Monday, January 23, 2006

So old is now cool?

This article appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald. I reckon it is great, so I am reproducing it in full. I do suggest you read it.

"When your neighbour begins to praise you, count your sheep." That's Old Testament wisdom, and worth remembering if you're a baby boomer who hopes to resist an onslaught of cynical flattery headed your way.

Boomer, silver surfie, ageing hipster, grey nomad. Whatever. We're about to become the newest, sexiest demographic in ad land, target of the biggest marketing push since that '50s phenomenon, the teenager. And we were there for that gig, too.

Old is cool, guys! That's what the young creative directors are chorusing. Remind 'em they were the wild ones who lived like there was no tomorrow. Celebrate their untamed youth, eulogise it, then when you've got 'em away on their magical mystery tour down memory lane, come in hard with the message: You can have it all again!

Resorts, investments, insurance companies, banks, car manufacturers, cosmetic firms, dispensers of everlasting erections, real estate, fashion, airlines - you name it, they're onto us.

We're about to be flattered, battered and fried on the hotplate of consumerism. Why not? There are zillions of us. Every eight seconds a baby boomer somewhere in the world retires. Granted, a fair whack will have to eke out each centime, penny, rupee, cent or dime. But there'll still be plenty with money on their hands to be fought over - and won over.

Where advertisers might get it wrong, however, is if they lump us into a single demographic, imagining we're all sitting in Balmain listening to Lou Reed albums and blowing a J.

It's not going to be as easy as that. Boomers aren't a homogenous lot. We were a diverse bunch in our youth. Some of us wanted to change the world; others were happy with the way it was. We were radical or conservative, Rolling Stone or Reader's Digest. Into sex, drugs and rock'n'roll or Pat Boone, early nights and glory boxes.

Someone is getting it right, however. A recent Merrill Lynch survey in the US noted that boomers are still displaying complex aspirations.

The big word which kept popping up in the survey was "cycling". Many said when they reached retirement age they envisaged "cycling" between periods of work and leisure. So it's not all about hipster retirees with time and money to spend on recapturing their wild youth before they're shunted off to a nursing home.

We are going to be flat out "cycling", which will make us a slippery target. It will be hard for the ad gurus to get the schmoozing just right. If they do, and if we fall for it, the sky's the limit.

But I have faith in my fellow boomers to be able to resist the flattering bullshit coming our way. Alice Cooper, long ago, called our generation the Department of Youth. We are fast becoming the Department of Age, but anyway you read it, we got the power!

Bring on the flattery. We can use it, right now. But I, for one, am keeping an eye on my sheep. And my shekels. Dick Stroud

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