Boomers 2.0: Boomers online
October 9, 2007
Earlier this year, futurist, author and JWT Boom CEO Mirian Salzman appeared as a keynote speaker in Beyond the Numbers: The Boomer Marketing Summit — Boomers 2.0 — Reaching 40-plus Consumers Today. The press release for the conference indicated that Salzman would be addressing ten shockers about 50somethings, including:
Sex: They’re having more of it and rumor has it: it’s better.
Kids: 50somethings today are more likely to be young moms than young grandmothers.
Career: Second and third careers allow 50somethings to push the envelope and fulfill dreams they left behind years ago.
Reinvention: 50somethings are given license to be whoever they want to be for their second adulthood.
As a boomer, I am hardly shocked, but I get the idea the marketing world is coming to realizations about the lifestyles of boomers that come as a shock to their industry. Equally surprising are the misconceptions about boomers and internet use.
At least the misconceptions about internet use are surprising to those of us actively online.
In relation to a survey conducted by JWT Boom, a marketing firm specializing in reaching Boomer consumers and ThirdAge, ThirdAge CEO Sharon Whiteley was quoted as saying, “ThirdAgers — baby boomers and mid-lifers generally in their early 40s through mid-60s — are regularly stereotyped as being technophobes and slow to jump on the technology bandwagon. However… not only are they online, they’re surprisingly a formidable presence on the Internet.”
For marketers, the numbers revealed by the survey are staggering in terms of consumerism, and the implications brought by the numbers to internet use and internet business. “Close to 108 million people are over the age of 45 — more than 40 percent of the population — and they account for 70 percent of the U.S. net worth, controlling $9 trillion. In the next 15 years, the 50-64 age popular will grow by 50 percent and the 65-plus population will grow 32 percent.”
What are boomers doing online? Seeking information; staying in touch with family and friends; making travel arrangements, shopping for books, clothes and electronics; and reading articles.
What aren’t boomers doing online? The survey concludes boomers are not watching videos, writing blogs, playing games or downloading music.
True, from what I can tell, blogs by boomers are not as prolific as say the mommy blogs. But there are boomers blogging, and some of the blogs even have YouTube videos embedded in them.
If not now, I predict we will see boomers in greater numbers blogging. If not now, boomers in greater numbers will be watching YouTube videos as well as uploading videos. Several fairly new social networking sites have come into being targeted to the boomer generation. These social networking portals encourage their boomer members to start blogs.
Aside from the marketing insights for the marketing industry, the conferences and surveys focused on boomers reveal a glaringly obvious take-away message for the rest of us.
If you are a boomer casting about looking for a second or third career, launching an online business or service catering to the boomers of your generation appears to be a field wide open. At least for now.
With the marketing conferences taken a renewed look at the boomer generation in relation to the internet, it’s likely we are about to be bombarded with all things boomer. It’s the 60s all over again –only this time Madison Avenue will not be reaching through our television sets with sugar-laden breakfast cereals ads as we watched Saturday morning cartoons. This time they will be reaching through our computer monitors to connect with us and our wallets.
