Want the key to successfully marketing health care products to aging Boomers? Here's a hint: don't focus on aging.

The great thing about asking consumers questions is that you always learn something you couldn't have imagined. Who knew, for example, that some people are so unwilling to be seen wearing reading glasses that they carry restaurant menus into the bathroom to read them under bright light in private?

"I still want to make music. I don't want to twerk, but I want to be relevant," joked Boomer Annie Lennox during a recent interview about her upcoming album. She needn't worry. Lennox, and marketers in general, stand to gain a lot by serving a 50+ market that increasingly makes music an important part of their lives.

As women work later into life and control more financial assets more than half of women say they are upgrading the quality of products and services in their lives. In a study on Boomer women purchasing habits, one 55-year-old woman commented, "Advertisers don't seem to understand that most of the wealth in this country is in the hands of boomers and older people". As they upgrade quality, on average, women over the age of 50 spend more than women between the ages of 20 and 49.

There are many compelling business reasons for an organization to leverage Facebook to engage with consumers, most center on the benefit of establishing a direct line of contact with your customers for providing information and receiving real-time, first-hand feedback. The larger your Facebook following, the more opportunity, but if you aren't attracting and engaging your desired target demographic, the long-term rewards and impact on customer relations will fall flat.

They're not The Silent Generation; they're not The Greatest Generation; they are the generation that's got the money.

Fashion Week rocked last week, once again setting New York abuzz as the setting for the celebration of chic that sets the standard for global style. This elegant event and all of its pageantry takes place not far from Madison Avenue, the epicenter of image and home to the creative minds that translate haute couture into everyday style for the masses.

Twenty years ago, brands treated consumers like a captive audience. A dinner interrupted by cold calls, morning radio playing more ads than music, and piles of unsolicited mail finding its way into the mailbox are pretty familiar memories for Boomers. Back then, the rules of marketing were that there were no rules; advertisers have put profit before people since the Madison Avenue days. Until recently, when brands realized that if they wanted to stick around, they'd need to ditch the old playbook.

During the early days of the Internet, it was assumed that older people would be slow in adopting to new technology and media, and were not likely to engage with your brand online. However, that prediction hasn't panned out as today's Boomers have turned that myth upside down.

To begin, they sell products and not experiences. Products should be positioned as gateways to experiences. Although all of us have basic values and motivators that drive us, we manifest them differently as we move through the spring, summer, fall and winter of life. Our need for identity, relationships, centering, gaining knowledge and growth, rejuvenation and recreation are always with us, but as we grow older, we focus more on having meaningful experiences, rather than gaining material goods.