Baby boomers, the influential generation with the largest enrollment among Americans, has long been at the forefront of cultural trends. Now its members are at the cusp of yet another movement, this one among marketers who are discovering that aging boomers make a tantalizing target group. Finally, after years of courting the coveted youth market and essentially ignoring people over 40, a range of advertisers are actively seeking boomers' business. The list includes food makers, fitness salons and clothing retailers, and automakers like Toyota--which is currently running an ad that tells parents that life begins anew once they drop off …

Consumers looking for a little distraction at the gas pump to take their minds off skyrocketing gasoline prices can now watch TV ads while they pour increasing amounts of money into their tanks. A new company called Gas Station TV will install video advertising systems on pumps in 100 stations in Atlanta and Houston before the end of the year, allowing consumers to watch local and national content spiced with 15-second ads on 20-inch, pump-mounted digital TV screens. The company expects to reach the top 10 markets by January with 400 gas stations, according to CEO David Leider. "The key …

When it comes to reaching television viewers with advertising, marketers would be wise to defy conventional thinking and invest their ad dollars in tennis and auto racing rather than football, including the much-hyped Super Bowl. Statistics released by Nielsen Sports' Sponsorship Scorecard showed that the top sponsor of the U.S. Open Men's Final on CBS, JP Morgan Chase achieved more impressions per hour among adults 25-54 (162 million) than did Motorola, the top sponsor of the Super Bowl on ABC, which scored 157 million. And the top sponsor in the Nascar Daytona 500 on Fox, Lowe's Home Improvement, achieved more …

Ocean Spray is going on the road with a new promotion designed to tout its new diet juice drinks, Cranberry Spray and Orange Citrus Spray. This summer, the company will visit eight cities in a mobile sampling tour that offers consumers a massage treatment area, music, and free diet Ocean Spray drinks from its vehicle. The "Take a Vacation from Ordinary Diet Drinks" tour stopped in Boston and New York last week, and will visit Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco before concluding in Chicago from July 2-4. "Trial is a huge driver of these types of …

One of the hot new trends among marketers experimenting with so-called emerging media is to have consumers create ads for them that the companies then run on their Web sites, or even on TV. Now food marketer Kraft is taking that idea a step further by asking its customers to develop new product and packaging ideas that the company can bring to market. The move is the next phase of a drive initiated 12 months ago by Kraft CEO Roger Deromedi that is designed to tap into innovation outside the company, and is modeled on a similar one underway at …

A Massachusetts company wants to offer school districts a way to raise money--and marketers a way to reach students. The company, called BusRadio, wants to broadcast commercial radio programs, complete with ads, on school buses to more than 100,000 Massachusetts students in September--and to expand nationwide in 2007. The service will be free to schools, and the deal calls for them to collect 5 percent of the ad revenue. "Our goal is to be able to give enough money back to the school systems so that they can enhance their transportation systems," said BusRadio CEO Michael Yanoff. Under the plan, …

Unilever wants to make it easy for its customers to spot products that are good for them. That's why the giant marketer has unveiled a logo that will appear on the front of a select number of its products, quickly identifying them as foods that are trans-fat-free and low in sugar and sodium. The product-labeling initiative has been dubbed the "Choices" program, and was recently launched in the Netherlands. The company plans to roll it out globally within the next 18 months on its BestFoods and Lipton brands, among others. The program reflects a growing trend among food and beverage …

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs is coming under fire from an influential group of people intimately involved in the process of putting pharmaceuticals into the hands of patients--doctors. Later this month, the American Medical Association--the largest professional association of physicians in the U.S.--will consider a proposal to support a government moratorium on pharmaceutical advertising to consumers. Last year the group declined to support the moratorium and instead mounted a study of the issue, which has now been completed. It recommends that the AMA support a "time interval" that would put an unspecified amount of time between a drug's approval and …

American automakers are fighting a two-front war. On the one side, they have to contend with Japanese automakers whose more fuel-efficient vehicles have been cutting into their sales for years. Now they are doing battle against rising gasoline prices that are causing consumers to think twice about the kind of car they buy, or whether to buy a car at all. The car marketers have yet to solve the Japanese problem, but now they are at least attempting some new tactics to deal with the gasoline issue. The Big Three--Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler--have all launched marketing efforts designed to …

History buffs, take note: Morton Salt is launching a new promotion in which players could win $10,000 for knowing about historic dates since 1914, the year the company first introduced its famous "Umbrella Girl" and famous tagline, "When it rains, it pours." The iconic figure has graced Morton Salt labels ever since, in one of six iterations, and is now the focus of the summer sweepstakes, which also offers an instant-win game based on the six renditions. The program calls for players to visit http://www.MortonGirlSweepstakes.com to answer trivia questions about the historic dates. Players get a sweeps entry …