August 29, 2011

Marketing to Active Men 55+

Active and Engaged Men 55+: The Next Marketing and Advertising Frontier

Peter Drucker, the late management guru, once observed: “Demographics is the future that happened yesterday.”

baby boomer, men, male, gender, advertising, marketing, Generation Reinvention, Brent Green, aging, business, transformation, reinvention, culture, ageism

What is happening today is so obvious that many are missing historic changes in the framework of national demography and sociology. Many are missing significant advertising and marketing opportunities targeting Boomer men.

Never before in the history of this nation have so many men entered the 50+ life stage. All Baby Boomer men are now over the age of 55, and another Boomer male turns 65 about every 15 seconds. This predictable and inexorable march to 65+ will continue for the next ten years, and then this generation’s longevity march continues onward toward the eighth, ninth, and tenth decades of life. Someday, around 36 million Boomer men will survive far beyond the mean terminal age achieved by their grandfathers and fathers. This unprecedented longevity bonus granted to so many creates extraordinary social and business opportunities.

Baby Boomer men bring decades of experience to society and culture, with the potential for enormous influence on the nation’s humanistic values, decisions and commitments. Their wisdom and experience can help society evolve into a more enlightened era of gentleness, inclusiveness, environmental awareness, and humanity. The nation’s grandfather-aged men can bestow all the best qualities we associate with grandfathers: mentoring, nurturing, and contributing to the long-term welfare of successor generations.

What and how they consume products and services is changing our social conceptions of aging men, and visa versa.

baby boomer, men, male, gender, advertising, marketing, Generation Reinvention, Brent Green, aging, business, transformation, reinvention, culture, ageismBut why market to Boomer men? Because they want today what they’ve always wanted: engagement with the world around them. They want new experiences and adventures. They want to achieve greater purpose, meaning, and excellence. They want validity. And they spend money to help achieve their deeper motivations. Yet significant differences exist today from the consumers they were as young men. Few are frivolous or impulsive in their buying choices; rather, they are deliberate, with a seasoned sense of themselves, handing marketers new challenges to make productive psychic connections. W. Somerset Maugham understood this generations ago: “It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to be generous, frank and independent.” As brothers, uncles, husbands, partners, fathers and grandfathers, they are generous. As consumers, they are frank. As mature men, they are independently motivated.

Boomer men will influence marketing innovations for several more decades, spiriting the development of new products and services yet unimagined. They will spend their wealth going forward; the only uncertainty is with which companies will they invest to achieve their self-actualizing dreams and goals.

This website gives you a glimpse of just a few of the opportunities awaiting smart marketers who recognize the potential of a generation of men for whom consuming has been a way of life. This will not change in the future.

Actually, it’s a new beginning.

Stay abreast of this dynamic market. Visit Brent Green’s BOOMERS BLOG.

Order your copy of Brent Green’s MARKETING TO LEADING-EDGE BABY BOOMERS  for an eye-opening immersion into generational marketing.

Order your copy of Brent Green’s GENERATION REINVENTION to discover an unprecedented section on marketing to Baby Boomer men.

FOR MEDIA: TO CONTACT BRENT GREEN: brent (at) bgassociates.com

baby boomer, men, male, gender, advertising, marketing, Generation Reinvention, Brent Green, aging, business, transformation, reinvention, culture, ageism