volunteer from lackluster Blackburn, Scotland, became an instant celebrity. The YouTube video of her shocking performance on “Britain’s Got Talent,” the UK version of “American Idol,” has received over 241 million views.
But trouncing Simon Cowell, the cynical talent judge, is not the end of this woman’s remarkable accomplishments. Her debut CD, “I Dreamed a Dream,” sold over 700,000 copies in the United States in one week, becoming the fastest-selling album in British history, soaring to the number one sales position in Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia. Susan shattered any arguments that emerging musical talent belongs only to youth. In terms of sales, she smashed the best debut album of The Beatles.
Those of us nearing or in retirement can still change the world with our creative gifts, making it better, fairer, more inclusive. We can use these networks to connect with many more peers than possible during our college years. We can live beyond our time, influencing social and political evolution long into the future. We can ensure that our forebears move closer to realizing our ideals of peaceful coexistence, a healthy planet … a world less downtrodden by human suffering.
Graham Nash, the British member of classic rock super-group, Crosby, Stills & Nash, wrote a politically charged song about the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Regardless of the song’s original context, his lyrics ring true through decades:
Though your brother's bound and gagged And they’ve chained him to a chair Won’t you please come to Chicago Just to sing In a land that’s known as freedom How can such a thing be fair Won't you please come to Chicago For the help we can bring We can change the world – Re-arrange the world…
Today we share a world less dominated by traditional media, a world connected through fiber-optics and satellites, a world shrinking into desktop computer monitors and handheld smart phones displaying media channels born of this century: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Typepad, YouTube, Blogger — websites and apps conceived to draw us together, to engage our passions, to affect how we see ourselves and believe in our possibilities.
And now, more than ever, we have a unique generational challenge to be the change, to re-engage with more mature purpose, to rearrange the world. We have the tools and freedom like we’ve never had them before.
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 cohortsuperficially 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.
Senior Forums Senior Forums is a very active online community where the issues that interest Boomers are discussed, dissected, derided, defended, or downright denied in an aura of friendly chatter and banter among like-minded people.
Bring your sense of humor and join a laid-back, international forum of straight talkers who generously offer common sense to support those who need it and laugh with those who embrace the funny sides of aging.
Fierce with Age Carol Orsborn, Ph.D., invites readers and followers of her blog to join her for what promises to be an exciting, challenging and rewarding next stage, similar in transformation to earlier chapters of life that the Boomer generation traversed and reinvented over the decades. A respected Boomer business authority and author of 19 books focused on spirituality, Carol trusts that through prayer, meditation, personal and spiritual growth, Boomers have the potential to fundamentally change their lives for the good, experiencing the aging process as “a potent mix of spiritual growth and personal empowerment.”
50plusboomerlife — Boomer life - travel - fashion - facts and more! This charming blog is written with purpose and passion by Kristine Drake, a native of Norway. I met Kristine at a magazine launch event in Stockholm, and we've remained in touch. Please keep in mind that this articulate and insightful blog is being written by someone who uses English as her second language. You'd never know it unless I told you so. Norway is a magical country, so Kristine's European perspective about life after 50 enriches us all.
Fifty Is The New Forty Since 2007, FiftyIsTheNewForty.com has been a dynamic, trendy go-to destination for savvy and successful 50-something women. Interviews with prominent Boomers, articles, guest blogs and reviews. Fun, funny, informative, and relevant.
Mark Miller's "Hard Times Retirement" Mark Miller, author of "The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security," is a journalist, author and editor who writes about trends in retirement and aging. He has a special focus on how the Boomer generation is revising its approach to careers, money and lifestyles after age 50.
Mark edits and publishes RetirementRevised.com, featured as one of the best retirement planning sites on the web in the May 2010 issue of "Money" Magazine. He also writes Retire Smart, a syndicated weekly newspaper column and also contributes weekly to Reuters.com.
David Cravit's blog David Cravit is a Vice President at ZoomerMedia Ltd. and has over 30 years’ experience in advertising, marketing and consulting in both Canada and the US. His book "The New Old" (October, 2008, ECW Press and recommended here) details how the Baby Boomers are completely reinventing the process of aging – and the implications for companies, government, and society as a whole.
Silver - Boomer Marketing in Asia Pacific The only strategic business and marketing consultancy focused on 50+ in Asia Pacific, SILVER is helping companies leverage the opportunities presented by the rapidly rising population of ageing consumers throughout Asia Pacific. Founder and CEO Kim Walker is a respected veteran of the communications industry in APAC, with 30 years of business and marketing leadership experience in Australia, Hong Kong, Tokyo and New York. Silver can INFORM with unique research, data and insight reports into the senior market. ADVISE to help companies increase understanding through audit of their ageing-readiness, strategic workshops, training and executive briefings. CONNECT business to the senior market through refined brand positioning plus relevant and targeted communications strategies.
VibrantNation.com VibrantNation.com is the online destination for women 50+, a peer-to-peer information exchange and a place to join in smart conversation with one another. “Inside the Nation” is Vibrant Nation Senior Strategist Carol Orsborn's on-site blog on marketing to the upscale 50+ woman. Carol, co-author of “Boom,” as well as 15 books for and about Boomers, shares her informed opinions from the heart of the demographic.
Entitled to Know Boomers better get ready for a deluge of propaganda about why Social Security and Medicare should not be secure and why these programs must be diminished and privatized. This award-winning blog, sponsored by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides an in-depth resource of breaking news and cogent analysis. You've been paying for these programs since inception of your career; now it's time to learn how as individuals and collectively we can preserve them for all generations.
Time Goes By This is the definitive blog to understand what is happening to a generation as it ages. Intelligent. Passionate. Humanistic.
Route 50Plus Produced by the Dutch organization Route 50Plus, this website brings news, knowledge, and information about the fifty-plus population. The Content and links can be found from more than 4000 national and international sources. Topics include fifty-plus marketing, media, new products, services, and trends. Partners of Route 50Plus include Plus Magazine, 50 Plus Beurs, SeniorWeb, Nederland Bureau door Tourisme & Congressen, Omroep MAX, De Telegraaf, MediaPlus, and Booming Experience.
Dr. Bill Thomas Under the leadership of Dr. Bill Thomas, ChangingAging.org seeks to elevate elders and elderhood in our society by taking-to-task the media, government and other interest groups who perpetuate a declinist view of aging.
Serene Ambition Serene Ambition is about what Boomers can do, and more importantly, who Boomers can be as they grow older. Blogger Jim Selman is committed to creating a new interpretation or paradigm for the second half of life
The Boomer Chronicles The Boomer Chronicles, an irreverent blog for baby boomers and others, is updated every Monday through Friday, usually several times daily.
Host Rhea is a Boston-based journalist and a Gemini who grew up in a small town in New Jersey. She has written for People magazine and The Boston Globe. She was also managing editor of Harvard University’s newspaper, The Gazette. She wrote the “Jamaica Plain (Boston)” chapter of the book WalkBoston (2003; Appalachian Mountain Club) and started a popular series of Jamaica Plain walking tours in 1996.
LifeTwo LifeTwo is a community-driven life planning and support site for adults who have recognized the speed at which days are passing by. This often begins to happen in-between the mid-30s and the mid-50s. Sometimes this recognition is triggered by a divorce, career change, personal loss or some other significant event and sometimes it is just the calendar hitting 35 or 40. The hosts' goal is to take what otherwise might become a midlife "crisis" and turn it into a positive midlife transition.
BoomerCafé.com BoomerCafé is the only ezine that focuses on the active, youthful lifestyles that boomers pursue. Instead of a brand new edition every week or every month, BoomerCafé is changing all the time, which means there’s often something new to read each time you go online at www.boomercafe.com.
Jean-Paul Tréguer Jean-Paul Tréguer is the author of "50+ Marketing" and founder of Senioragency International, the first and only international marketing and advertising network dedicated to Boomers 50+ and senior consumers.
Dick Stroud Generational and 50+ marketing is taking off in Europe, with no small thanks to the author of newly published "The 50+ Market."
David Wolfe Respected widely for his thought-leading book, "Ageless Marketing," the late David Wolfe established an international reputation for his insights, intellect and original thoughts about the future of aging. This blog carries on ageless marketing traditions in honor of David.
Matt Thornhill Boomer pundit Matt Thornhill has taken new ground with his path-breaking Boomer research. When you need fresh Boomer insights, contact Matt for original research, both online and focus group.
Chuck Nyren Chuck Nyren, author of "Advertising to Baby Boomers," is a seasoned creative director and copywriter with talent to match. Ad agencies absolutely need his counsel about any of their clients planning to target Boomers.
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