And this Wednesday, the International Mature Marketing Network will be venturing onto hallowed ground with a webinar, titled “In Search of Meaning: The Intersection Between Marketing and Spirituality in the Boomer Marketplace.”

Spirituality has always been a motivating connector with Boomer population, and the steady drumbeat is only growing louder in our recessionary times. Writes boomer/author Candace Talmadge: “There will be a groundswell of spiritual expression as the economy deterioriates…Spirituality is the only certainty.”

When Aveeno Lotion promises to help you “make peace with your skin”, you know Candace is onto something.

Advertising is full of spiritual references. The question is: which brand of spirituality? To make wise choices targeting the boomer’s pocketbook via the generation’s heart and soul, it will be helpful to put their spiritual history in context.

In brief, the Boomers who were born into the 1950’s, were raised in traditional religious formulations, most of which centered on variations on a theme: Follow the rules and you will be rewarded. The material abundance of the suburban post-War economy was equated with no less than God’s beneficent love.

In the 1960’s, stifled by the very religious formulation that once held the promise of the good life, we were breaking the rules to discover bliss now. “All You Need is Love” was the decade’s spiritual premise, asking this generation to dig deeper than materialism to discover spirituality in their hearts rather than their churches.

In the 1970’s, the consciousness movement turned the 60’s upside down to ask: if everything but love is an illusion, and you can create your own reality, why not create an abundant one?
In the 1980’s, the prosperity movement sprang forth, connecting the dots between creating one’s own reality and the divine. Now a loving God/divine/Goddess/”The Universe” etc. was once again the source of your material well-being. The better you got at unblocking God’s love, the more abundance you would have.

Brief time out: the Iraq-Iran War and the recession in the early 1990’s. Generation-wide doubts regarding the wisdom of linking achievement, prosperity and God’s love since so many of us lost so much so quickly no matter how hard and well we visualized, meditation and prayed.
So, returning to the 1990’s: witness the birth of the self-esteem movement (“You are already good enough”) and its particular flavor of spiritual materialism: the entitlement lifestyle marked by merited (or not) excess and accumulation. We made sure that everyone on our kids’ team got a trophy, not just best player; every adult was entitled to a fabulous car, home, vacation, etc. etc.—even if it were fueled primarily by credit.

And now: Welcome to the new millennium. The Crash. So where are we now? Writes Professor John Quelch at HarvardBusiness.org: The affluent consumer is increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that it was all worth the effort.” “Out will go luxury purchase, conspicuous consumption, and a trophy culture. Tomorrow’s consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff.”

But money will be spent: on 5-star spiritual/spa retreats and expensive adventure travel, musical instruments (think garage rock bands) and yes, when our kids have gone back to boiling water for tea, it will still be our generation who will be shelling out the big bucks for a cup of Starbucks. Put a spiritual slogan on a jar of make-up (Philosophy) or blouse (Flax) and it will sell.

Let’s call it The New Anti-Materialism. Think the kind of acceptance and surrender taught by eastern philosophy, a generation-wide cleansing of personal guilt or shame; a return to the spiritual/economic values of the 60’s, extolling the virtues of balance and limitation, and the disengagement from an assessment of how one is doing in life from both the judgment of the divine and obsession with one’s self-esteem.

Marketers, get this one right, and they will be yours!

Dr. Carol Orsborn will be presenting the webinar on the intersection between marketing and spirituality in the boomer marketplace on November 19, at 11 a.m. EST, www.immn.org.