Lina Ko April 25th, 2007
I watched with interest the ‘webisode’ launched on DefineYourself.ca yesterday. Even though we know that this is a marketing initiative introduced by a cosmetic company with the ultimate business objective of getting ageing women boomers to try some of the firm’s medical cosmetic products, the web site is educational, non-commercial, and is empowering women to get involved.
Watching the current ‘webisode’ is like watching a focus group discussion among six women on their experiences with ageing behind the two-way mirror. Getting boomer women to talk with each other is collaborative marketing at its best. By marketing with women instead of marketing to women, this cosmetic company is hoping that female boomers will eventually be so engaged that they will be on board as loyal consumers.
With so many social media channels such as Facebook and Second Life increasing in popularity among the younger demographics, I’m glad to see that collaborative marketing has caught on even with boomers. And believe me, it works for us too!
Lina Ko April 23rd, 2007
In January 2007, the first of Canada’s baby boomers turned 60. According to experts, one spouse in every 65-year-old couple will live to 90 years old. Such greying is evident not only in North America, but across the rich world.
With government treasuries under strain and companies increasingly abandoning ‘defined-benefit’ pension plans, ageing boomers today will be coping with more risks of a long old age. According to financial institutions servicing the retirement group, this is called the yo-yo environment – “You’re On Your Own”. In Canada, where savings are still relatively low and our health-care system increasingly vulnerable, the prospect of being old and sick looks bleak.
For banks and other financial institutions, this insecurity represents a huge opportunity. HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, estimates that, worldwide, people over 55 years of age hold around U.S.$63 trillion, or about 70% of the planet’s wealth.
Services and products with the biggest potential include personalized financial plans and wealth management for baby boomers; annuities which have more than doubled in sales over the last decade; and reverse mortgages. Helping ageing clients understand the various financial products they are buying for their old-age security, especially when the instruments are complicated, are key to marketing success.
Lina Ko April 20th, 2007
Once again, baby boomers are not only dominating the consumer business, they are also the subject matter of news reports and demographic analysis almost every other day. Marina Strauss, retail reporter of The Globe and Mail, wrote about how apparel retailers focus on dressing women boomers earlier this week in her column while Canadian Press filed an article on how boomers drive the growth of prescription drugs.
I’ve commented on the Canadian Marketing Association web site that online and bricks-and-mortar stores which customize their products and services to baby boomers will emerge as winners. Research has shown that women boomers, particularly those in their 50s, are the biggest spenders. As marketers, we need to bear in mind that we should always address a boomer woman’s lifestage instead of her age. More importantly, we should always employ referential rather than deferential marketing – word-of-mouth recommendations are always more credible and memorable to this group.
Lina Ko April 16th, 2007
I’ve never read Christopher Buckley’s fiction before, not even the critically-acclaimed “Thank You For Smoking”. His latest novel, “Boomsday,” was my first experience with his writing. It’s a brilliant political satire and extremely funny. This blog is not intended to be a book club, so I would not attempt to go into further details about the book.
However, this novel drew my attention because it portrays a generational warfare between the powerful Baby Boomers and the younger generation – the U30’s (under 30 years of age). The Boomers are seen to be draining Uncle Sam’s Social Security and the younger Americans are stuck with paying the bill. As a result, the heroine of the novel, Cassandra Devine, a public relations professional in a Washington D.C.-based strategic communications firm, advocates a Voluntary Transition Bill to be passed by the U.S. government. Under this bill, boomers are encouraged to commit suicide when they reach 75 years of age . In return, they will be rewarded with tax benefits and subsidized with burial, mausoleums, full college tuition for their children, and retroactive medical payments going back to age 21.
This is obviously an outrageously ridiculous idea, but that’s why it’s so funny. In Canada, there are already talks about retiring baby boomers creating a job crisis. On the economical impact, there are two schools of thought: similar to what Christopher Buckley has depicted in his novel, some people think that baby boomers are retiring early and spending their life-time savings on reinventing themselves and enjoying life . Another camp thinks that baby boomers have been accumulating unprecedented levels of wealth, and when they retire and move on, they will be leaving trillions of dollars for the next generation.
There could also be differing views on how the author portrays public relations as a profession. His female protagonist, Cassandra, sleeps with her client and ’spins’ news stories – not flattering in any way. On the other hand, she leverages the power of public relations and uses it to her full advantage together with her mentor. The power of public relations eventually plays a major role in the presidential election campaign in the novel. I’m interested in your opinion should you have the time to finish the book!
Lina Ko April 13th, 2007
I came out of the Canon Theatre last night at around 11 p.m. totally wired and excited with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody tune still ringing in my ears. The muscial “We Will Rock You” is a resounding success not just because baby boomers miss Freddie Mercury and his band’s music. It works because the mastermind behind the whole gig developed a futuristic plot paying tribute to Queen and ‘rock and roll’ and other ‘bohemian’ geniuses who had died young. As a result, boomers showed up with their kids and grandkids and boomer women as well as 20-year-old bikers were seen dancing in the aisles at the same time.
Queen and their music might be a 70’s phenomenon, but to motivate boomers to go to the show – $90 for the best seat – instead of spending a night watching TV at home, the show’s producers and writers have scored by having a group of top-notch young performers with amazing ‘pipes’ and ’soul’ to pay tribute to a baby-boomer rock band. They still managed to make the show relevant to younger music lovers with the injection of contemporary pop culture icons such as Britney Spears and Clay Aiken into the story. Once again, marketing entertainment to boomers does not mean appealing to nostalgia alone. It’s nostalgia repackaged in a hip and futuristic format!
Lina Ko April 9th, 2007
I read with interest last week’s article entitled, “Retire to be Rehired,” in last week’s issue of The Economist. It mentioned that some Arizona teachers went right back to teaching after they hit their retirement age. Their so-called ‘double-dipping’ with their collection of both their pension and a salary has caused public outrage.
With millions of boomers near ‘retirement’ age (the median retirement age in Canada has dropped from 62 to 61), a workforce crisis is inevitable, even in Canada when Ontario and some other provinces have recently removed the mandatory retirement age. Whether it’s retiring to enjoy their lives or to reinvent themselves, boomers might be leaving their workforce almost all at once in two to five years’ time.
Rather than letting them go and training new, younger staff which will take a long time, why not let the ‘leading edge’ boomers double-dip, allowing them to add more to the economy than to take from it, so that they will help solve the demographic problem?
Lina Ko April 2nd, 2007
It’s refreshing to see on the Juno Awards last night that boomer musicians such as The Tragically Hip and Jim Cuddy were featured side by side with young, hip artists. In an article in the Calgary Herald last week, Bryan Taylor, vice-president of events and operations for concert promotion firm Keystone Music said that concerts that cater to the grey wave of maturing baby boomers are on the rise.
With classic boomer acts like The Police and Genesis actively touring and selling out in North America, it’s not surprising that bands who have been in the business since the eighties (and earlier!) are still drawing a crowd.
What’s interesting to note is that boomers aren’t just grooving to the tunes of their youth. Many are also rocking out with the kids and enjoy today’s hottest artists like Nelly Furtado, John Mayer and Gwen Stefani.
As well, boomers have become more comfortable with today’s technology and are purchasing MP3 players and downloading their own music. Wireless devices like the BlackBerry (a favourite of the boomer business demographic) even come equipped with MP3 players.
The music industry is constantly challenged to find new and exciting ways to entice consumers. It seems that baby boomers may be sending the message that they want a fusion between the tunes of their youth and music that is hip, current, and downloadable!