• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 29, 2003

“Advertising is a vast mechanism, risk-averse and inertia-driven, and like most multibillion-dollar industries it changes course with all the agility of an oil tanker. And so, for now, the polestar of the target demographic endures,” writes Jonathan Dee in “The Myth of ‘18 to 34’” published recently in The New York Times Magazine.

Dee describes that “polestar” as the 18-to-34-year-old viewing audience, which for decades has been coveted by advertisers. He says that “since commercial television, whatever else it may be, is fundamentally a system for delivering audiences to advertisers, network executives [have for 40 years] lost a lot of sleep trying to figure out what will hold fast the attention of people in their late teens, 20’s and early 30’s.”

According to an analysis by the former NBC News president Lawrence K. Grossman, advertisers pay almost two and a half times as much per thousand viewers in that age bracket than they do on those over the age of 35. Why the premium? Get them early, the marketing adage goes, and you’ll have that customer’s fidelity for life. However, the baby-boomers, raised in front of the TV, just never became brand-loyal like their parents. In a Nielsen study, 70% of those in the 35-to-75 age bracket were willing to try a new brand even if it went against their customary buying habits.

Gary Geyer, writing in Alive and Kicking magazine, says that for five decades, the boomers dominated popular culture. The media analyzed their every move. But on January 1, 1996, the first baby boomer turned 50, and by the year 2020 there will be more than 115 million Americans over 50. That is a 50% increase — but wait, there’s more. When baby boomers begin to turn 65 in 2010, there will be 39 million Americans over 65. By 2030, this group will number 69 million. By that same year, the 85-plus age group will have increased fivefold from what it is today.

But this mature group is not just increasing in numbers. Three quarters of the nation’s wealth is in their class. They buy close to 50% of all luxury cars, almost 75% of all pharmaceuticals, and 80% of luxury travel. They watch more television, go to more movies, and buy more CDs than young people do. People over the age of 50 account for half of all the discretionary spending in the United States. They are the country’s largest and most formidable special interest group. It’s hard to ignore a generation that accounts for 28% of the total population and 37% of adults.

But coming soon to a theater near you: the Millennial Generation, another baby boom, which began in 1977. With the addition of young immigrants, the Millennial Generation numbered 73 million in 2000, and accounts for 26% of the total population, rivaling the boomers’ 28%. The members of this generation in the 18-to-25 age group already account for 11% of adults. This large new demographic is commanding the attention of the nation’s businesses and public institutions.