• Ad Age, Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:45 AM

Viacom's TV Land cable channel, eager to tell its ad-opportunity story to buyers, this week pitched the virtue of reaching older, not younger, viewers.  The message is counterintuitive to the prevailing wisdom on Madison Street, but it has merit.  To make the point, TV Land had well-known demographer Ken Dychtwald speak to a roomful of media buyers, and Ad Age was there to cover.  Instead of the in-demand demo of 18- to 34-year-olds, marketers should target the 40-to-60 set, Dychtwald said. That group represents $2.1 trillion in spending power and they are leading spenders in categories such as movie tickets, computer hardware and software, cell phones, and home electronics. “As an outsider, I see a situation where the boundaries and lines of demarcation don’t effectively line up with the new market opportunities and lead people to mistakenly believe it’s a snapshot of the marketplace,” Dychtwald said. He admonished marketers who believe boomers are too set in their ways to be influenced by brand advertising. “Here’s the good news and bad news: lifelong brand loyalty is disappearing," he said.

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