I could tell you we control 70% of U.S. disposable income. I could tell you we still represent 40% of the entire population. But it wouldn't matter. When the subject is baby boomers, marketers get it
wrong.
Every time.
All the time.
You think we're brand loyal. You think we act like any other senior group, only friskier, and with a bizarre fondness for Foghat. You're
wrong.
Again.
And here's a real attitude adjuster, kids: We aren't now and never were a Generation just about Me. Not that ignorance has ever been an impediment to marketers or their
agency partners. If it was, by now you'd have broken the enchantment that clouds your eyes and befuddles your brains into thinking that the only good consumer is a young consumer.
Which is why,
brothers and sisters, we need a communications Strawberry Statement. We need a new revolution. A corporate rebellion, not a cultural one.
Boomers are going to have to go back to the barricades
and do what we do best: Force the issue. If there aren't bodies in the streets, there's no truth in the communication and no value in the channel.
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So hunt down your least favorite social-media
maven and bitch-slap the hell out of the young sonofabitch. Track down the creative directors responsible for all those asinine, tie-dyed, surfer music spots and shove their Smartphones up their
service entrance.
And the next person that hires Dennis Hopper to star in their commercial will find their house thoroughly TP'ed. I don't give a rat's ass about a movie Hopper made 40 years
ago. The man's a Republican. Find somebody else to represent the Sixties. Stanley Owsley would work.
You don't know who that is, do you? Exactly.
References to infamous
underground chemists aside, what really defines boomers is our desire -- our need, actually -- to do good. To make a difference. That's what we were always really about, and it's still what motivates
us. That's the kind of messaging we'll respond to.
As for our media behavior, look deeper than your own assumptions. Did you know, for example, that older Americans are the fastest-growing group
online?
Don't take my word for it. There are any number of baby-boomer specialist shops out there, many a hell of a lot smarter than the "consultants" you've made wealthy by hiring them to
create wildly unsuccessful campaigns targeting people who think "Steve McQueen" is the name of a Sheryl Crow song.
Jamie Korsen, former president of Interpublic's KSL Media, runs a shop called
50Plus Advertising that's doing some interesting research into my cohort -- the agency calls it "Gen B." He suggests that marketers earn what he terms a "tremendous" cost advantage by targeting 50+
consumers. That strategy is based upon a bunch of media-industry babble that's no doubt convincing to you, but might as well be Aramaic to me.
Maybe the numbers can be persuasive. Maybe
marketers will wise up, for once, and rise to the opportunity. As long as they don't trust anyone under 30.
And for the love of God, stay away from executions featuring Dennis Hopper.