Do you feel when it comes to marketing of new products or services, "Over the Hill"? Many marketers have believed that the target age should be the 18-34-year-old group. Older than that? Sorry, your opinion doesn't much count! You are out of the marketing "gene pool".
Well not so fast! Maybe your DNA is still useable to those who crunch consumer preference data. Here's why!
|
Baby boomers are the new marketing frontier! |
A USA TODAY and CBS NEWS series of reports is turning the marketing world on its head. And for me at least, being beyond that magical "34" it's just about time! What were they thinking! Could it be that many of the marketers who study the economic landscape are under 40 or maybe, as author USA Today Bruce Horovitz, writes, "...even under 30". Thus, they believe, many want to be and think like them.
Matt Thornhill, 50, founder of the Boomer Project, a specialty research firm says, "They forget that over 50 still have dreams."
"The traditional thinking among marketers is that older folks spend less, have little interest in new products and have brand preferences set in stone," writes Horovitz. But across the USA, the 77 million members of the Baby Boom generation - folks born from 1946 through 1964 - are turning that conventional marketing wisdom upside down.
As Boomers are aging and accumulating wealth, their spending is growing at a pace that's leaving younger generations far behind. "Spending by the 116 million U.S. consumers age 50 and older was $2.9 trillion last year - up 45% in the past 10 years. Meanwhile, the 182 million people younger than 50 spent $3.3 trillion last year - up just 6% during the same decade, according to an analysis for USA TODAY of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data by The Boomer Project.
And unlike the stereotype of older consumers being adverse to new things, Boomers are among the biggest buyers of new technology, new cars, new condos and lofts.
All this has some marketers taking a new look at older buyers and testing new avenues and products to tap into this gold mine. Among them: Unilever, which makes Dove soap and Lipton tea, General Mills, Lincoln, investment firm Raymond James, Best Buy, and Maidenform. Instead of treating Boomers like damaged goods, marketers for these products are notably celebrating them.
"Most marketing that targets Boomers presumes there's something wrong with them that needs fixing," such as age spots, wrinkles or erectile dysfunction, Thornhill says. "It's malady-based. For the most part, it's not accurate."
Marketers who ignore Boomers need to be cautioned. "Boomers are about to get a lot richer. Maybe not as rich as before the recession, but richer nonetheless," according to the USA TODAY article.
People 50 and older will inherit...
Read moreAre you +50? What marketing tips do you have for the pros? Let's hear from you.