If you read the results of our survey earlier this week, you’ll see that the many marketers we surveyed have a surprisingly unified and positive attitude about boomers. In broad strokes, most boomer-savvy marketers think of boomers as optimistic, selflessly concerned about their legacy, a hot target for marketers of technology, increasingly catered to by younger marketers and a major factor in the next election. Of course, marketers who stand to make their fortunes off the $2.1 trillion dollars this newly-rediscovered group of consumers represent, have a vested interest in being hopeful and generous, shall we say, about the boomer generation. We should pay serious heed, for reasons to be cited below—but with caution, for other reasons to be shared later.
For the rest of today's blog, continue at The Boomer Blog
This survey, informal as it was, elicited responses from many of the country’s most boomer-savvy marketers. The first group included members of the FH Boom team of PR professionals—over 100 Fleishman-Hillard insiders from offices around the world who are part of our practice group (which is the first U.S.-based initiative by a global PR firm exclusively dedicated to marketing to boomers and beyond.) The second group was comprised of attendees at the “What’s Next Boomer Summit”, the business and marketing pre-conference to the 2007 Joint Conference of the American Society on Aging and the National Council on Aging.
To place our survey in context, I must say that after being largely off the market research radar screen for several decades, boomers are now being studied, dissected, analyzed and explored in every conceivable way. Marketers are making up for lost time and if you read the digest that our intrepid Susie Schoenberger compiles daily, you’ll see that because of our newly-rediscovered purchasing power, just about every hiccough is being reported upon with the breathless anticipation that this or that fact is the key that will unlock the spending power this generation represents.
Our study provided surprisingly definitive results, demonstrating that the majority of marketers are pretty much in sync in how they believe boomers to be/feel/do in regards to a number of issues/attitudes. This matters, for two important reasons. One: these boomer-centric marketers are seeped in the formal research as well as anecdotal influences. They have a “feel” for the zeitgeist of this generation and despite all the disclaimers about how diverse boomers are, it is assuring to see that some conclusions have been reached. Two: they are the tastemakers, giving the generation a public persona. There is something about the sunny optimism of the responses that gives me hope for the future…a kind of “The Secret” approach to the creation of this generation’s future: think positively and perhaps the future for boomers will be positive, as well.
That said, there are nuances to their responses that need to be teased out, put into context and perhaps simply provide fodder for some sober commentary. Stay tuned for next week’s blog: “Through a Glass Darkly…”
Carol Orsborn