While Americans trotting into advancing years pretty much on their own enviously eye European pensions and socialized medicine, the Europeans eye the American nickname for our generation “boomers”, as representative to them of an upbeat attitude about aging that is just dawning in Europe.
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“We’re producing too few cradles and too few graves”, spoken by an Italian leader, pretty much describes the sober awareness in Europe that the population bulge of 40+ may be as much a social threat on the European continent in the not-too-distant future as it is a marketing opportunity now.
The phenomenon of the baby boom occurred in every country involved in and/or impacted by World War II. (In Germany, the boom was delayed by ten years, but still overlaps heartily with the trailing edge boomer demographic that promises to transform the face of aging throughout the western world.)
Blog followers know that I’ve just returned from a seven-country tour to Europe as one of three marketing-to-boomer experts. The sponsor of the tour was the Bayard Publishing Group, closing in on ten magazines geared to 40+, 50+ and 60+ in Europe and Canada. Fellow presenters were Brent Green and Chuck Nyren, and on any given day for close to two weeks, you would have heard us beating the marketing-to-boomers drum in places like Augsburg, Brussels and Madrid.
As a rule, Europeans recognize that even if they’re stuck with dull generational names like 40+ or 50+, this new generation’s attitude about aging is definitively different from their parents. They feel younger, hipper, healthier. But they still worry.
A recurring theme among many of the Europeans in our audiences was concern that aging women, in particular, are not going to fare well economically down the road. “These are the same women who felt empowered by women’s liberation in their 20’s and 30’s,” explained several Norwegian professional women towards the beginning of our trip.
“Now, if they took off time to care for their children, or if they’re divorced, they’re going to be in very poor shape.”
These same marketers particularly resonated with the optimistic boomer ethos Chuck, Brent and I described in our presentations. Illustrating this generation’s resourcefulness, I make the point: “boomers would rather change the dream than lose the dream.” As an example, I cite the can-do spirit that is inspiring American boomer women to join together in girlfriend pods who dine, play and travel together—and statistically outliving their husbands, will someday live together. (So much for the old-fashioned notion of a lonely old age as American boomers visualize a kind of an on-going pajama party…)
Marketers from the travel industry in countries like Norway, Belgium and Germany confirmed that women traveling in packs is a global phenomenon—something of, to excuse the expression, a travel industry boom.
“I would rather be a boomer than 50+” said one marketer in France. “It sounds like a lot more fun.”
Who knew that by simply being introduced to these audiences as “boomers” we would be transmitting not only a generational descriptor—but a philosophy of life.
Carol Orsborn