Archive for February, 2007

Boomer Buzz at the 2007 Oscars!

Lina Ko February 23rd, 2007

As a movie buff and a baby boomer, I will be at home this Sunday watching the Oscars from the red carpet, “who are you wearing?” hoopla, to the “I’d like to thank everybody on the planet” acceptance speeches.

And apparently I will not be alone. According to a Harris Poll on PRnewswire.com conducted within the United States this month, 43 per cent of baby boomers intend to watch the Oscars this Sunday. It’s likely that a large percentage of the over 5 million projected viewers in Canada will be boomers as well.

2006 marked a year where boomers flocked to see themselves on film, and made millions of dollars for the movie industry. I think boomers’ interest in this year’s Academy Awards is largely due to the conspicuous number of boomer nominees.

Notably, of the five nominees for “Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role” three are boomers or older: Meryl Streep (57) – The Devil Wears Prada; Helen Mirren (61) – The Queen; and Judi Dench (72) – Notes on a Scandal.

In the “Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role” category, boomers also dominate the ballot: Djimon Hounsou (43) – Blood Diamond; Jackie Earle Haley (45) – Little Children; and Eddie Murphy (45) – Dreamgirls.

As the media industry competes for their share of the affluent boomer market, the presence of boomer actors in feature films and topics that appeal to this demographic will increase.

We’ll see if the boomers can beat out the ‘hot’ younger competition and take Oscar home this Sunday. I know who I am rooting for.

Ten Things Boomer Women Want in 2007

Lina Ko February 22nd, 2007

A list of the Top Ten Things Boomer Women Want in 2007 was released today as the result of a contest sponsored by the National Association of Baby Boomer Women (NABBW).

“…The Top Ten List is the true voice of this powerful demographic and offers tremendous opportunity for marketers to clearly understand what Boomer women want to help support, enrich and sustain their lives,” said Dotsie Bregel, CEO and founder if the National Association of Baby Boomer Women in a press release on PR.com.

To see what Amercian boomer women want in 2007 is interesting because I’d bet there will be some differences if we conduct a similar survey with their Canadian counterparts. Health, the environment and the pursuit of happiness might top the Canadian list. And who can disagree with American boomer women on numbers 9 and 10 on the top 10 list? Kudos to marketers like Unilever who portray real boomer women in their ad campaign for the new Dove pro▪age skin and hair care line! The earlier marketers speak to boomer women who ‘are their stage, but not their age,’ the bigger the impact will be on their bottom line!

The Official NABBW Top Ten List:
1. Love. We want the people of the world to love each other and to love God. We desire to make a difference.

2. Peace and safety. We want our children and grandchildren to be safe from predators, guns, environmental disasters, and war.

3. A world where truth is our highest value, especially from our leaders.

4. Financial security.

5. To travel for adventure, rest, and to visit family and friends.

6. Assurance that our government sponsored retirement benefits and Medicare will be there when we need them.

7. Affordable, quality healthcare, including prescription drugs, for our parents, families, and our present and future selves.

8. To participate in our healthfulness and well-being. We want doctors to listen to our concerns and work proactively with us to keep our bodies healthy and fit.

9. A realistic portrayal of our generation in commercials, catalogs, and media print. We want a more positive depiction of boomer women in movie, books and TV.

10. The fashion world to recognize we still like to feel and look pretty.

The dull roar of 9.8 million Canadians

Lina Ko February 16th, 2007

Give me an “R-R”…give me an “S”…give me a “P”…now all together “RRSP!” Every year, the financial services’ cheerleaders don their miniskirts and shake their pom-poms trying to rally the baby boomers to action. And 9.8 million baby boomers sit on the sidelines. Instead of one big rousing cheer, 46 per cent of boomers sit in silence contemplating the fact their retirement savings are off track.

As demographer David Foot explains, at one point in our history, Canada was winning the baby-producing race. Even though our baby boom started later (in 1947), we sprinted ahead of the United States and Australia and had the largest boom in the industrialized world (maybe those long Canadian winters gave us the advantage). Nonetheless, baby boomers comprise 33 per cent of our population, and because this group is so large, their impact is slightly more important in Canadian society than for our American neighbours.

That being said, as the front-end boomers turn 60 this year and their younger counterparts enter their 40s, retirement is now on the horizon for the entire group – you might assume Canadians are dumping money left, right, and centre into their RRSPs.

But if that were the case, we wouldn’t be inundated with the mountain of articles, ads and commentary about RRSP’s that are printed in all the major papers. Frightening figures abound such as “$1 million US is the least you’ll need to generate income for retirement,” or “Boomers will need 70 per cent of their ending salary to finance their retirement.” The richest generation in Canadian history needs help – they can’t rely on pensions and even working later in life can’t guarantee them the nest egg for their future.

That’s why one of the largest growth industries in Canada is, and will continue to be, financial services. Sadly, many marketers miss the mark when they target baby boomers. Don’t project boomers into their future as senior citizens; they’re not thinking that far ahead. If they were, they would have enough in RRSPs already.

The key to reaching this group is to recognize they are no longer young, but don’t annoy them by making them out to be senior citizens (65 plus) before their time. Retirement no longer means the retirement of our parents’ era. To a lot of boomers, retirement means continuing to work in their own way and reinventing themselves. RRSPs are only part of the game plan.

cranky.com

Lina Ko February 5th, 2007

Well it had to happen eventually, the world’s first age-relevant search engine and it’s NOT for teenagers – it’s for boomers. Now don’t jump to assumptions – the text isn’t THIS BIG, and it doesn’t explain how to use the internet – instead it processes every request from the perspective of someone who is at least 50 years old. The concept behind cranky.com is that boomers feel overwhelmed using search engines like Google or Yahoo because they deliver too many results. Moreover, the team at Eons, the company behind the site and other online tools for boomers searched over 500,000 websites most visited by this demographic, and reviewed the top 5,000.

Users are encouraged to rate and review websites they find via cranky.com, and the site lists the top 10 subjects searched by boomers on a daily basis. As an advertiser or marketer, this search engine provides limitless research, advertising, and marketing opportunities. Start thinking about how your company can be only a click away from reaching its boomer potential.