I admit it. I've just spent several hours vegging out in front of the TV. (I call it market research.) And besides The Golden Girls (reruns) and Martha Stewart (promos for her new show), as far as women over fifty go, it's been a vast wasteland tonight, indeed.

I’m certain that every parent has some regret in terms of how she raised her children. Especially when somewhere in their twenties (or thirties or forties) some specific act, moment or behavior is provided as your adult child’s reason for well, fill in the blanks.

Okay. I just read another article on the coming "Boomergeddon", and I'm officially scared. The article is very convincing, citing economists from across the political and academic spectrum, that "unchecked spending" (that would be the Medicare and Social Security benefits we're counting on) "will trigger recessions and worse." Sounds as though if the government keeps its promises to us, we're going to slip and slide quickly into something akin to a third world economy. So in the words of Chicken Little, what are we to do? Should we sell our houses now, before the bubble bursts, and take the money out and put it somewhere "safe?" But oh no, they say the stock market is going to crash, too. And anyway, where would we live? And then there's the issue of medical care. If that is going to be cut drastically, will only the rich be able to live long,healthy lives? The rest of us, well, think Soylent Green?

Last week, I suggested that 50+ search engine Cranky.com misses the mark with boomers because when it comes to technology, we want what are kids are using—even if we’re a cycle or two behind. But there’s another issue that dampens interest from the get-go: the name.

Close your eyes and think of a tea party. People are coming and going. People old and young. Sometimes you need them and sometimes they need you. Authors Kate Klimo and Buffy Shutt, of Coming of Age All Over Again: The Ultimate Midlife Handbook, interviewed recently on the “Forever Young” segment of the "Today Show", talk about visualizing yourself at the tea party ... with friends, with children, with parents, with young people you mentor professionally. They say the key to aging well are friends and the changing roles you play in each others lives.

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

Did you happen to catch the full-page Smith Barney ad that ran in the Wall Street Journal on March 27? (And one assumes elsewhere, as well.) This is an ad that really gets it right.

For the rest of today's blog, continue at The Boomer Blog

“Baby boomers.” Two words you are probably hearing a lot of these days…or maybe, two words you’ve heard a lot your whole life. 78 million strong, this colossal demographic demands to be heard, and has been so wildly probed, prodded, discussed and sounded over the years, that I would venture to say if aliens do exist and are tuning into us earthlings, the cosmos too is abuzz about boomers.

For the rest of today's blog, continue at The Boomer Blog

The Pew Research Center recently released a social and demographic trends survey, which won headlines in numerous publications along the lines of “Baby Boomers more gloomy than younger and older adults.” Other even larger surveys, such as the Natural Marketing Institute’s Healthy Aging Boomer Database study, with which FH Boom collaborated, have uncovered similarly newsworthy stats. Is this good or bad news for marketers? And more importantly, is this even true?

For the rest of today's blog, continue at The Boomer Blog