Five Things You Don't Know About Baby Boomers
A whole bunch of articles have been written about the Baby Boomer generation during the past few months, based on a wide range of recently published reports, each looking at a different aspect. Below is a selection of the best articles with the most practical insights and tips for retail marketers and advertisers:
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- Five Things You Don't Know About Baby Boomers (The Boomer Project/BIGresearch) - Marketers and retailers are too often guilty
of treating baby boomers as a homogeneous group
with uniform attitudes and purchasing behaviors.
Ironically, what they end up with is a pitch
that is as generic – and disposable – as a plain
brown bag. As a group, one quarter of the US population, is much too large and
diverse to share a single lifestyle, life stage,
purchasing proclivity or political agenda. And
most of them are too wealthy to be ignored by
marketers and retailers obsessed by youth. “Boomers still dominate the U.S. retail
marketplace.”
- 'Generation Buy' Fickle Yet Free Spending (TV Land/OTX) - Baby Boomers not only are at the peak of their
earning potential but also are making the majority of buying decisions
for themselves, small children and their elderly parents, according to
a recent branding survey. Not only are they spending more on themselves per month
than Millennials and Gen Xers but, more interestingly, they are
spending twice as much as their younger cohorts on others in their
lives. With so many people to shop for, Boomers are “making several
multi-generational purchase decisions at once and—contrary to common
assumptions — they are far less brand loyal than Millennials and Gen
Xers.”
- Boomer Shoppers to Become Pragmatic with Age (FH Boom/the National Marketing Institute) - 86% of Baby Boomers plan to be
more practical and pragmatic in their purchases when they reach the age
of 70, and much less concerned about trendiness and indulgences. This turn to the pragmatic is highly correlated to the fact that only 41% of Boomers state they have a secure, financially sound plan for
retirement. After paying their basic living expenses, Boomers
anticipated that they will have on average 22% of their income
left to spend on discretionary purchases. But the buying pragmatism may also reflect Boomers re-adapting more hippie-like values held in their younger days.
- Baby Boomers Revealed (AARP/Focalyst) - “Contrary to many common assumptions, Boomers are making
retirement obsolete, are very savvy about advertising and are
experimenting with new products.” Only 11% of
Boomer respondents say they will stop working entirely when they reach
the retirement age of 62. Two-thirds of Boomers surveyed said that ads have
become more crude in recent years and 67% said they are less likely to
purchase a product if they find the advertising offensive. More than 60% of
Boomers agreed with the statement, “In today’s marketplace, it doesn’t
pay to be loyal to one brand.”
- Rich Baby Boomers are Buying Online (The Media Audit) - It seems to happen every
generation: while advertisers and marketers focus relentlessly on young
consumers, someone realizes that older consumers actually have more
money to spend. The number of US consumers 50 and older with annual incomes of $50,000 or more increased to 22.3 million in 2007 and more than 60% had incomes of $75,000 or more. Since 2004 the percentage of
'graying and affluent' households has increased from 13.1% to 15.7% of
all households in the markets and this group is very
rapidly embracing the Internet as a shopping medium.
- Baby Boomers and Social Networking (JWT BOOM/Third Age) - While less than 25% of US Internet users ages 40 and over use social networking Web sites, 93% read an article about a Web site in print and
later visited the site, 83% visited a Web site after seeing an ad for the site in a newspaper or print magazine, over three-quarters received promotional e-mails about products and services and then
clicked through to the site being promoted, and more than 55% purchased a product or service promoted in an e-mail. The reasons include privacy,
time and just not seeing the point and, although each of these barriers can
be addressed, marketers might also consider that social networks are
just not yet the best way to reach boomers.
- Targeting the 50-Plus Audience Online (quotes a variety of surveys) - Within their online activities, boomers like
financial planning, healthcare and games but only recently do they seem
to be warming to social networking. They are savvy buyers, but they've been fooled enough times in
their lives that they are very cautious about advertising. Blinking ads
that say "you've won a free PC" don't get clicked because boomers
aren't that gullible. Marketing to boomers must be accomplished by
embedding ads into content and as a part of the content; it shouldn't
look or sound like an ad.
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