MARKETING TO BABY BOOMERS

Why would anyone write a marketing and advertising book about Leading-Edge Baby Boomers?

This challenge landed in my mailbox suddenly in the form of TIME magazine on June 12, 2000. I stumbled upon a four-page denunciation of the Boomer Generation, written with the moral authority of a Boomer, author Daniel Okrent.

At first glance, I thought Okrent wrote the article to make me laugh. Instead, his article made me angry … red-flag-waving-at-the-bull MAD.

Entitled Twilight of the Boomers, the article slapped readers across the face in the first paragraph. Okrent accused his peers of “preening, self-congratulatory smugness.” He introduced a new word into my vocabulary: solipsism – a philosophical view whereby “the self is the only thing that can be known and verified.”

This was a fancy way to accuse Boomers of being narcissistic.

As I read the article, I tripped over erudite quotes from other authorities, such as a comment by Ralph Whitehead Jr., a public service professor at the University of Massachusetts:

“The Baby Boom was a self-absorbed generation, a generation that defined itself not through sacrifice as its parents had, but through indulgence.”

And this tribute from Cathy DeThorne, executive vice president of the advertising giant Leo Burnett:

“Whining Baby Boomers are mourning the fact that those rules they understood just don’t apply anymore.”

Okrent evaluated several Boomer trends, and as a generation, we come wanting.

A full 40% of us have less than $10,000 in personal savings, and 30 million “are no better prepared for retirement than they are for a couple of weeks with the family in Disneyland.” He predicted the likelihood of intergenerational conflict as we “yank the reins of society out of the hands” of our children because or our “desperate self-interest.”

To balance this mordant, anti-Boomer article, my fiery retort to TIME became one of only four rebuttal letters the magazine printed. The sidebar’s headline reduced the generation’s 76 million individuals to “Flower Children” — another rebuff. Then the editors ended the sidebar with one sad boomer’s lamentation about Woodstock, further reinforcing our self-absorbed image.

Consequently, I began this journey to communicate a fairer, more realistic appraisal of my generation. Correcting unsavory images is the beginning of successful marketing. Successful marketing requires unique strategies and tactics, which I present in my book, in detail.

My odyssey started with writing Marketing to Leading-edge Baby Boomers, but this is a baby step compared with what we must now accomplish.

Okrent's article throws down the gauntlet: “'Watch for tension to increase among generations as the boomers enter their late 50s,' says Dr. David Reuben, who heads the geriatrics division at the UCLA School of Medicine. Noting that 'it costs between $35,000 and $50,000 a year [to support] one person in a nursing facility,' a strapped nation will, Reuben concludes, have to choose between caring for its children or its parents.”

Once Boomers become sensitized to this threat, suddenly they interpret social experiences in a different way. They become more aware of capricious treatment, whether an unexpected job layoff or a rebuff in a grocery store line.

If you have a story to share about discrimination, unfair treatment, an unsavory encounter, or if you discover another unbalanced news report like the TIME article that pointed me on this determined path, please contact me.

Here is my email address.

brent@bgassociates.com

To make sure I sort your email message from the dozens of spam messages I receive daily, please include MLEBB in the subject line (the first initials of each word in the book title).

Generational discrimination may get worse as we age. An ageist society, coupled with longstanding dislike for the generation, promises acrimony during our golden years. Boomers must rekindle the spirit of activism to thwart their critics and confront their adversaries.

 BOOMER BLOG

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