I think Demos’s work is valuable and provides some interesting insights. My main criticism is that it describes somebody; just like me. Whilst my attitudes and intentions might be typical, I am not conceited enough to think you can extrapolate them to represent a whole generation. The research appeared to be balanced across socio-economic groups and ethnic mix but I was left feeling that it was really about the stereotypical baby boomer.
Now maybe, just maybe, Demos has discovered the universality of certain attitudes that spans a whole cohort of people – I just doubt it.
In today’s FT there is an article by one of the authors that gives a good summary of the findings (sorry it is subscription). These are the main points – this is a longer post than normal since many of you will not have access to the FT:
Among the younger baby boomers interviewed for the study - those between 40 and 50 - we uncovered a sophisticated awareness of brands that are normally considered the preserve of young people: Gap, Adidas and Smirnoff, for example.
Most baby boomers do not want to be identified in a club of their peers. The baby boomers are only as young as they feel - and they feel about 20 years younger than they look.
Most could not think of anything worse than being labelled as baby boomers, but were keen to point out their continued fascination with youth culture and with brands.
The ageing of the eternally youthful baby boomers is giving rise to confusion about etiquette among communications professionals. Nothing better illustrates their prickly sensibilities than asking them what they want to be called.
There is a distinction between being young and a youthful way of life. Baby boomers, are not out to hijack the genuine culture of youth. Instead they are interested in a youthful way of life, the recognition that being young is a state of mind.
The baby boomer fetish for youthfulness means marketers are increasingly disguising products that are associated with ageing or infirmity. In the US, the makers of bifocal lenses have rebranded their products as "progressive lenses" or "an upgrade for your contacts".
Marketers should not underestimate the power of nostalgia. In North America, the trickle of advertisers and marketers trying to communicate with baby boomers by jogging their memory has become a flood: Mercedes is using Janis Joplin songs; Cadillac has borrowed Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll. Pepsi has even persuaded Britney Spears to dress up in the kind of retro garb remembered by children of the 1960s.
In our study, the baby boomers agreed that advertisements connected more profoundly with them when they used images from the past. There was also a strong sense of wanting to be "in the know" - they delighted in recognising celebrities, music or humour their children did not know.
The key to selling to baby boomers is to make a distinctive pitch to their experience without explicitly targeting their age.
So this group, the 40s-50s, do differ from their juniors but have many things in common. The big, big, big question is how far down, and up, the age spectrum do you have to go before you encounter responses that are different enough to enable the marketer to do something about them? This report is just a bit more evidence making me conclude that excluding the very old and young our attitudes are converging. We are becoming age-neutral. Witness the birth of age-neutral marketing. Dick Stroud: www.20plus30.com
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