Boomers.
June 3rd, 2008 | Published in demographics | 2 Comments
All this talk about generations made me particularly alert to this article, Five Things You Don’t Know About Baby Boomers from the National Retail Federation.
As a group, the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 is much too large and diverse to share a single lifestyle, life stage, purchasing proclivity or political agenda. And most of them are too wealthy to be ignored by marketers and retailers obsessed by youth.
Lots of stats here. And marketing ideas. And segmentation info.
All the stuff that keeps us going over here.
I’m a generational theory purist. The two founders of generational theory state that Boomers are born 1943-1960, and GenX are born 1961-1981. These dates do not align with the data in this article.
I offer that a key marketing point about Boomers is not the size of the generation but their underlying generational personality, which tends to find vision, values and religion as critical. If a company can articulate to a Boomer consumer its vision, and said Boomer aligns, then loyalty and sales are much more likely.
GenX’s underlying generational personality and archetype tends to ping to survival, liberty and honor. That same tactic used on a Boomer, to a GenXer’s ears, is like … meh. “Whatever. What’s real? What’s practical? What will impact my life TODAY? Great, you have vision. That’s cool. But, I need to know if your product works and will help me today with what I need.”
I know you’re just passing along an article published in a fairly credible magazine (Demographics), but I take a stand that the author’s premise is off. And when one’s premise is off, the conclusions and strategies are off.
That’s my two yuan.
Jessie – Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I believe what you’re saying about the size of the generation not being the point, but the personality of the generation. But the fact that the generations are considered, segmented, studied and targeted is important. The winners in the marketing game will consider not just the numbers but the way of thinking, behaviors, etc. The article does point out some behaviors that if aligned with values can be useful to savvy marketers. – Wendy