Boomers Are Attractive Media Target
For decades, Madison Avenue pursued the fountain of youth with a relentlessness that made Ponce de León seem like a slacker. Purveyors have long considered consumers ages 18 to 49 to be the target of choice, deeming them more willing to try new items and switch brands and even more likely to be starting, and stocking up, households. Older consumers were generally afterthoughts, based on beliefs that they led more sedentary lives and were more habitual in their brand buying. The typically lower incomes of this group also led marketers to chase the younger demographics. Now, however advertisers of automobiles, financial services and packaged goods are reconsidering their fixation on youth. The reason is the aging of that generational pig in the python, the baby boomers born from 1946 to 1964. The size of that market, 76 million, makes them difficult to ignore. And as boomers begin to write 6 at the start of their ages, they seem to be embracing the consumer culture as ardently as when that first digit was 5, or 4 or lower. "Those wishing to be successful in the market can't ignore the boomer numbers, the wealth and spending power they have," said Pat Conroy, vice chairman and national managing principal for the consumer business practice at Deloitte & Touche in Indianapolis. (Source: New York Times 4/11/06)PS IS OLDIES STILL VIABLE..??
For decades, Madison Avenue pursued the fountain of youth with a relentlessness that made Ponce de León seem like a slacker. Purveyors have long considered consumers ages 18 to 49 to be the target of choice, deeming them more willing to try new items and switch brands and even more likely to be starting, and stocking up, households. Older consumers were generally afterthoughts, based on beliefs that they led more sedentary lives and were more habitual in their brand buying. The typically lower incomes of this group also led marketers to chase the younger demographics. Now, however advertisers of automobiles, financial services and packaged goods are reconsidering their fixation on youth. The reason is the aging of that generational pig in the python, the baby boomers born from 1946 to 1964. The size of that market, 76 million, makes them difficult to ignore. And as boomers begin to write 6 at the start of their ages, they seem to be embracing the consumer culture as ardently as when that first digit was 5, or 4 or lower. "Those wishing to be successful in the market can't ignore the boomer numbers, the wealth and spending power they have," said Pat Conroy, vice chairman and national managing principal for the consumer business practice at Deloitte & Touche in Indianapolis. (Source: New York Times 4/11/06)PS IS OLDIES STILL VIABLE..??