• by December 31, 2007

Don't close the door on baby boomers.

The mob of active, energetic Boomers is not about to thin out. Boomers may be aging, but it's the Boomer approach to aging that matters, not the number of candles on their birthday cakes.

Youthfulness, impact and possibility are the cornerstones of the aging Boomer mindset that is best summarized by the title of our new book about this cohort (which was first given its now-iconic name decades ago by one of the founders of our firm) - Generation Ageless: How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Live Today ... And They're Just Getting Started (HarperCollins, 2007). Boomers are remaking what it means to get older, thus revolutionizing marketing to aging consumers. To wit:

>> 96.6 percent agree it is important to "maintain a youthful spirit about life"

>> 92.2 percent see "no reason why young people and older people can't enjoy the same kinds of things"

>> 89 percent do not believe "you have to feel less vital and energetic as you get older"

>> 88.7 percent believe that "in the future, older people will be much more active and engaged than older people in the past"

This is not wishful thinking. Medical advances and higher standards of living will offer Boomers the benefits of a healthier, more vigorous old age than that lived by prior generations. Boomers will be the first generation to be able to take full advantage of 21st century medical advances. Breakthroughs in genomics, reconstructive surgery, lifestyle pharmaceuticals and more will transform aging into a time of reinvention and recommitment rather than a slow, declining deceleration to death.

Combine medical advances and Boomer attitudes with the size of the Boomer cohort and the result is a group ignored at one's peril. Younger generations are simply not big enough for Boomers not to matter most. Boomers are the 78 million-strong product of a 19-year exception to the 100-year-plus decline in U.S. fertility rates that began in the late 19th century. Boomers didn't invent the sexual revolution; they are its offspring, the aptly described pig in the python.

Besides hefty numbers, Boomers have far more money and influence than trailing generations, advantages they will continue to enjoy for the foreseeable future. The close connection that Boomers maintain with their children - often mocked as the "helicopter parent" syndrome because so many Boomers hover over their kids - gives Boomers a broader reach in their impact on the marketplace. Boomers control their own spending and exert significant influence on the spending of younger generations.

It is myopic to overlook Boomer priorities, preferences and potential. Unfortunately, though, ignoring aging Boomers is standard marketing practice. Boomer media audiences don't command premiums even though Boomer consumers control an enormous amount of spending in all types of businesses, and, in fact, the bulk of spending in most business categories.

Doing more to appeal to Baby Boomers does not mean doing the same old things, however. Not only will Boomers be different than old people in the past, they will be different than they themselves were in years past. Baby Boomers have moved beyond novelty for its own sake, yet in many ways they remain just as interested in innovation and originality as today's twenty-something Echo Boomers. In the special Boomer survey completed for Generation Ageless, the median response to the question of at what age is someone is too old to start anything "new and innovative" was 86.6!

Boomers will engage with the marketplace to the fullest extent they are able. The limiting factor is not interest, energy or openness; it is the dearth of opportunities and the lack of attention by media. It is easy to be persuaded that Boomers don't matter. Any review of numbers will show several dimensions on which Boomers don't measure up. But remember: Boomers can't buy what's not available for sale. Diminishing interest in what's available today masks an undiminished interest in what could - and should - be available tomorrow.

Boomers want to stay involved and engaged. Boomers are the unrecognized, under-tapped potential for tomorrow. Indeed, Boomers will set the agenda for the future no less than they always have before.

J. Walker Smith is president of Yankelovich, Inc., a marketing consultancy specializing in productivity solutions, and the co-author of three critically acclaimed best sellers, including Coming to Concurrence: Addressable Attitudes and the New Model for Marketing Productivity (2005).