Fear, hope and love

Seth Godin writes Fear, hope and love: the three marketing levers

The easiest way to build a brand is to sell fear. The best way, though, may be to deliver on hope while aiming for love...

Fifty is the Turning Point

Jean Paul Treguer, CEO of Senioragency International with headquarters in Paris is the 1st and only international marketing and advertising network dedicated to 50+ and senior consumers.

He has a blog in English from which the following

there is a succession of important events that occur around the age of 50 and which plainly change people’s lives. At 49, on average, women become grandmothers for the first time. Three years later, in general, they’re in the throes of the menopause and are telling their husbands it’s high time to stop smoking and to watch their diet. At fifty, the main mortgage is paid off, and at 52 their youngest children leave the nest. A few years later, their own parents will die. This sad news will often result in a sizeable inheritance (at 57, on average).  Over and above the strange terms used in marketing, then, everything clearly leads us to see 50 as a turning point – one that it is convenient to take as a starting point for a so-called ’seniors marketing’ strategy.
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Segmenting by Age in Marketing to Seniors

- the ‘Happy Boomers’ group (50 to 59-year olds)

- the ‘Liberation’ group (60 to 74-year olds)

- the ‘Peaceful’ group (75 to 84-year olds)

- the ‘Very Elderly’ group (85-year olds and over)

Health Vault

Microsoft  debuts a new web site Health Vault

The tagline Be well.  Protected.

Web site stores medical data privately.

Microsoft Corp. today introduced a Web site designed to enable people to manage and keep track of personal medical information while guaranteeing consumers' privacy.

Microsoft's HealthVault is a free site connected to a health-information search engine the company premiered last month. Users have access to a repository of health-related information and their medical histories, such as immunizations and records from doctor and hospital visits.

"Our focus is simple: to empower people to lead healthy lives," said Peter Neupert, corporate vice president of the Health Solutions Group at Microsoft.

The site targets both consumers and health care organizations, such as hospitals and insurance companies, some of which have been slow adopters of new health-information technology such as HealthVault. The goal of the Web site is to connect the entire health care system over the Internet.

Facebook with wrinkles

From the New York Times, New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age.

Older  people are sticky.

That is the latest view from Silicon Valley. Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying computer users.

The sites have names like Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya’s Mom, Boomj, and Boomertown. They look like Facebook — with wrinkles.

And they are seeking to capitalize on what investors say may be a profitable characteristic of older Internet users: they are less likely than youngsters to flit from one trendy site to the next.

“Teens are tire kickers — they hang around, cost you money and then leave,” said Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and author of the blog “Infectious Greed.” Where Friendster was once the hot spot, Facebook and MySpace now draw the crowds of young people online.

“The older demographic has a bunch of interesting characteristics,” Mr. Kedrosky added, “not the least of which is that they hang around.”

The Greying of Digital

Here's an age group that is more willing to pay for music than younger fans and has more money to do so. So why has it been left out of the picture?
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"It's a tiny fraction (of digital music buyers), but they're people who buy a massive amount of music," Hochkeppel said.
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"They need to be brought into the fold," he said. "No marketing and no attention is usually paid to an older demographic. They're sort of ignored and neglected by media in general. Youth is always the first and foremost target, (which) sends the message to the older consumer that 'This isn't for you."'

Blue Note Web site embraces the greying of digital

Open Seniors

"Psychographics (open vs. closed) are way more important than demographics."

Seth Godin in Marketing to Seniors (open and closed)

Open people are seeking out things that they believe will make their lives better. ...Closed people are trying to maintain the status quo. They are very focused on keeping things from getting worse...

Baby boomers have been open their whole lives. And now they are seniors. So all the conventional wisdom goes out the window. Senior travel, senior fashion, senior experiences... it's all fair game, because there's a different demographic inhabiting that age group now.

Elder Surfing

Surfing net is top pastime for elderly

Browsing the internet has overtaken DIY and gardening to become the favourite pastime of older people, according to a survey.


The internet is named as one of the favourite pastimes of retired Britons

The current generation of "silver surfers" spends an average of six hours online each week, research by the insurance company AXA found.

The Internet and Social Networks

The Latest Pew Study on The Strength of Internet Ties.

A new Pew Internet report done jointly with University of Toronto sociologists shows that the internet helps cultivate social networks and put them into action at times when people need help on important matters in their lives
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Disputing concerns that heavy use of the internet might diminish people’s social relations, the report finds that the internet fits seamlessly with Americans’ in-person and phone encounters. With the help of the internet, people are able to maintain active contact with sizable social networks, even though many of the people in those networks do not live close to them.
The report, “The Strength of Internet Ties,” highlights how email supplements, rather than replaces, the communication people have with others in their network.
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One major benefit comes when people want to mobilize their networks as they face problems or significant decisions. The Pew Internet Project survey finds that internet users are more likely than non-users to have been helped by those in their networks as they faced important events in their life.
“Internet use provides online Americans a path to resources, such as access to people who may have the right information to help deal with family health crises or find a new job,

Best and Worst Call Centers

From CRM Lowdown comes the 10 best and 10 worst companies for call center service.

Best
1-800-Flowers
General Electric
Citibank
IBM
Southwest Airlines
Direct TV
Verizon
Apple
Amex
Accenture

Worst
Dell
Comcast
AOL
Vonnage
Dish
Macy's
eBay
AT&T Wireless
Home Depot
Compaq

Of course you have to read the whole thing for the full snark.

Marketing to Introverts

Nedra Weinreich breaks the Introverts' Code of Silence and tells you how to market to introverts.

She points to this article by Jonathan Rauch on Caring for Your Introvert, the habits and needs of a little-understood group.

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

Nellie's Shopping Trends 2006

Nellie Lide has another terrific shopping trends list for 2006, better than last years and full of examples and links.

1. Shopping for a Better World - Shopping as societal force.
2. Men come into their own as shoppers.
3. Celebrity Wannabe Shopping
4. Social Shopping
5. Shopping for Temporary Ownership

She's done all the research, gathered all the links, so take advantage and read the whole thing at the New Persuasion blog.

The rules change so quickly, we need all the help we can get.

Marketer Looks at 11 Trends

Via David Woldfe's Ageless Marketing comes a pointer to Eleven Trends from Tinderbox, a newsletter from the Hartman Group.

1) The Rise of Luxury Consumption Consumers from all walks of life are free - and willing - to explore levels of luxury heretofore reserved only for the most wealthy or elite peoples.
2) The Rise of the Experience Economy Consumers are less interested in fulfilling basic needs with products and much more interested in seeking fun and adventure through experiences.
3) Democratization of the Family Families are increasingly being run like democracies rather than fiefdoms, where each individuals wants and desires are accommodated despite their age or position.
4) Consumption Based Identities Increasingly, our identities are less the product of our family heritage and more a reflection of the assorted social networks we belong to - many of which are directly concerned with consumption.
5) Open Source & Creative Consuming Consumers have come to value consumption not as a means to an end (fulfilling needs), but as a source of productive activity worthy in its own right.
6) The New Empowerment Knowledge and authority are increasingly contested; they are viewed not as absolutes but as merely differing perspectives or interpretations.
7) The New Hedonism We have moved beyond the traditional (Puritan-based) belief that desirable outcomes must come from denial or abstinence.
8) Increasingly Fluid Tastes and Preferences Consumers no longer demonstrate a desire for consistency when it comes to choosing foods, beverages, clothes, etc.
9) Remixed Culture We are increasingly less likely to take things as face value but, instead, treat our culture - especially our consumer culture - as a source of irony, and playful commentary.
10) Firms of Endearment Cooperation is quickly managing to replace competition as the most critical marketplace value.
11) Consumption Driven Economy More than ever, consumers set the rules of engagement for the marketplace

Generational Transfer

From High Net Worth news, Banks Readying for Generational Transfer.

One of the areas the report highlights this year, the unprecedented generational transfer of wealth that the industry is facing, will make winners of the banks that approach it shrewdly, says Petrina Dolby, wealth management specialist at Capgemini. Estimates vary, she says, but conventional wisdom holds that $12 to $18 trillion will be bequeathed in the next 12 years. (The GDP of the U.S. is about $12 trillion a year.) Longer-term estimates top $130 trillion for the wealth that will change hands by 2053, she says.
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Webster says that the trends in wealth management can be summed up with two sentiments: Customers want more choices and they want simpler ones.

Wisdom on Search Advertising

Why search advertising is so important in today's Wall St Journal explained in today. Wisdom for the Web

Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, a unit of New York-based Cendant Corp., calculates that it generates $14 in revenue for every $1 it spends on search advertising. Encouraged by such returns, the hotel company has increased its search ad spending by 500% since 2001

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Search advertising exceeded $5.1 billion in the U.S. last year and represented the largest category of Internet ads, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau trade group and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
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Search is "a great environment to build your business, there's no question," says Mr. Williams. "But it's an ever-changing environment and it demands appropriate attention."

Movies for Older Folk

What's this? Hollywood is finally catching on that a lot of would-be-moviegoers are 50, 60 and even 70 who, so far, have few movies they want to see.

Hollywood Awakens to the Geriatric Deomographic.

But where does that leave truly older audiences, fossils over 50 or 60 or even 70? To Hollywood these have been the perennially invisible men and women. Yet change is afoot. Some filmmakers and smaller distributors have discovered a secret society of mature moviegoers, and they have decided that this audience may actually be worth courting.
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Richard D. Zanuck, a veteran producer who is now 71, learned some lessons about the senior market 17 years ago when he and his wife, Lili Fini Zanuck, produced "Driving Miss Daisy" with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. No one wanted to finance it, but the movie went on to earn more than $100 million and won the Academy Award as best picture of 1989.

"After the movie succeeded," Mr. Zanuck recalled, "one executive told me that 'Driving Miss Daisy' was a 'nonrecurring phenomenon.' Millions of people went to the theater to see it. Why is that nonrecurring?"

Older, richer, online

You can't take older consumers for granted any more.

40% of the US population is 50 or more
They hold 75% of the nation's financial assets
They do 55% of all consumer spending.

They've been online for a few years and they buying online at a faster rate than the population in general.

Older customers flex their muscle and money online.

Self Help Business

The self-help and actualization movement is now a $8.5 billion-a-year business.

Scientific American calls it the SHAM Scam and asks does it work? Of course, it focuses on the sillier new age stuff like firewalking and crystals, not on the serious attempts of people to make their lives better and to grow into higher, more evolved states of greater consciousness. Apparently since neither are measurable, they don't count to the author.

Phones for Boomers

Simpler phones without all the bells and whistles AND operators to help you. What an idea!

Springwise noticed it first.

Founded by Arlene Harris, a telecoms veteran, and her husband Martin Cooper, who helped develop the first portable cell phone for Motorola in 1973, GreatCall is a new wireless company that will target baby boomers and their parents. While the network isn't yet operational, GreatCall's Jitterbug, a combination of handset and service provider, will soon start shipping phones. Manufactured by Samsung, the phones have big buttons, a bright screen, easy to read text, and loud and clear sound. One version (Jitterbug OneTouch) is simplified even further, its number keys replaced by three emergency buttons: one for 911, a second for Jitterbug's operator, and a third for a personalized direct dial number.

Operators are an important element of Jitterbug's services. Besides looking up numbers or placing calls for customers, operators can program a phone's contact list over the network. Each customer is also provided with an individual webpage that can be used to edit the phone list, or set service options, which means that children or grandchildren can help their less technically adept relatives configure their phones. Jitterbug's pricing has yet to be set, but plans will be available from USD 10 per month.

Secret Lives of Single Women

Nearly half of the women 45 or older in America are single, divorced or widowed, 25 million out of 57 million.

AARP recently did a survey of some 2500 women and found that American women are now more likely to spend more of their lives single than with a significant other.

Secret Lives of Single Women, i.e. the reality.

1. Open to a nice relationship, but not obsessed with having a partner.
2. Most single women enjoy their solitude
3. They are more timid investors but make fewer investing mistakes than men.
4. Many single women, particularly those under age 60 carry dangerously high debt.
5. Retirement is a great time to pursue their dreams and do what they always wanted to do.
6. They know appearances count, but don't go to extremes to look younger than they are.
7. Few lose sleep worrying about winding up alone with no partner to care for them late in life.
8. Unmarried women have strong family relationships, often stronger support systems than married women.
9. They have greater appetites for sustenance other than sex.
10. They are taking charge of their health.

Anthropologist to the Wealthy

Larry Samuel is an anthropologist of the very wealthy who has classified American millionaires into five archetypes, each with its own passion points and style of consumption.

They're are the thrilliionaires, the coolinaires, the realionaires, the wellionaires and the willionaires. Daniel Gross decodes the cute terms for you over at Slate.

Samuels' clever terms, including the Trend Commandments, market his services as a hip consultant and his firm Culture Planning to those who sell to the very rich.

Online Immortality

From Springwise's trendspotters, comes online immortality.

Life caching has just extended itself to eternity, overriding electronic space issues, hard drive failures and other technical glitches. For a one-time fee of USD 300/EUR 250, Eternity4all allows users to build a personal space using ten photographs, three one-minute movies and three texts, with the option to update as and when desired. Once a user makes his or her personal space public, it's published and saved on the company’s system for eternity.

Founded in March 2006 by Bert van Dam, Eternity4all aims to immortalize a user's uniqueness for the world, for his descendants and for himself. As Dam puts it, “The most beautiful aspect of Eternity4all is the process of telling your personal story and the awareness created while doing so.”

Ten pictures and three movies may seem too little for the average consumer to spend USD 300 on, but the whole idea behind this venture seems to extend beyond chronicling personal lives. Eternity4all will work as a time-capsule of sorts, encouraging consumers to choose what they would like to preserve for eternity. Considering how closely personal stories are tied to one's mother tongue and/or culture, local versions of this concept should work well. For a number of industries, partnering with Eternity4all could also tie in nicely with existing offerings; how about insurance companies offering customers a free slice of online immortality with every new life insurance policy?

Good News About Aging Boomers

An outdated image of aging is the source of the unfounded alarm about aging boomers said Richard Suzman, from the National Institute on Aging.

Andrew Ferguson takes a look at the recent US Census Bureau report called Dramatic Changes in U.S. Aging in its press release.

Older people (those over 65) in the next generation will be healthier. Twenty-five years ago, more than one of four old people suffered from a chronic physical disability. Now the figure is fewer than one of five. The proportion of old people in nursing homes has declined.

Older people are richer than before. In 1959, 35 percent lived in poverty. Now it's 10 percent. Their per capita net worth, even apart from Social Security payments, is rising.

And older people are better educated. By 2030, more than 25 percent of the senior population will have a college degree. Higher levels of education usually signify a healthier population enjoying a higher standard of living.
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The picture the Census Bureau presents is of an aging generation that will be working (and paying taxes) longer and placing fewer and less costly demands on the health care and pension systems than we expected.

Older, browner, more feminine

That there are no courses on demographics at Harvard Business School may explain why most executives are demographically dumb.

Yet you can't understand the future without demographics. Fast Company says the future is older, browner and more feminine than you might have realized in Demographics: The Population Hourglass

Maybe it's because

Demographers frequently come across like accountants--without all that sex appeal.
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Starting in the next decade, however, our flabby pyramid is quickly going to slim down. It will assume the form of an hourglass, with the largest number of older people in our society's history, the quasi-retired baby boomers, up top, and the largest generation of young people since the boomers--the millennials, or echo boomers--at the bottom. The beleaguered generation-Xers will form the "pinched waist" in the middle.
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The demographic concentration of boomers at the top of the population pyramid, backed by their vast reservoirs of disposable income, represents the next American gold rush.

In the Pink

Daniel Pink's predictions on the boomer market. First, Buns of Steel, then Minds Like Steel Traps.

It's Brain Fitness - workouts and exercises to keep our minds in shape.
An Accelerated Search for Meaning.

When Boomers blow out 60 birthday candles, they'll inevitably take the measure of their lives. "When," they'll wonder, "am I going to step up and do something meaningful? What kind of legacy will I leave?"


An "I've always wanted to ..." industry

Tapping these "I've always wanted to" urges will be big business -- for the travel industry, for publishers, for adult education, and for a variety of new businesses in the experience economy.

The Beauty Market grows up.

The Beauty Market grows up. For Mature Audiences

Nice as it would be to believe that older women in high places (and a few enlightened men) are at last recognizing the allure of the post-Edenic Eve, that is, a woman with experience who knows what she wants and how to get it, some hard economics may also be wooing the cosmetic and fashion industries away from their long love affair with youth. M.A.C., whose edgy self-image seems made for the young, admits that almost a quarter of its customers are over 40. Dior reports that 65 percent of women using antiaging skin care are over 40 and that antiaging accounts for half of the company's total treatment business. What is more, expenditures of that mature age

Older and online

One of the fastest growing segments on the Web are people 55 and older, growing 20% in one year. From Burst media, Old Liners Becoming Onliners.

As with other demographics, the higher percentages online are more educated and wealthier.

63% of American men and 66% of American women, aged 50 to 64 are now online.

It's changing the whole industry

Seems as the idea that your legacy is more than your money is taking off.

From the Chicago Tribune, Sharing Core Values Best Family Legacy

Estate planners are increasingly tapping emotions, and downplaying dollars, to start us thinking about leaving a legacy to our heirs.

Last month, the Financial Planning Association held an Internet seminar aimed at helping planners take their clients beyond boilerplate wills and trust documents.

In fact, financial planners are producing a movie to tell clients that there's more to life than money.

They're even bankrolling a movie -- and marketing a book -- to promote what the industry likes to call a cultural shift. The theme of the movie? Money is the least important thing you'll leave your heirs.
''It is ironic,'' said Rick Eldridge, producer of The Ultimate Gift, a $10 million independent film financed by a group of planners and promoted by the industry's biggest trade group. ``But it makes some sense if you think about it.''
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''Historically, planners have focused on the value of what their clients own,'' said Scott Fithian, a ''life planner'' with Legacy Cos. in Hingham, Mass. ``What they are beginning to recognize is that it's more important to focus on what their clients value. It's changing the whole industry.''

Searching for Ads of Interest

Everyone agrees that there are way too many ads. But when you are in the market for something, ads can be very useful. Now Tivo, the company that helped viewers skip commercials will soon help viewers find advertisements of interest. I think this is a promising development for better marketing to women and boomers.

TiVo Users Soon Can Search for Ads From the Wall St Journal (subscription only)

TiVo Inc. is partnering with several big ad firms to offer its users a system that lets them search for commercials centered around a specific topic. Expected to launch next spring, the feature comes as Madison Avenue is contemplating a number of ways to reach consumers who use technology to avoid traditional advertising.
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People who watch traditional television are forced to view commercials in random fashion, regardless of what they may be interested in buying, says Tom Rogers, TiVo's president and chief executive. "We're flipping the dynamic," he says, allowing TiVo subscribers to search for ads that match their interests.
TiVo users will be able to set up a profile of products on their television screens by clicking on categories such as automotive or travel or typing in keywords such as "BMW" or "cruises." On a regular basis, TiVo will then download relevant commercials to TiVo recorders over the Internet or, for those users who don't have broadband, send the video via traditional broadcast signals. The commercials will appear on-screen in a folder next to the list of television shows TiVo users record.
Advertisers, in turn, will be able to select the keywords and categories with which they wish to be associated for their ads. TiVo is in discussions with advertising agencies about the best way to price such advertising, but one option is to let advertisers bid on keywords as they do when buying ads on Internet search engines.
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Indeed, ad executives suggest advertisements will have to evolve in two ways. They will either need to generate enough buzz so that consumers are eager to find out more about them. Or they will need to become less filled with hype and offer more bare-bones information, much like Internet paid-search ads

Bulging Wallets and a Sense of Adventure

As Boomers age, AARP is changing to profit from the age wave they were first in taking seriously.

They are not alone.

More companies are waking up to the fact that the 76 million baby boomers - those born in the United States from 1946 to 1964 - are moving into old age in huge waves. Indeed, some 10,000 boomers turn 50 every day, and they are entering their later years with bulging wallets and a sense of adventure.

The New York Times reports AARP is selling more products - not just car insurance, but cruises, CDs and concerts, investment funds, a consulting service and a "seal for approval" program where it will endorse for a fee, products it likes. They are looking for

a telecommunications partner to help it devise an elder-friendly cellphone service, and for vendors who will make easy-to-open luggage, better home lighting and other products that AARP can sell. and investing $10 million to do so. In addition, they formed a subsidiary AARP Financial to create a range of financial products and services for members.

AARPs notion of what being older is really like is changing as well.

"We're going to downplay grief and loss, widowhood, death and dying, and emphasize ways to help people stay productive and age comfortably, in the place of their choice," said Nancy A. LeaMond, group executive officer for social impact.
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Boomer Love

Businessweek has a cover story Love Those Boomers.

It's clear that the boomers are more comfortable with their age than marketers give them credit for. "It'll be cool to be gray," says consultant Meredith. Once companies pick up on that, they'll start to see green amid the silvery tones.


What are the new attitudes and lifestyles that BW says are a marketer's dream?
• I'm a Grownup, not just a big kid.
• Fiftysomething can be beautiful
• I'm not as set in my ways as you think
• I'm rewinding, not winding down
• I want to live longer and healthier

Hiding in Plain Sight

They're beginning to find us!   

The Gap, the largest clothing store in the nation, introduced a new chain yesterday called Forth & Towne.

The New York Times says it's aimed at 

that unwieldy and indefinable category known as grown-ups.

Why?  It's where the money is.

Baby boomers spent $42.7 billion on apparel last year, compared with teenagers who spent $20 billion.

Boomers have the money

Evidence that American business is beginning to cotton on the fact that we're getting older.

From the New York Times, publishers are going to make mass market paperbacks in 'larger editions' that allow larger type and more space between the lines.  Higher prices too, $9.99.

From the BBC, silver surfers ready to storm online shops so get ready retailers.

From the Wall St. Journal.  Vodafone making a simple mobile phone for older users who don't want all the doo-dads and icons.  They're calling it Vodafone Simply.  They realize what a big market wants a simple phone.

Nike steers advertising toward Reality Anatomy - 'Big butts, thunder thighs and tomboy knees'.

Why? Baby boomers spend more online than any other age group.

They spend more offline as well.  According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Boomers 45-54 spend $50,101 on consumer goods and services while 25-34 year olds spent $40,525.  Matt Thornhill at the Boomer Project has done the math.  A segment of Boomers (45-54) outspent 25-34 year olds by $400 million: $1.158 billion to $800 million.

Beer and Wine - what you don't know

If you're not reading Lipsticking, Marketing Online to Women, you wouldn't know these important facts about wine and beer.

1. Women buy 77% of the wine sold in this country, much to the surprise of wine producers.
2. Women are better than men at holding their liquor, much to the surprise of everyone.

From realbeer, a study at the University of Kentucky found that men's loss of inhibition was three times greater than women's with the same blood alcohol levels.

And in a related story, the best beer is the world is brewed by Trappist monks in Flanders, at the abbay of Saint Sixtus of Westvleten.

You would think with the #1rating by ratebeer.com,  the brewery would be cashing in, but that's only if you know nothing about the monastic life or about the silent order of trappist monks who aren't talking.

Mark Bode, who co-ordinates the claustrum, a nearby exhibition on the monastic life, said, "We make the beer to live but we do not live for beer."

Outsiders don't understand," he says. "They say, 'You are successful, make more beer; you will make more money'. But the monks believe the most important thing is monastic life, not the brewery."

The #1 rated beer, Westvleteren Abt 12,  has not been distributed commercially since 1941.  You have to go to the Saint Sixtus monastery to buy your cases of the heavenly beer.

Search for Meaning Overlooked

When the global marketing officer of Procter and Gamble says marketing is broken, it's time to look around and see what's on the mind of the majority of the market.  It's time to pay attention to boomers.

David Wolfe does and he has the best grasp on the mind of the market today.  Meaning - The Big Challenge That Boomers Face Widely Overlooked in Marketing.

Most marketing is overly focused on idealized pursuits of pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. In being this way, most marketing fails to address consumers’ need for meaning in their lives. Without a sense of meaning, people suffer psychological pain.
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Today’s 86 million young adults generally have idealized and somewhat narcissistic images of their life’s meaning. Life is all about self. And it’s been that way among the young from time immemorial.

Today’s 132 million middle-aged and older adults generally have more realistic and less self-centered images of their life’s meaning. While the young dream of what they want to be in the future, older people tend to strive to be what they want to be in the present. Much of that striving revolves around the pursuit and expression of life meaning.

The search for meaning is the number one task of the inner self in midlife – the time of life that dominates culture today. Ninety percent of midlifers are boomers
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Idealizations are out. Realism is in. It all has to do with culture shifting from a foundation built on fantasies of what I would like to be to grounded self-images of what I can and should be. Doen’t sound very elegant, does it?

That’s because we’ve been so brainwashed by Madison Avenue, Hollywood and catwalk glitzy fashion that its hard to find beauty, grace and inspiration in the mundane. But when you manage to find those things in the ordinary, you wonderfully transcend to a higher state of human beingness where the real meaning of your life resides.

Boomers Good Work

There's a deep strain of idealism among boomers a Survey by MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures finds.

The survey shows that half of Americans ages  50 to 70 want jobs that contribute to the greater good now and in retirement.  They want jobs that give them a sense of purpose, that help those in need, that improve their communities and that make a difference.

Next year, boomers start turning 60.  Time for the next chapter in their lives.

They are the healthiest, best educated, and largest generation of Americans ever to reach this age.

Never before have so many had so much experience and, given the gains in longevity, so much time to use it

Boomers Guide to Good Work   An introduction that jobs that make a difference by Ellen Freudenheim.

Given the critical labor shortages facing education, health care, and social services, the fact that so many people are interested in good work "offers heartening evidence of a potential win-win opportunity of staggering proportions. We could be looking at a huge experience dividend," said Marc Freedman, president of Civic Ventures, a nonprofit think tank and incubator that works to make the aging of America an asset.

"Never before have so many Americans had so much experience and - given longer, healthier lifespans - so much time to use it," said Sibyl Jacobson, president and CEO of MetLife Foundation. "We have a chance to make the most of a huge human resource windfall by capturing years of investment in human and social capital."

Baby boomers, often maligned as self-centered, are ahead of the curve: 58 percent of those age 50 to 59 are interested in these "good work" jobs, with 21 percent saying that they're very interested.

Maybe those baby boomers  -and I'm one - will redeem themselves in their retirement. 

I wrote more on the optimistic view of the graying of America  at Future Tense.

When WOM becomes WOW

Fascinating predictions on the future of marketing by Jonathan Carson after the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Conference.

1. Money will be spent syndicating and placing brand relevant content at different points all over the Internet instead of building a perfect website.

2. Use of holistic online environments to manage content we create,  purchase and the people we share it with.

3. Fewer celebrity endorsements, more sponsorships on consumer-created sites and more customer-helping-customer services, think Tupperware parties.

4. Media planners who can track, buy and plan media will be the new stars eclipsing the ad agency creatives.

5. More direct marketing and tracking of what happens to a brand message.

We'll see how these pan out as more and more companies try to figure out how to get more word of mouth.  Look for WOM to become WOW

Packaging for Boomers

10 Tips for Packaging that sells products to boomers from JoAnn Hines, the Packaging Diva.

1. Don't call them old
2. Make it easy to use
3. Make it easy to read
4. Keep the product secure
5. Create relevance.  Don't use 20 year old models
6. Don't use celebrity endorsements
7. Make it easy to open
8. Keep it simple
9. Use language that connects
10 Forget about age.

Holistic wealth management for boomers.

Via Financial Advisor News,  a report from Tiburon Strategic Advisors., strategic consultants to financial institutions on estate planning and charitable giving through life insurance and trust accounts.    I can only report their highlights because their full report costs a lot of money.

• For the next two decades, attracting Boomers as clients will be the key to success for financial service companies. 

• Their $17 trillion in investable assets will grow to over $30 trillion by 2010, almost doubling in 5 years. 

• The highest growth and highest margin business is the wealth management business.  The key to winning in the wealth management arena is estate planning.  So say  executives in the financial services industry.

• Over half of high net worth investors in one survey would like holistic wealth management services beyond traditional investment advice.

• Less than half of all US consumers have created a will and only one-quarter have created powers of attorney for healthcare.

• Since 1997 the number of personal trusts has more than doubled, reaching almost 4 million today, holding almost $3.3 trillion in assets.  Since 1998 the number of non-bank trust companies has increased five-fold.  I would venture most of them in the twenty-three states that have abolished the rules against perpetual assets, meaning trusts in those states can pass to multiple generations without federal taxation.

• Over $250 billion is donated to charity each year with people, not corporations or foundations, making almost three-quarters of all donations. 

• The life insurance industry is consolidating, though it's still fragmented, with 1100 companies today, about half the number of 2000 in 1994.  The number of life insurance policies has remained flat, about 167 million individual policies in force.

My bet.  Look for a lot more advisors selling  life insurance and trusts TO FUND YOUR LEGACY, the charities you select to carry on the work you want to see done in the next decade.

Future Tense

Via Instapundit, an interesting new blog from Corante, Future Tense.  All about the modern work place and how it is evolving and adapting to new trends, technologies and economic factors.

It will be interesting to see how FutureTense deals with an aging work force.

Most stories about our aging population are depressing even as they underscore the need to prepare for an onslaught of boomers or the wealth that can be made in catering to them.

So it was refreshing indeed to see BusinessWeek take an optimistic view in Old. Smart. Productive.  Could it be the graying of the workforce is better news than you think?

A recent analysis by BusinessWeek found that the increased productivity of older Americans and higher labor-force participation could add 9% to gross domestic product by 2045 or more than $3 trillion a year.

Of course, that means changing many of our assumptions about older workers.

If society can tap their talents, employers will benefit, living standards will be higher, and the financing problems of Social Security and Medicare will be easier to solve. The logic is so powerful that it is likely to sweep aside many of the legal barriers and corporate practices that today keep older workers from achieving their full productive potential.

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There's no dispute that America is graying. But the solution to the demographic shift is staring us in the face. As Urban Institute senior fellow C. Eugene Steuerle told the House Ways & Means Committee in May: "People in their late 50s, 60s, and 70s have now become the largest underutilized pool of human resources in the economy." By working longer -- and more productively -- boomers will help the U.S. economy thrive even as their personal odometers keep clicking forward.

Are older Americans our only increasing natural resource?  Mark Freedman thinks so too.  He's also written a book about it called ."Prime Time: How Baby-Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America" (Marc Freedman) 

He argues that boomers  have the life experience, time and a psychological need to leave a legacy, to pass on to future generations what they have learned in life.    With stories, anecdotes and examples, Freedman makes a compelling case that boomers who plan to work at least part-time in their retirement, will transform what retirement is all about.

John Erickson on a roll

John Erickson has a Southwest Airlines business model for senior housing aimed directly at the middle market.

Once in the middle-income market, we wanted to be the very best provider there was--with more services, more activities, more involvement at the community level. We took the goal of excellence and delivering value and put those two pieces together and as a result, we got the broadest market share of any company in the country.

The two things that drove that success was the 100% refundable entry deposit, which is very attractive to the middle-income market. The other feature was that if you have a basic service package that covers the way people are currently living--main meal, transportation, utilities, all those things--for the same price or less than the cost of living in their own home and yet, if they need it, there is home health support, assisted living, comprehensive nursing or physical therapy all on the campus, then it becomes a decision that people can make more rationally.

Can you incorporate wellness by design?

His Erickson Retirement Communities certainly try to and can boast  that only 1 in 13 residents will need nursing home care, far better than the average of 1 in 4 Americans.

He and his wife recently gave $5 million to fund the Erickson School for Aging Studies at UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) that he wants to become a feeder for new hires into the Social Security Administration, Medicare and Medicaid. 

Timing is essential because he thinks we will have a massive crisis on our hands in 15 years when boomers start needing elder services unless there is an "army of qualified people."

John Erickson is on a roll.

Erickson, who is CEO of Baltimore-based Erickson Retirement Communities, has big plans. Currently operating 13 projects, he expects to go on a building spree in the next five years that will raise his total number of developments to 40. Erickson started his private company in 1983, scrambling to finance the first senior project. But in the past several years, he has assembled a collection of finance sources, including banks and investment houses such as Morgan Stanley.

Such sophisticated lenders have become convinced that Erickson will benefit from growing markets. Part of what inspires confidence is that Erickson's veteran projects have waiting lists of customers eager to buy. A development in Baltimore currently boasts a list with 1,300 names. “There is a huge demand for the products that we build,” says Erickson.

Boys Lost

"Denial,"  David Wolfe says

Does anyone else have a better explanation why only a reported 10% of marketing dollars go toward 50-plus markets despite the fact that these markets are larger than the 25-49-year-old market and represent two-thirds of all private wealth?

Or maybe they are themselves the Boys Lost in a dream of yesteryear.  Or is the figure of 10% not accurate?

Taking Care of Personal Business

The best small and medium companies make it easy for their employees to take care of more than business.

Those companies understand how complex our lives are.  We do some of a personal business at work and we work at home.  They treat people like the human assets they are, trust them to meet corporate goals and make it easier for them to do so, by making their personal lives easier.

The result much happier employees, far less turnover and employees working at their highest level.

Hats off to the 50 top small and medium companies to work for.

Successful Baboons

As boomers grow older, we can expect more research and information on successful aging and  The Wall Street Journal has already begun with its Journal Report on The Secrets of Successful Aging.

It may surprise you to learn that aging is about a body that doesn't deal well with stress anymore says Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroendrocrinologist and leading stress researcher.

How well we deal with stress is one of the most significant factors for predicting how well we age.  People who deal well with stress tend to have a lot of social support.

Successful agers are not loners. People who age well tend to be close to extended family and have a strong network of friends and social relationships. Marriage in particular protects men from the perils of aging. (Among women, it doesn't seem to matter if they are married or not, as long as they have other close relationships.)
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In primate studies, relationships also make a difference in the quality of old age. "One of the crappiest positions you can get late in life is to be an old baboon in a troupe where you were once a young baboon," says Dr. Sapolsky of Stanford. The reason: Baboons, particularly high-ranking ones, spend their lives terrorizing those with lower rankings. But rankings slide. Powerful baboons get old, and the young baboons they once terrorized eventually end up in a position to get revenge.

But there is one subset of male baboons that escapes the stress of old age. These are the animals that spent their middle age establishing close relationships with the females in the troupe. Late in life, these baboons get harassed just as much as any other baboon, but they stick around anyway, because they've got a network of nice, female baboons that keep them company, groom them and generally act as a buffer against what would otherwise be a miserable life.

"Connectedness in old age is enormously important," Dr. Sapolsky says.

In sum, be nice to the women in your life and blog.  No better way to stay connected and grow old successfully.

Case on Revolution

Steve Case, who by simplifying the online experience with AOL made the Internet first accessible to millions of people, is now taking on the health care industry with $500 million of his own money

He aims at nothing less than Revolution, the name of his name of his new company.  Steve Case's New Act: You've Got Revolution.  He did when the Internet was "chaotic and disorganized and, most of all, intimidating" to the average consumer.  Health care in 2005 looks the same to him -chaotic and disorganized and intimidating.

He wants to make money by building and buying businesses in the health care industry that help people take care of themselves. 

Revolution has bought majority stakes in three companies that touch or are intended to touch consumers: Wisdom Media, whose cable and radio networks are devoted to, in the words of the company's Web site, "personal growth, spirituality and purposeful living, health and wellness and sustainability of the earth"; Miraval, a spa and resort north of Tucson that Mr. Case believes could one day be the " Nike of wellness" (the brand, not the goddess of victory); and Exclusive Resorts, a sort of time-share business that calls itself a "luxury residence club."

Six more health care deals are in the offing.

Graying Boomers

I must confess that I don't often read the editorials in the Boston Globe, this one, however, caught my eye. 

While baby boomers can be insufferable in many ways, don't expect them to grow older quietly.  When narcissism becomes self-actualization, when meaning and purpose become their lodestars, then we will see their potential realized.    Until then, they are a ripe, rich market.

Graying of America

GET READY for the golden age of the baby boomers. It probably won't be a nostalgia-drenched era of elders patiently accepting the increasing limitations of old age. It's much more likely to be a high-concept, high-tech revolution pushed by people who are staying healthier and living longer -- and getting used to new-fangled products that make logistics easier and lives fuller.

It's a world that governments and businesses have to start preparing for now.

Governor Romney recently hosted a conference on aging that offered a glimpse of this bustling future, including a look at new housing ideas.  One example is the ''naturally occurring retirement community," the phenomenon of people aging in their homes along with other aging neighbors. Community organizations have responded by delivering services to people in these communities, often in apartment buildings where it's easy to place nurses, lawyers, and financial advisers, and easy to use word of mouth to let people know what's available.
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Baby-boomer demands could also mean that one-size-fits-all homes may slip slowly into the past. MIT's architecture department is experimenting with ways to revolutionize home design...... Instead of watching rats in a maze, researchers watch volunteers living in a one-bedroom condominium called PlaceLab. A key question, according to the project website: ''Can technology and architectural design motivate life-extending behavior changes?"

Researchers are looking at how to enhance quality of life to discourage sedentary living, keep people on their medication schedules, and detect health problems quickly by tracking and responding to changes in behavior.

Through its OPEN Prototype House Initiative, MIT is also looking for ways to quickly manufacture affordable prefabricated homes with flexible interiors that can be tailored to meet residents' needs, turning an experiment into a practical idea as quickly as possible.

It's a considerable shift from hoping for sunny, pleasant housing to expecting cutting edge, life-enhancing innovations in services, design, and home construction. These trends dovetail with many people's profound desire to age at home instead of a nursing care facility. Such sweeping change could be part of the baby boomer legacy, good for their ranks and for the spinoffs that could benefit everyone else.

Senior Boomer Communes

The Boomer Project is passionate about educating marketers and companies in understanding the new "mature market"

Jerry Seinfeld is over 50. So is Christie Brinkley. Howard Stern. Oprah.

You wouldn't call them "senior citizens," would you? How about 50+? Mature Market?

This year half of all the Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, will be 50 or older. Over the next ten years all 78 million Baby Boomers will turn 50. They are responsible for over $2 trillion in consumption and there’s no let up in sight. Most marketers have spent the last 30 years targeting this group, typically called the "18-49 year old" segment. But they are 49 no more. And marketers cannot afford to ignore them.

If you want to keep up with the latest news, you should subscribe to their monthly newsletter.  I know, they really need a blog.  Still, there are great insights that add depth to what we boomers are talking about.  Like this.

Cohabitating to Cohousing
The Return of the Commune  (Sort of)

Over the next 30 years all 76 million Baby Boomers will reach 70 and older. As reported in this newsletter and other places, it is likely Boomers will "age-in-place" and not relocate to Florida or Arizona.

But not all of them will be able to afford independent living, private assisted living or nursing facilities. And just like Boomers aren't anticipating Social Security to cover their nut in the later years, they also doubt Medicare will foot the bill for much in terms of late- life housing and care.

So where will all these Boomer Seniors live? And who will take care of them?

One answer already in the works in a concept imported from Denmark called "cohousing." Cohousing is a small community with 10 to 30 homes, clustered close together, with easy accessible walkways connecting them, and a large community building where some medical facilities are available, as well as a communal dining area.

The residents own their own homes, in most cases, and also have an equal voice in community affairs and decisions. The entire community breaks bread as often as two or three times a week at the community dining hall and everyone is expected to contribute hours monthly to community service.

Most of the 80 existing cohousing communities in the United States today are multi-generational, but Elder Cohousing is the next trend.

You should expect Elder Cohousing to boom as Boomers start considering how they will have to care for themselves during the later stages of life. The idea of being in a community with shared values, shared care, shared meals, shared transportation, and even shared (multi-family) homes has tremendous appeal to older Boomers, who remember the 1950's. And the commune-trying Boomers of the Sixties will embrace the cohousing concept.

Elder cohousing communities will even be retrofitted from exiting neighborhoods, enabling literal "aging-in-place." This may require local jurisdictions to allow multi-family housing in traditional single family home neighborhoods. The point, as the Cohousing Organization points out, isn't to build new buildings, but to create real communities.

Because, as we will all come to learn, it takes a village to care for older Boomers.

Take a look at their latest  issue  and sign up for a subscription.  After all, who doesn't want to make money off the boomers?

Boomers online

You don't have to pay $695 for the emarket report on today's senior market online.  Just read the story

There are 33.2 million people online between the ages of 50 and 64, roughly the same 66% percentage as younger adults.

For many Baby Boomers, the Internet is an essential part of life. As Boomers age, they will force change upon the companies that do business online, just as they have changed other industries at earlier stages of their lives. Financial services, health care and real estate are just a few of the categories that will undergo massive change as Boomers demand online access to information.

"While today's seniors are a cautious bunch online, the next generation of seniors is not," says Ms. Williamson. "They use the Internet at home and at work, and they will carry those usage patterns over into the next phase of their lives."

Even those over 65, the 34% online, the "silver surfers" according the BBC, who never had to use a computer during the working lives are now finding that the Internet is vital.   

Holistic Money & Life Advice Franchise

You've probably never heard of SEI Investments even though it administers $291 billion in assets with offices in 12 countries and more than 2000 employees.

CEO Alfred West Jr wants SEI to become as much of a household name as American Express and he plans to do it with storefront franchises offering financial advice to the 50+ market.

West said the program was launched because he believes that baby boomers are not having their accumulated wealth managed well enough by the myriad stock brokers, insurance agents and estate planners that sell specialty services but do not consider an individual's total needs or goals.

"The baby boomer does have different needs than the previous generation, and the financial service industry is not set up well to cater to this individual," West said.

Under what SEI calls a "holistic" approach, the SEI Wealth Network franchises provide not only financial, estate and risk management but also advice with aging family care, life and career redirection, business transition and philanthropy. Instead of being charged a fee based on a percentage of assets, clients are charged an annual fee based on the complexity of their financial and "life" situation.
...
SEI has already opened two franchises and an additional four or five have signed on to become franchises. Locations include Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, San Diego and Little Rock, Ark. SEI also runs company-owned wealth management offices in Boston and Philadelphia. SEI uses the offices to help develop services for the franchises.
.....SEI would like to have 200 franchises within four or five years.

Well, they've got the market pegged right.  Most of the money is with the boomers.  Holistic approach works too.  I'm going to watch this one.

Unmet Needs or Making Women Smile

Some people are just naturals when it comes to understanding and marketing to women.  Take this guy Bill, a natural.  And you can tell by his 28 ways to make a girl smile.

So is Jory des Jardins at Pause.  She writes about the recent Marketing to Women conference

Those whose livelihoods depend on marketing to women are fairly screwed; imagine resting your career on an ever-shifting market. The opening presentation, given by Frank About Women, asserted that demo targeting is a no-no when marketing to women. Afterall, who is, say, the typical mother of a small child? Today, she's in her teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or older if she's the primary caretaker of a grandchild. She's got a husband, or no husband, or maybe a wife. She spends her husband's money, or she spends her money on her husband. She floats between monikers of stay-at-home Mom, career woman, desperate housewife, DIY home renovator. Whoever she is, she prefers that you provide her with a solution, not a lifestyle option--she's already made her choices there, thank you.

I was comforted to know that Superwoman has been killed off; products will do well that don't promise to help women do it all. Good marketing must acknowledge the parts of her life that CAN be salvaged. Calgon sort of did that eons ago, but today there's less of a Sylvia Plath-like response to the competing pressures of career and domestic responsibility. Nor do women relate to themselves by job title. Over lunch I met the CEO of a multi-million-dollar company. She introduced herself as an entrepreneur.

I know, understanding women is a tall order, but I want to help. I'll start by telling you what I want, or what I think I want, as the sad story for women like me is we often know more about what we don't want. Here are some of my "touchpoints," mundane opportunities that marketers can exploit to make me a customer for life. Do with them what you will:

To read her touchpoints, go here. 

Don't miss her takedown of the Bank of America and their terrible practice of charging small businesses to deposit checks via ATM in Banks: a notoriously inhospitable industry.  Now Jory is a prominent woman blogger who writes engagingly on "working without a net" which is what she calls self-employment. 

She also is one of the organizers of the Blogher conference for woman bloggers on July 30.  Her story has and will travel widely in the blogosphere, among people who connect to each other to share stories and help each other live better lives.  How many people won't set up accounts at Bank of America because of Jory's story and the discussion in her comments.  If banks will pay $300-$500 for a new account, how much have they lost because of Jory's post.

Does anyone at Bank of America keep track of what bloggers are saying about them on the world wide web? If they did, they would be making changes more quickly then they are.    When the richest source of new accounts is new businesses by middle-aged men and women, why do banks make it so hard for the self-employed?  Why aren't they reaching out to the self-employed, figuring out what they need, and creating local support networks to attract new customers?

Shoshanna Zuboff writes in "The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism" (Shoshana Zuboff, James Maxmin) that economic value is distributed in the unmet needs of individuals. She also writes that history teaches us that those enterprises that move decisively to reconnect with an alienated population get rich first. 

What about it Bank of America? Why don't you make your self-employed women smile?

Wealth Managers Do Better

What makes a successful independent broker-dealer? 

Well you have to do a lot more than manage investments which appears to be turning into a commodity business.  You have to do more, offer more, give better value to your clients.    Those that do offer additional wealth management services do significantly better according to a recent article in Financial Advisor magazine. 

A survey of 1028 broker-dealers in January by AssetMark found that wealth managers by offering more services do much better than pure investment managers.

What kind of services - estate planning (20% offered), life insurance (19% offered), income tax planning (16% offered), charitable planned giving (16% offered),  and asset protection planning (8% offered). 

Interesting too is the source of referrals.  Among  investment generalists almost 70% relied on accountants while wealth managers depended more heavily on attorney referrals (58%).

Web Heaven

Here's more evidence that people are looking for more meaning and purpose in their lives.  While a focus from the external to the internal is more pronounced at mid-life, it can happen at any time in adult life.

Interest in Internet religion sites is sky high, rivaling sports, sex and gambling sites reports B.L Ochman who also notes the Pew Internet study showing 28 million Americans log on for religious or spiritual reasons.

Fascinating New Stats from Tom Peters

Fascinating stats over at Tom Peters today  that he brought back from London

Fastest growing (and underserved) demographic ... single-person households. In cities like Stockholm and London, the soloists now comprise over 60% of all households! 

Factoid, in re New World Order: In England more people are employed by Indian restaurants than in steelmaking, coal mining, and ship building combined!

Males: If we retire at 60, we live to 80. (Invest in those IRAs!) If we retire at 65, we live to 70 ... forget about "financial planning." (This isn't the first time I've seen this troublesome stat.) 

Divorces are coming late, about age 45 to 50, when she realizes she's saddled with the old sod for another 2 decades. M-F differences: When a woman gets married, she puts on weight, picks up her drinking, and is depressed; that's all reversed upon divorce. When a man gets married, his weight stabilizes, his boozing lets up, and he's happy—upon divorce, all that's reversed. (Yeow.)

Over 50 -Look to life stage, not age

"Age isn't a useful indicator anymore, life stage is, " says Matt Thornhill, who runs The Boomer Project, a research and consulting company, based in Richmond, VA. 

For a fascinating look at how life stage not age works in marketing, take a look at Legacy Account.  This ad was tested against a age-based, factual ad by the Boomer Project.  No surprise that this ad worked far better not just for boomers but for younger consumers as well.  The conclusion: "To attract more boomers, focus on life-stage, not age. Use emotionally-meaningful concepts, pictures and words.  And communicate your facts wrapped in a story"

More gleanings from Thornhill by Jennifer Wells who wonders  - is anybody marketing to me? 

• A third have survived a major illness.
• A third have changed their diet due to a medical condition.
• They will outspend younger adults by $1 trillion (U.S.) annually by the year 2010.
• They are not brand loyal.
• They crave new experiences. They are not set in their ways.
• When the time comes, they want to "age in place" — none of that moving-to-Florida business.
• They grade marketers at a "Low D" in attempts to market to boomers.
• They see themselves as 12 years younger than they are.
• They cleave to the idea of life-long learning.
• Retirement?  Not in the cards.

As for the boomer women

• She wants to give back and live richly, and that doesn't mean money. It means experience.
• She's becoming more masculine.  Now that the kids are out of the house, carpentry or a new career beckons.

Best example of a company that gets it.  Eileen Fisher, my favorite designer incidentally, who  believes 'Every Body is Beautiful'.  Fortune calls her "The Nurturer" and one of its Best Bosses.    Fisher is keyed into boomers: "I think I give people the freedom to find themselves, to find their own path, to find their own way there."

It works!  Eileen Fisher revenues are up 12% to $144 million at the same time overall sales for women's apparel have gone down 6%.  Her retail turnover of employees is 19% compared to the industry average of 50.7%.  She has great benefits for her employees and is only one of 3 US companies to comply with a strict set of workplace standards administered by the non-profit and international watchdog group  called Social Accountability International according to Fortune.

The New Mind of the Market

People 40 and over number 130 million.  People 18-39 number 85 million.  No one does a better job of  explaining how middle age and older people are changing the mind of the market and in many ways making traditional marketing obsolete than David Wolfe, co-author of Ageless Market, one of my recommended books over there on the right. 

What makes him such a fascinating read is the way in which he weaves brain science and psychology, the foundation of his thinking, into his observations of the market and the practice of marketing.

Over the past month, Wolfe has detailed the 8 ways an aging population is changing the mind of the market or what some would call the collective unconscious.  It's the best way to understand quickly what tectonic changes we will be seeing as the marketers are forced to deal with the new mind of the market.  I'm going to summarize them below with links to each post.

#1 They are more realistic and practical.  The familiar is often more attention getting than 'What was that all about' novelty.

#2 Perceptions are more dependent on context. Researchers have found that older people are more difficult to predict because contextual influences are infinite in number. Older people appreciate ambiguity and nuance. They trust authorities less and their own experience more.

#3 Detached, more individuated.  The true self only emerges with the passing of 'youthhood'.
Individualized attention becomes more critical to establishing and preserving loyalty. 

Here I have to put in one of my favorite quotes, by, of all people, Agatha Christie

As life goes on it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself every day. This is sometimes disconcerting for those around you, but a great relief to the person concerned.

#4 Increased resistance to persuasion.   Older people are less brand loyal according to Roper surveys.  Price doesn't matter as much as qualitative superiority in both product and customer experience.  More experienced, they are savvier consumers.

#5 Older consumers are more emotional, intuitive in decision-making.  With greater life experience comes more 'thinking without thinking', the very phenomenon Malcolm Gladwell explores in his new book, Blink.

#6 Older consumers more often focus on the customer experience than the product.  Desires are less materialistic, more experiential with pleasure sought in little things.  It's not the getting, influencing, possessing and controlling that moves older people, it's the desire to find what's important, what one's life is all about, what Victor Frankl wrote about as Man's Search for Meaning.  Oftentimes it is the unlived parts of one's life that demands attention in middle age.  Discovery of meaning comes through new experiences,  often through travel or a change in focus or career.

The new 20 years in mid-life allows the empty nester to seek the adventure and change that she wants.
Othertimes, it's a traumatic event in one's life that begins a reassessment.  By age 54, most women (53%) have suffered a trauma within the prior 12 months having to do with family, job or personal health according to the General Social Survey.

#7 More introspective.  More self-informed, more trust in self.  Self-Realization changes what it takes to succeed in marketing.  To be all that we can be, to fulfill our highest potential, to become self-actualized in the words of Abraham Maslow, is the call of the second half of life.  It's not an easy path, it can take years of introspection. Many chose not to take it, but many more, more than ever in history are choosing it.

#8 More authentic    Humility over hubris, less tolerant of puffery, prefer reality to unrealistic idealism.  By middle age, we know we will never have the perfect body, the perfect hair, the ideal job or spouse, and it doesn't much matter anymore.  The urge to strut is replaced by the urge to be real, to deal with what we have in the best way we can.  Idealism is OUT, Realism is IN

Boomers invented Cool and won't let it go

Even Down Under, smart people wonder why marketers are obsessed with the 18-24 year old demographic.  Especially when Australian baby boomers hold more than two-fifths of Australia's wealth.  It's called "Turning silver into gold."

Via What Retirement which keeps the best tabs on what boomers are thinking about retirement and says very nice things about our blogs - great and inspiring, experienced and wizened are the adjectives used.

Why is it marketers split the youth market into dozens of segments, yet turn around and treat millions of mature consumers as one?...... This is no longer one single market that can be summarized by a single term. Today’s 50-year-olds are completely different from any other generation of 50-year-olds.
Worse still, marketers frequently make the mistake of lumping in the baby boomers with seniors in their marketing campaigns.
......
We’re the product of the 60s. We invented cool, and we won’t let it go. What retailers have to understand is that the boomers are never going to be old in their own mind; they are always going to think of themselves as cool.” Recent surveys suggest that three in four over-50s feel no more than 75 percent of their chronological age.....
......
Philip Putnam, a creative director at Desire, points out that marketing to the over-50s will be recognized as a key industry trend for the first decade of the 21st century. The potential returns “from tapping into the wealthiest generation in the world” are clearly demonstrated in the US where dedicated 50+ marketing (e.g., Nordstrom, Harley Davidson) has been underway for a decade.
.......
Putnam is defensive of an agency’s role in marketing to this generation, arguing that change must come from the source. “Before the advertising community considers how to communicate with older audiences, it either needs something to sell to them, or a client brief that specifies over-50s as a new targeting opportunity.”

Take financial services as another example.....So is it surprising that without the development of desirable and relevant financial products and services, the over-50s don’t change their bank accounts or investment options? Roberts suggests that the leaders of our banks, supermarkets and drug companies would gain a huge competitive advantage by adding disruptive innovations to their local offers and models.

So who's developing the best products in the financial services arena?  Fidelity comes first to mind with its Retirement Income Advantage.  They help you plan, invest and manage retirement income with good questions to ask yourself and calculators to help.    And it's tag line, "What did you want to do before you started doing what you're doing? speaks to most boomers who see retirement as a chance to do what they wanted to do in the first place.

Tech tunnel vision

So, if the 50 plus market controls as much as $750 billion to $2 trillion in discretionary income, why are tech manufacturers making everything so tiny with dimly lit screens that 50 plus people can't use easily.

Why are gadget makers shortsighted in ignoring older Americans?

Companies are doing themselves a disservice if they don't go after" older Americans, said Danielle Levitas, a senior analyst with IDC, a technology-research firm in Framingham, Mass. "It's a demographic with disposable income and ... it's ripe for the opportunity. 

Most mainstream consumer-electronics product makers have ignored or been extremely slow to do anything for" this market, said Matt Thornhill, president of The Boomer Project, a market-research firm in Richmond, Va.

Red Hat Society

Disorganized and fun, the Red Hat Society of middle-aged women is making a lot of people sit up and take notice, like the Executive Update Online where they made the cover in the Rise of a Dis-Organization.

The small group of women aged 50 and older decided to greet middle age with a no-rules verve, and their enthusiasm was contagious. Today, that circle of friends has evolved into a staggering 35,000 chapters of nearly one million women around the world — and growing. Members wearing red hats and purple clothing get together for tea, pajama parties, roller skating, spa nights, card games, parades, and motorcycle rides, among other uplifting activities....

And talk about organizational credibility. The uniquely disorganized sisterhood is spreading so fast that physicians actually are prescribing the Red Hat Society to patients to improve their physical and mental health, and educators at Pennsylvania State University are studying the positive health connection between the Red Hat Society and the aging process.

Age Wave Coming

If the past 10 years were all about how technology is changing our lives,  I venture that the next 10 years will be how demographics are shaping our future.  There were more Americans over 50 in the year 2000 than there were Americans in total in 1900! 

Ken Dychtwald has been writing about the Age Wave for almost 2 decades now ...

In recent decades, dramatic advances in medicine, public health and lifestyle management have caused predictable and irreversible trends toward declining fertility and increasing longevity. These demographic changes are causing an "age wave" whose mass and force will transform every aspect of our personal, social, financial and political lives.

Here is a chart that shows just how dramatic the change will be