Boomers

Boomers and the Future of Technology: Marketing and Advertising

READER NOTE: The following discussion is a shortened excerpt from my forthcoming book, Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and the Future. The new book will be published this fall and available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online book merchants.

Michael Pollan, an energetic writer about food, once condensed his manifesto about eating: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

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

• Boomers like and adopt new technologies
• Not unnecessary complexity or useless frills
• Mostly for learning, entertainment and communication

Now for some details:

Boomers Like and Adopt New Technologies

One of the ludicrous myths that I have been dispelling for almost a decade is the slapdash notion that Boomers are technophobes. Popular culture and media have sometimes conspired to create the impression that anyone who didn’t grow up with Nintendo is somehow bereft of skills to adopt and adapt to new technologies. In Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers, I addressed this myth.

Boomers have been adopting and adapting to new technologies throughout their lives. From among their midst have emerged technology icons such as Bill Gates and Steven Jobs who not only adopted and adapted but created.

In October 2009, AARP and Microsoft published a white paper entitled Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation. Author and futurist Michael Rogers makes a succinct and compelling case for technology companies to focus more on those over 50:

In 2010, one-third of the U.S. population will be over 50 and “that’s close to 106 million Americans controlling 50 percent of the country’s discretionary spending and outspending younger adults by $1 trillion in 2010. Consumers in their fifties show the highest intent to purchase consumer electronics among any age group.”

Not only do Boomers like and adopt new technologies, which they’ve been doing their entire lives, they have the discretionary income and assets to invest in new technologies, often priced out of reach of younger adults.

Not Unnecessary Complexity or Frills

I recall my earliest confrontations with a desktop computer, including panic attacks when my computer would freeze up, thinking that I had permanently destroyed documents. I remember reading mind-numbing manuals trying to figure out how to attach peripherals.

This, in a nutshell, is what Boomers hate about some new technologies. When a product requires us to turn our lives over to the product so that we can master its nuances, then we’ll look for alternatives that insulate us from maddening minutia.

Michael Rogers’ white paper echoes my frustrations: “The (focus groups) made it clear that there are two aspects to ease of use. The first is learning how a device operates. The second is fixing it when something goes wrong.”

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

Mostly for Learning, Entertainment and Communication

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

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

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

But the Internet is not just a learning tool. In the future, more and more traditional entertainment such as movies and television will expand online user experiences with unique content and depth.

This became very apparent to me when I studied the complementary websites to James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar. Online content for this movie includes in-depth morphological information about the animals and plants that inhabit the fictional world Pandora. A blog and forum allows movie fans to interact, ask questions and speculate about Cameron’s plans for a sequel. Of course, the Avatar website includes provocative movie trailers designed to nudge web surfers into movie theaters. 

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

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

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

Although much of the technology future remains a mystery even for technology experts, product developers and marketers can expect with certainty that Boomers will rapidly incorporate new technologies into their lives, especially technologies and applications that simply and fortify their abilities to learn, be entertained and communicate.

Coming in October and available from on-line book retailers. Send us an email message to receive notification when Brent's newest book becomes available.

Arjan in't Veld, a young Dutch man, and the Future of Boomer Magazines

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.

When you read those words, if Paul Simon’s eponymous song “Kodachrome” doesn’t come to mind, you must not be a Boomer (and/or a classic rock fan). The song is playing in the background while I’m grooving to... ah, writing this post.

The odd thing is that I’m listening to Paul Simon transport me back to my youth — Kodachrome... give us the nice bright colors, give us the greens of summer, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah — while another browser window is open to a new Dutch online magazine ... created for Dutch citizens over 50 ... by a 27-year-old child of Boomers ... and I’m impressed.

In 2007 while on a speaking tour of Europe, I met and had lunch with Arjan in’t Veld (last name translates to “in the field”), a striking young man towering two meters tall (that’s over 6 ft. 5 in.), with fire in his belly and a goal to turn his marketing education into a business focused on people old enough to be his grandparents and parents.

He quickly transformed from a college graduate with a master's degree in marketing to becoming one of The Netherlands’ leading authorities on 50+ marketing.

Bureauvijftig, his marketing agency founded with partner Dick Vos, has attracted a banner list of international clients who see vibrant opportunities when they think of all the Kodachrome colors swirling around Boomers (those alluring hues of Euros and U.S. dollars).

Now for the magazine, ENNU, you’re going to click here: www.ennumagazine.nl. Then you will see this:

  
The magazine has been written and recorded in Dutch, so if you don’t read Dutch or understand the spoken language, you’re not going to appreciate fully how well all the content has been developed. But I’ll bet you’ll be impressed with clever integration of multimedia to create an engaging and enjoyable user experience.

If you want to hear Paul, click on page 4:

 
You should then feel the same sense of kinship I have always felt for the Dutch since they have so fully embraced American music and culture (with their own twists, of course). As you travel through Amsterdam, you’ll often hear the music that defined Boomer youth, and Arjan’s team has embraced this intercultural experience with the inaugural edition of their online publication.

If you want another taste of something more familiar than foreign, click on page 15, a layout clearly dedicated to single Boomers seeking new love. Notice also how photo frames above the Boomer couple are actually windows to external 50+ dating websites.

 
Sometimes it takes getting out of our own country to encounter new ways of experiencing being Boomer through media, as has this new online journal taken some very creative steps toward envisioning a 50+ magazine for the future.

Consider the possibilities that will soon unfold with the introduction of Apple iPad. Suddenly, a merely printed magazine seems inadequate.

I can read the writing on the wall.

Avatar: A Mythic Movie for Baby Boomers

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, ladies and gentlemen,” cautions Col. Miles Quaritch, a sinewy, pugnacious antagonist in James Cameron’s instantly classic science fiction movie, Avatar.

Most American Boomers recall a powerful line from the first mega-movie to capture them as children: an eternal story of fanciful travel and even alien humanoids, a movie masterpiece called Wizard of Oz. Spoken by child actress Judy Garland, the original quote rings through the ages: “Toto, I have the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Many glowing film reviews are being written about Cameron’s newest cinematic achievement. My filter for this movie is the same as the context of this blog, my books and speeches. I watched Avatar to understand how Boomer history, sociology and culture pervade the story, arguably the finest achievement of a director whose birthright is the Boomer generation.

What can Boomers discover and rediscover by simply investing 163 minutes watching this film?

First, Avatar is a blockbuster movie, wide and deep, thus encouraging multiple viewings to comprehend and appreciate tens of thousands of directorial nuances built into a technological feat of 3-D animation.

Epic movie events populate Boomer history. Many dotingly recall blockbuster films from their youth. Cinematic extravaganzas from the 1950s often showcased prehistoric monsters portrayed by men wearing latex rubber suits (and silly by today’s standards).

Perhaps the most famous of those blockbuster monster movies was Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, released in 1956 as an American adaptation of the original Japanese version. Filmed just a decade after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla was an allegory for irrevocable consequences that radioactive weapons could have on our planet.

Without ambiguity or subtlety, Avatar is a pro-environmental, antiwar movie and allegory.

Cameron’s awe-inspiring world of Pandora—its lush beauty, alien landscapes and ironically comprehensible flora and fauna—invites viewers to yearn for places of unspoiled beauty, tapping into deeply felt human needs for connection with the natural world. Mechanized assaults by humans on Pandora’s raw loveliness become more wretched in juxtaposition.

Clearly the director/writer of this movie has experienced and internalized antiwar messages of the Vietnam War era and even the bitter taste of environmental desecration symbolized by Love Canal. Visibly he has captured his revulsion for offensive war through a film that hauntingly intersects with two terrestrial wars today.

By probing the mystical, spiritual life of the giant blue Na’vi, Avatar champions a tribal narrative, recalling an Age of Aquarius when leading-edge Boomers became more sensitive to alternative lifestyles of Native Americans and Hindu mystics. As Boomers reached maturity, passage into independence for many also incorporated reverence for nature and unspoiled places, thus popularizing a renaissance in rural living and backpacking excursions into wilderness. Tribal ideals included exploration of new realms of spirituality and esoteric rituals designed to foster community while embracing inter-species diversity and racial acceptance.

It’s obvious to me that James Cameron is a Baby Boomer, not just because he was born in 1954 but because of his values. We can reasonably assume that one wellspring for his story was many movie experiences he must have had growing up. Like many of his generation, he learned to cheer for the underdog through epic stories such as Star Wars and Rocky. We may surmise that Cameron also must have felt deep indignation when beholding exploitation of land, native peoples, and wild animals as he watched Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves.

Through his portrayal of the Na’vi people on the planet Pandora, Cameron reveals cinematic influences that have led us to a more post-racial era. The director may have learned to identify more with minorities though movies that successfully amplified the social carcinoma of racism: great films such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, In the Heat of the Night, and more recently, Mississippi Burning.

Many movie critics have bestowed actress Sigourney Weaver with accolades for her performance in this movie. Once again, this Boomer performer, who turned 60 this year, has portrayed a character with a strong feminist bearing: a protagonist determined to prevail over mean-spirited forces. Weaver’s Grace Augustine recalls other iconic female heroes (and Cameron characters) such as Terminator’s Sarah Conner (portrayed by Linda Hamilton) and Alien’s Ellen Ripley (also portrayed by Weaver).

Portraying aggressive and racist Col. Quaritch, actor Stephen Lang, born in 1952, reprises the historically endowed role of a gung-ho military antagonist. He reminded me of other complicated and angry men reenacting the Vietnam War such as Tom Berenger, who portrayed a harsh and hardcore staff sergeant in Oliver Stone’s Platoon (a fellow Boomer director).

Writing for The Denver Post, movie critic Lisa Kennedy observed that Avatar “conjures Boomer memories of Saturday afternoons spent in the company of Ray Harryhausen’s hydras, dinosaurs and cyclops.” This pioneering special effects genius has obviously influenced James Cameron with storytelling possibilities of stop-motion animation, now updated to achieve truly otherworldly movie experiences.

Avatar also conjures Boomer recollections of epic movies, heroic storylines, racial injustice, xenophobia, environmental desecration, feminism, antiwar sentiments, historical exploitation of Native Americans, and yearning to return to nature, to live in peace more communally.

This movie reminds us of when we were young and becoming more complicated members of a tribe, not just a generation.