Boomers

Born from 1946 to 1964 – Baby Boomers Turn 46 to 64 in 2010

 

Last summer something interesting occurred to me. In 2010, a demographic symmetry arrives.

Americans born between 1946 and 1964—the birth years sociologists have traditionally used to delineate the Baby Boomer Generation—range in age, youngest to oldest, from 46 to 64. The demographic contrivance of 1946 to 1964 becomes the aging reality of 46 to 64.

Millions of Boomers may be asking themselves a rhetorical question Beatle Paul McCartney first intoned in his 1967 hit, When I’m Sixty-Four.

Will you still need me?

Families and friends will still need their 64-year-old Boomers. And, undoubtedly, businesses will still need all their Boomer customers—even if many businesses avoid targeting aging markets.

Demographic and economic exigencies cannot be ignored. Boomers represent 26% of the entire U.S. population, with one in three American adults being Boomers. This generation of Americans has had a long history of being the nation’s dominant consumer segment. Boomers today contribute about 40% of all consumer-spending, and the generation controls roughly 70% of the nation’s assets. That’s an unassailable business case.

But can a generation be a business target?

Diverse and distributed as they may be, Boomers are bound together by a compelling sense of their generational reference group.

Steve Gillon, Ph.D., author of Boomer Nation and a nationally acclaimed academic and historian, observed that not all generations possess a common identity that can be so widely understood and shared:

While past generations have shared common experiences, they developed only a loose sense of generational identity. Largely because of their size and the emergence of mass media, especially television, Boomers are the first generation to have a defined sense of themselves as a single entity.

Dominant demographics and being the first generation raised with broadcast television gave Boomers a layered and complex sense of identity, the shared values of which continue to propel them into the future. I believe that a Boomer-sense-of-collective-self will inspire future marketing dimensions—and business opportunities.

The journey began for each of 78 million individuals sometime between 1946 and 1964. The long strange trip continues in 2010 as each celebrates a birthday ranging from 46 to 64.

A dynamic generation of men and women is aging—and changing through aging—and changing aging.

Indeed, the times they are a-changin’.

Avatar: A Mythic Movie for Baby Boomers

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, ladies and gentlemen.” cautions Col. Miles Quaritch, a sinewy, pugnacious antagonist in James Cameron’s instantly classic science fiction movie, Avatar.

Most American Boomers recall a powerful line from the first mega-movie to capture them as children: an eternal story of fanciful travel and even alien humanoids, a movie masterpiece called Wizard of Oz. Spoken by child actress Judy Garland, the original quote rings through the ages: “Toto, I have the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Many glowing film reviews are being written about Cameron’s newest cinematic achievement. My filter for this movie is the same as the context of this blog, my books and speeches. I watched Avatar to understand how Boomer history, sociology and culture pervade the story, arguably the finest achievement of a director whose birthright is the Boomer generation.

What can Boomers discover and rediscover by simply investing 163 minutes watching this film?

First, Avatar is a blockbuster movie, wide and deep, thus encouraging multiple viewings to comprehend and appreciate tens of thousands of directorial nuances built into a technological feat of 3-D animation.

Epic movie events populate Boomer history. Many dotingly recall blockbuster films from their youth. Cinematic extravaganzas from the 1950s often showcased prehistoric monsters portrayed by men wearing latex rubber suits (and silly by today’s standards).

Perhaps the most famous of those blockbuster monster movies was Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, released in 1956 as an American adaptation of the original Japanese version. Filmed just a decade after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla was an allegory for irrevocable consequences that radioactive weapons could have on our planet.

Without ambiguity or subtlety, Avatar is a pro-environmental, antiwar movie and allegory.

Cameron’s awe-inspiring world of Pandora—its lush beauty, alien landscapes and ironically comprehensible flora and fauna—invites viewers to yearn for places of unspoiled beauty, tapping into deeply felt human needs for connection with the natural world. Mechanized assaults by humans on Pandora’s raw loveliness become more wretched in juxtaposition.

Clearly the director/writer of this movie has experienced and internalized antiwar messages of the Vietnam War era and even the bitter taste of environmental desecration symbolized by Love Canal. Visibly he has captured his revulsion for offensive war through a film that hauntingly intersects with two terrestrial wars today.

By probing the mystical, spiritual life of the giant blue Na’vi, Avatar champions a tribal narrative, recalling an Age of Aquarius when leading-edge Boomers became more sensitive to alternative lifestyles of Native Americans and Hindu mystics. As Boomers reached maturity, passage into independence for many also incorporated reverence for nature and unspoiled places, thus popularizing a renaissance in rural living and backpacking excursions into wilderness. Tribal ideals included exploration of new realms of spirituality and esoteric rituals designed to foster community while embracing inter-species diversity and racial acceptance.

It’s obvious to me that James Cameron is a Baby Boomer, not just because he was born in 1954 but because of his values. We can reasonably assume that one wellspring for his story was many movie experiences he must have had growing up. Like many of his generation, he learned to cheer for the underdog through epic stories such as Star Wars and Rocky. We may surmise that Cameron also must have felt deep indignation when beholding exploitation of land, native peoples, and wild animals as he watched Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves.

Through his portrayal of the Na’vi people on the planet Pandora, Cameron reveals cinematic influences that have led us to a more post-racial era. The director may have learned to identify more with minorities though movies that successfully amplified the social carcinoma of racism: great films such as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, In the Heat of the Night, and more recently, Mississippi Burning.

Many movie critics have bestowed actress Sigourney Weaver with accolades for her performance in this movie. Once again, this Boomer performer, who turned 60 this year, has portrayed a character with a strong feminist bearing: a protagonist determined to prevail over mean-spirited forces. Weaver’s Grace Augustine recalls other iconic female heroes (and Cameron characters) such as Terminator’s Sarah Conner (portrayed by Linda Hamilton) and Alien’s Ellen Ripley (also portrayed by Weaver).

Portraying aggressive and racist Col. Quaritch, actor Stephen Lang, born in 1952, reprises the historically endowed role of a gung-ho military antagonist. He reminded me of other complicated and angry men reenacting the Vietnam War such as Tom Berenger, who portrayed a harsh and hardcore staff sergeant in Oliver Stone’s Platoon (a fellow Boomer director).

Writing for The Denver Post, movie critic Lisa Kennedy observed that Avatar “conjures Boomer memories of Saturday afternoons spent in the company of Ray Harryhausen’s hydras, dinosaurs and cyclops.” This pioneering special effects genius has obviously influenced James Cameron with storytelling possibilities of stop-motion animation, now updated to achieve truly otherworldly movie experiences.

Avatar also conjures Boomer recollections of epic movies, heroic storylines, racial injustice, xenophobia, environmental desecration, feminism, antiwar sentiments, historical exploitation of Native Americans, and yearning to return to nature, to live in peace more communally.

This movie reminds us of when we were young and becoming more complicated members of a tribe, not just a generation. 

Susan Boyle, Baby Boomer Celebrities, and A New Culture of Fame

Popular culture favors youth. Celebrity favors youth. Many of today’s icons of the Baby Boomer Generation achieved fame before turning 30, certainly by 40.

And unlike older generations, where many youth icons faded away after age 50, Boomer icons persist successfully today: filling stadiums, such as Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Gene Simmons, and Bonnie Rait; and winning starring roles in movies, such as Richard Gere, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep, and Sigourney Weaver.

The Boomer generation’s cultural hegemony is maintaining, even expanding celebrity status for those well past 50, including all the aforementioned artists who all turned 60 this year.

In Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers, I raise another possibility for the future of fame, if not a wish: that this generation would be capable of recognizing and elevating artists who do not achieve acclaim until after the age of 45.

I propose this possibility as another tangible sign that Boomer dominance over popular culture will not soon fade as critics predict; rather, the generation would continue to influence paradigm shifts about aging and popular celebrity appeal. Perhaps for the first time in western culture, older artists might step to the international stage, also for the first time—talented individuals who rise above ageism, looks-ism and longstanding social barriers to reach acclaim after reaching a certain age.

Well, this week my wish has been granted.

Last April, an understated woman opened her mouth and sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical “Les Misérables” with nearly perfect pitch and clarity. The judges and television studio audience became enthralled, struggling to find congruency between what their eyes were witnessing and their ears were hearing.

Susan Boyle, age 48, a church volunteer from lackluster Blackburn, Scotland, became an instant celebrity. The YouTube video of her shocking performance on “Britain’s Got Talent,” the UK version of “American Idol,” has received over 33 million views and nearly 90,000 five-star ratings. According to Visible Measures, a company that computes viewings of Internet videos, her catalog of on-online clips has been watched over 310 million times.

Melissa Lonner, senior producer at NBC’s “Today” show, where Ms. Boyle performed on November 23, clarified the meaning of this watershed moment in her comments to the New York Times: “She is the perfect Cinderella story. She connects with the public and crosses over so many socioeconomic platforms. And she made a great record with songs that everyone knows and can relate to.”

But trouncing Simon Cowell, the cynical talent judge, is not the end of this Boomer woman’s remarkable accomplishments. This week her new shrink-wrapped CD, “I Dreamed a Dream,” sold over 700,000 copies in the United States; became the fastest-selling debut album in British history; and soared to the number one sales position in Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia.

Equally thought-provoking is the manner in which this album has been purchased. Ninety-four percent of the sales have been CDs, not digital downloads, which is counter to the prevailing trend where only 77 percent of music sales today are CDs.

The New York Times speculates why Boyle’s album has been acquired in greater numbers in the form of atoms instead of digital bits:

For many in the music industry Ms. Boyle’s sales are a reminder of a large and often forgotten audience: older listeners who, whether they are less tech-savvy than younger consumers or they simply prefer to hold purchases in their hands, favor CDs over downloads.

Coincidentally, this week Microsoft and AARP released a new study entitled, “Boomers and Technology: An Extended Conversation.” Michael Rogers, the futurist author, concludes: “Boomers want technology to fit the lives they have made and the values they hold dear. If their children are the technology pioneers, the first to explore new territory, Boomers are the settlers, arriving later to set up schools and libraries, to sink deep roots, and to build permanent structures.” 

Boomers know how to download music; many own iPods and have scads of MP3’s loaded on their computer hard drives. Yet, the soft touch of Susan Boyle’s voice begets the higher touch preference for a CD over a digital download. And for all those in the technology arena, often shaping their business decisions according to preferences of younger generations, this defining moment should be an adequate reminder that Boomers have the economic might and market dominance to shape the future of technology adoption and usage.

Susan Boyle’s new CD includes “I Dreamed a Dream,” the song that made her famous; religious hymns “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace”; and covers of popular Boomer rock songs by the Monkees, Rolling Stones, and Madonna.

In my book I also touch upon the underlying psychology that might be driving Susan Boyle’s meteoric rise to fame:

Although this generation’s impact has been significant in the entertainment world, Baby Boomers do not want their legacy to rely solely on the great work of rock musicians and Hollywood actors. They are certainly proud of the accomplishments of two famous Bruce’s—Bruce Springsteen and Bruce Willis—but the people they admire in their everyday lives include thousands of heroes who never achieve mass-market celebrity. These unsung superstars may be famous for their accomplishments in only a single quiet industry—and many prefer anonymity to celebrity—but they are nevertheless as important to the Boomer legacy as its Tinsel Town celebrities.

One of the uplifting possibilities of the Boomer generation arriving in later life is a realization that ordinary older people can achieve extraordinary dreams if given a chance. Society used to erect nearly insurmountable barriers before those who sought fame for the first time after the age of 40.

As the culture of fame finally admits older newcomers—those who have not spent months or years preparing for greatness, but rather have practiced their art and nurtured their dreams for decades, as has Susan Boyle—we witness and celebrate the complete realization of human potential across the lifespan, unimpeded by age or prior socioeconomic status. 

Boomer Nostalgia: Icons and Images

Peanut butter sandwiches with strawberry jam.

Alfalfa sprouts in salads.

Patchouli stick incense.

Hand-made, multi-colored candles.

A silver peace symbol as a necklace.

Stained glass lamps.

Indian bedspreads.

Faded, worn blue jeans and old cowboy boots.

These are the tastes, smells, sights, and textures of Baby Boomer coming-of-age memories.

These were not just objects extracted from the montage of their everyday lives back then; these were their icons, suggesting more transcendental purposes.

Natural living. Higher consciousness. Abundant health. Artistic expression. Heightened sensuality. Spirituality. Sexual healing. Laid-back comfort. Anti-authoritarian sentiments.

These material objects came to represent a more integrated life, greater focus, higher awareness, and spiritual well being.

Boomers intentionally added meaning beyond mere utilitarian purpose to the tastes, sounds, smells, and textures of their daily lives. Some journeyed to alternative realities through drug trips to discover extraordinary meaning in mundane, everyday objects and experiences. Some natural experiences of discovery became punctuation marks by virtue of novelty. Boomers were young then, and the world was still fresh.

 

As Boomers reach the 50+ and 60+ stages of life, these powerful images and experiences from youth gain renewed power when employed wisely. Boomers sometimes choose to reconnect with these icons—their mythology—to re-experience the freshness of those discoveries, at once simple in idea but complex in meaning and interpretation.

If you know the triggers to best achieve a heightened experience of your product or service, employ them.

Don’t just display your new bagel toaster; set the stage of experience. Replicate a famous rock album cover by juxtaposing with your machine a freshly toasted sandwich, brimming with chunky peanut butter and lusty strawberry jam.

Don’t just show a new home for sale, vacuous and void of furniture. Rather, before the next tour with empty nesters, light some glowing candles and a stick of sandalwood incense to add warmth to its rooms.

Don’t just gather political supporters in the name of social justice. Bring out yellow daisies, white doves, and peace symbols.

This is not to suggest that you should trot out sensual experiences from the sixties and seventies as blatant and obvious attempts to manipulate. Those who can talk the talk but did not walk the walk have done this too many times, and rather badly.
This iconographic dance is along a fine line.

Marketers often make the mistake that an advertisement should offer literal, and therefore, stereotypical reference objects about the group it is targeting. This can lead to a message that speaks down to rather than includes the target audience.

Playing the icons with the wrong tone or in the wrong context can suggest manipulation or condescension, somewhat with the same result as when an adult tries to use teenage slang and then fails to understand the subtleties of an expression.

Creative integration of those youthful icons into the experience of your product or service, in a way that does not summon conscious attention or suggest imprecise understanding, can reach into both the deepest wells of collective experience and many cherished remembrances.

Certainly, you are playing the nostalgia card by evoking these icons, as others have done with every generation’s peculiar cultural lexicon of foods, fashion, entertainment, and values. But the key to doing it well is the art with which you show—rather than tell—the story.

 

The objects of Boomer youth are the embodiment of stories about discovery, relationships, values and dreams—icons. Understand the objects contextually, and you will be closer to understanding their hearts.

Once you crack this code, then your product will become the priority, not just another discretionary choice.

In Memoriam: Dr. Gene Cohen, A Creative, Thoughtful Visionary For Boomers and All Aging Generations

Gene D. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D. has forever changed the field of geriatrics while successfully challenging misconceptions about aging as a lifestage of inevitable decline and loss.

His scientifically-derived conclusions and insights about aging brains are voluminous. His trendsetting research and thoughtful analyses are inspiring new industries. His influence will persist for generations as society evolves more optimistic models of the aging process.

A member of the Silent Generation at 65 (not quite a Leading-Edge Boomer by one year), Dr. Cohen passed away on Friday, November 6, 2009, after a brave, fourteen-year battle against prostate cancer.

For those in business and marketing, Dr. Cohen’s research and clinical observations provide exciting new insights into aging, while creating vast opportunities for new products and services and reframing outdated societal myths.

Here are a few of Dr. Cohen’s salient observations—insights not derived from wishful thinking or overly idealized beliefs, but from rock-hard scientific research, much of it emanating from the field of neuroscience:

1. Contrary to popular myth, brain cells do not stop forming after adolescence; growing new brain cells is a lifelong phenomenon.

2. The brain's ability to grow new neurons is a dramatic reason for optimism about the brain’s potential in the second half of life.

3. Older brains can learn new things, and they are actually better than younger brains at many types of intellectual tasks.

4. The brain and mental capacity continue to grow throughout life.

5. As humans age, we use both hemispheres of the brain more efficiently; the brain becomes vastly more creative as life progresses.

6. Adversity and loss that often accompany later-life actually encourage creativity by forcing change.

From the perspective of cognition, how do aging adults differ from younger adults? According to Dr. Cohen, aging brains become more adept in three forms of thinking:

• Relativistic thinking, where understanding is based on a synthesized combination of disparate views. Older adults abandon absolute truth in favor of more realistic relative truths.

• Dualist thinking, where contradictions in opposing views are uncovered and opposites are held in mind at the same time without judgment. In this way, opposing views can be accepted as valid.

• Systematic thinking allows the person to see the forest as well as the trees, rising above minutia to understand the bigger picture. The thinker is thus not trapped in personal and petty issues.

Throughout his long career, Dr. Cohen distinguished himself for his vision, kindness and unyielding commitment to the field of aging and improving health of older adults.

After graduating from Harvard College and Georgetown University School of Medicine, he began shaping the field of geriatrics through his work at the National Institute of Mental Health in the early 1970’s. He was the first chief of the Center on Aging and Director of the Program on Aging.

During his early years at NIMH, he took interest in minorities by supporting research on mental health of impoverished and homeless, leading to Medicare changes allowing for reimbursement of mental health services (beyond the original annual $250 limit).

He continued his commitment to biological, psychological and social issues in geriatric medicine at the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health where he served as Acting Director, helping grow the institute budget into the hundreds of millions and catapulting the field of aging into a global spotlight.

He authored over 150 publications in the field of aging including, The Creative Age: Awakening the Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, published in 2000 and most recently, The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain. The former book is groundbreaking in its revelations about creativity and aging.

Dr. Cohen also acted as the first director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University where he held positions of Professor of Health Care Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

His hobbies reflected his professional interests. A blossoming game inventor after age 50, Dr. Cohen demonstrated that creativity and untapped potential are possible for older adults. His most recent game, Making Memories Together, assists families and caregivers of Alzheimer’s disease patients.

As I prepared this tribute, I recalled that someone once snapped a photo of Dr. Cohen with me at a meeting of The Society, a global think-tank founded by esteemed author David B. Wolfe and focused on business, marketing and aging. This photo memory is a wonderful gift from Dr. Cohen to all of us dedicated to changing aging:

Do not go gently, indeed. This is a lasting message from a man who has dramatically influenced the profession of aging, instilling more clarity about the unique contributions of aging adults in an aging society, and he did so while fighting prostate cancer for fourteen years.

Automotive Advertising to Boomers and Ford's Lincoln MKS - Burnin' for You

We can critically analyze many ramifications of “advertising to Baby Boomers” by surveying the fields of consumer psychology, generational sociology, cultural anthropology, and age demographics.

We can seek informed authorities on psychosocial development, cohort effects, life-stage interventions, brain changes due to aging, and emotional processing. We can do all this just to warm up.

We can also flip off all the left-brain analysis for a moment and just take a look at some ads that have powerful branding energy. So I’ve selected two ads for your viewing enjoyment, ads built around a rock ‘n’ roll spirit. Ads successfully reaching through media clutter to make consumers stop and take notice.

For many months I have been appreciating recent television commercials from Lincoln MKS. The first in this highly produced campaign features a cover of David Bowie’s signature song, “Space Oddity.”

Released within weeks of this post, the second ad has also caused me to feel the rush of “my music,” featuring a signature hit rock song from Blue Oyster Cult, “Burnin’ for You.”  

If you’re interested in further dissecting how to create effective automotive advertising targeting Boomers, perhaps I should first reiterate why you should think about it. Boomers are responsible for over half of all luxury car sales. According to a recent article in Barron’s magazine:

The median age of all luxury-car buyers is 52, by some estimates, and shoppers 50 or older account for the highest proportion of purchases or leases of luxury-car makers’ most expensive models; they have worked the longest, have accumulated the most assets and have money to spend on themselves.

Here are some thoughts about why Lincoln MKS may be squarely hitting the Boomer branding bulls-eye:

1) Lincoln MKS adds emotional catharsis to the spots by employing hit classic rock music from significant artists, including David Bowie and Blue Oyster Cult. Classic rock music can get our attention.

2) However, the music beds don’t just replay the old music; they update these tunes with performances by cover artists who deliver exciting new interpretations, and therefore bring new life to these old songs.

3) My colleague Chuck Nyren, author of the seminal Advertising to Baby Boomers, has often commented that classic rock music can be a deterrent to effective Boomer advertising since the music potentially pulls the viewer’s mind into a state of nostalgic rumination, causing the receiver to completely ignore the ad’s sponsor or purpose. (Great tune... but I’m now thinking about 1969 and a former girlfriend who symbolizes that song in my life.) This can be true, and Chuck has made a very astute observation, so…

4) Lincoln successfully integrates enormously powerful visual imaging with flawless editing to render the songs organic to the overall message gestalt. These ads create a state of suspense for viewers, making us want to keep watching. The television spots drive viewers forward with the speed they can expect from a Lincoln MKS.

5) The second ad featuring the Blue Oyster Cult tune centers its appeal on a mysterious new technology called “EcoBoost.” Although in 30 seconds we don’t know what this means, for those of us who are trying to incorporate “conscience consumerism” into our lives (and Boomers over-represent this burgeoning LOHAS market segment) probably the mere suggestion of new ecological advantages to be found in a Lincoln MKS 2010 is enough to inspire wanna-be Tesla owners (who can’t afford the hip car) to jump online for more details.

Lincoln MKS has, in my opinion, aptly demonstrated how to create a branding overlay that’s nuanced to attract Boomers but certainly can be seen as appealing to others who didn’t grow up with David Bowie and Blue Oyster Cult. We see great visual effects integrated with damn good rock music, leaving viewers with the simple impression that these cars are hot to trot.

I hope you enjoyed the Lincoln MKS ads as much as I do. If you did or did not, please let me know what you think.

For those of you who have become accustomed during the last year to reading blog articles here that are more like longer essays, I decided this time to give both of us a break. But if you’re interested in reading more, take a look at my newest article on Huffington Post about how age discrimination in the workplace can and shall be overcome (we hope).

The National Parks, Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan and Baby Boomers

My previous two posts reviewed the extraordinary lure of Europe to members of the Baby Boomer generation. Whereas Boomers are positively predisposed to travel to Europe, this generation is also today confronting enormous economic hurdles, making European travel less accessible and attractive.

One alternative for travel-hungry but budget-conscious Boomers unfolded before a national television audience beginning September 27 in a spectacular documentary series by filmmakers Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. During six consecutive nights and twelve hours of programming, Burns and Duncan shared chaotic and inspirational history of our national parks.

This story began in 1851 when white men first beheld a valley that would become known as Yosemite. Their primary mission then was to expel Native Americans from the valley. Twenty-one years later, in 1872, Yosemite became the first national park. A unique idea to preserve and protect wild and beautiful places eventually led to a park system that today encompasses almost 400 sites and protects 84 million acres.

Creation of almost every park required enormous political will, as nearly every acre represented economic opportunities for private interests, from lumber to mining and water resources to tourism. Almost every park owes its existence to a few passionate protectors who fought against powerful lobbies that would have preferred exploitation over preservation.

As these filmmakers wisely observe, the original idea of a national park system is unique to America. In the Old Continent, the most compelling and memorable natural landscapes tend to be owned by aristocracy and private interests, and if these places become available for the general public to experience, they do so because of benevolence and generosity of landowners. “Only a democracy could have thought that land could have been set aside, not for the rich and nobility, but for everybody for all time,” Burns said in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor.

In America, vast tracts of wilderness have been preserved for perpetuity, owned equally by all the nation’s citizens rather than a minority or elite. These landscapes constitute an incomparable bequeathal to the future and generations yet to be born. Whereas Europe has majestic cathedrals, America has majestic canyons and mountains of equal spiritual import – “cathedrals of God’s handiwork.”

The film trailer intones, “As Americans, we’re not only connected to this land, we’re connected by it.” And this is how Boomers became part of the history of the national parks. Many remember at least one special trip to a park shared with parents and siblings during the 1950s or 1960s.

I recall visiting Rocky Mountain National Park many times with my parents: a vivid tableau of majestic mountain landscapes, a pungent pine aroma from blue spruce following afternoon rains, a comical encounter with chipmunks begging for peanuts as we gazed at inspirational beauty from an observation point. This is how my parents taught me about the importance of wilderness preservation, at just about the time when Congress passed the Wilderness Preservation Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson 45 years ago on September 3, 1964.

These two filmmakers are also members of the Baby Boomer generation who reaffirm by their achievements many core values important to the generation. This includes respect for the nation’s pioneering traditions, drive to capture history artfully through modern media, commitment to an enduring conservation ethic, love of wilderness trekking through low-impact sports such as backpacking and cross country skiing, and veneration of shared egalitarian values.

Ken Burns, born in July 1953, is quintessentially an American born of the Boomer generation, still wearing a longer hair style reminiscent of the 1970s. Nominated for two Academy Awards and recipient of several Emmy Awards, Burns is son of a homemaker and anthropology professor. After receiving a B.A. from Hampshire College, he avoided a corporatized path to success but instead chose to become an entrepreneur and cofounder of Florentine Films. Since 1975 he has become an innovator of many of the most significant techniques in modern documentary filmmaking. His filmography includes several critically acclaimed PBS series: Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, and The Civil War, which set a benchmark for viewership on public television by attracting 40 million for the premiere in 1990.

Dayton Duncan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 and is author of ten books, including Out West: A Journey through Lewis & Clark’s America. He has served as a consultant and writer for many of Ken Burns’ documentaries including The Civil War, Baseball and Jazz. He has written a critically acclaimed children’s book, The West, An Illustrated History for Children. He has also been a political operative in the Democratic Party, serving as chief of staff to New Hampshire Governor Hugh Gallen and as national press secretary for Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential bid.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan can also be seen as a compelling invitation for Baby Boomers to preserve their legacy. Americans are “co-owners of some of the most spectacular scenery on earth,” Burns said. “And all you’ve got to do is go out and visit your property now and then, and make sure it’s being taken care of. And put it in your will for the next generation.”

Boomers and Travel in Europe on Just $500 Per Day

When you’re down and troubled
And you need a helping hand
And nothing, whoa nothing is going right.
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest nights.

As we walked under a low archway heading down a narrow passageway on an ancient cobblestone street, I heard lyrics as true and clear as James Taylor had ever sung them. I assumed someone was listening to one of Taylor’s albums, perhaps in a nearby apartment, and his ballad echoed brilliantly off surrounding brick walls.

Then, at the end of the passageway, we came upon a young Italian street performer singing “You’ve Got a Friend.” He played percussion by stomping his feet, to which he had cleverly attached a maraca and tambourine. His voice rang melodic and pure. His interpretation of the classic James Taylor song lacked perfection only due to mispronunciation of a few English words – totally understandable and excusable.

And I thought to myself: Why would a young Italian street performer choose to cover James Taylor’s catalog and play these sweet, sentimental American songs just a few yards from a museum housing Peggy Guggenheim’s art collection... in Venice, Italy? 

We lingered, appreciating this young man’s joyful enthusiasm and interpretation. His performance earned a few discretionary Euros from us, and as we hesitated to enjoy his music, others near our age also stopped to watch this gentle performer. They also tossed coins in the musician’s open guitar case, which I estimate had accumulated at least 50 Euros.

Then the answer to my rhetorical question came to me. This performer understands how to leverage an economic opportunity obvious to anyone traveling in Europe during the last few weeks. Boomers are everywhere. And if you’re going to sing for your dinner, covering James Taylor is a smart choice. Boomers, both American and European, will happily part with their money for those who deliver authentic experiences.

This young man isn’t just a talented folk singer and guitarist; he’s also a shrewd businessman. And he could teach European tourism officials some valuable lessons in marketing to the vast U.S. Boomer market: It's called value.

As I traveled through Italy during mid-September, I encountered and conversed with Boomers who had chosen to dig deeply into their bank accounts to afford an increasingly unaffordable yearning: the Old Continent and all the rich beauty it offers.

Several days before exploring Venice, for example, I came upon a group of American Boomers who were involved in an educational travel experience under the supervision of a young Chicago-based artist. Poised and painting above Cortona in the Tuscan hill country, these aspiring artists had been learning the ancient craft of oil painting.

Except for the well-to-do, Europe has become barely an affordable travel experience during the last few years. And this sits in striking contrast to the way things were. Many who backpacked and traveled through Europe in the 1960s and 1970s remember the legitimate opportunity to discover European art, history and culture on merely five dollars a day.

As I write this, every Euro costs $1.46 American dollars. Budget hotels in some of Europe’s great cities can be found for a mere €120 per day (which works out to $175.00 U.S. dollars). A reasonable daily food budget might be around €100 for a couple hoping not to dine at ubiquitous McDonald’s restaurants. And the prudent travel budget needs to accommodate a few attractions and museums (or why bother). When you factor in the cost to fly to Europe, suddenly, a “reasonable” European vacation can easily require not $5.00 but $500.00 per day.

There are many reasons why Europe is so alluring to Boomers.

Art

Culture

Scenery

Agriculture

Cuisine

Europe may lose a significant share of its forthcoming Boomer business opportunities if somehow the European travel experience cannot be rendered more affordable. The great American middle class, hit hard by current economic realities and shrinking prospects for unfettered retirement assets, may choose not to travel to Europe in large numbers. Rather, American Boomers may opt to explore their own country or travel to foreign destinations where currency exchange rates and inflation are not so punishing.

In spite of the plethora of Boomers I saw during my travels through Italy this past month, a number of business owners confessed to me that Europe has been hit hard by global recession. Americans are noticeably in short supply. This may continue to be the future for Europe. And it's too bad because Europe used to be one of the Boomer generation's most economical friends.

Boomers and Business in the U.S. and Europe: It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll

Baby Boomers in the U.S. and Europe are changing aging as profoundly as they changed youth. Their demographic might, coupled with a revolutionary spirit, guarantees radical changes ahead for institutions and businesses worldwide.

Over 45 years ago this generation chose rock music as its preferred form of entertainment and a force for social change. And the soundtrack of their lives is still influencing who they are today, even as they age.

And I'm running down the street of life
And I'm never gonna let you die
And I'm never ever gonna get old

British songwriter and performer David Bowie, author of the lyrics above, built his renowned career around it. So did Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, and Phil Collins.

It is a thread connecting disparate members of a generation; it ties New Yorkers to Californians and the Dutch to Brits. That rainbow-colored thread is rock ‘n’ roll, the album of tens of millions of European and American lives: an audio collage of incense and peppermint; of jungle green, Agent Orange and blood red; of young and mature love; of peace signs and pro-life placards.

It is memories and money, idealism and capitalism.

And rock ‘n’ roll is today ushering Baby Boomers into their third age: For many, the beginning of an adventurous new life stage; for others, a long, slow slide downhill. But whichever view of a rapidly-aging Western society dominates, optimistic or pessimistic, Boomers mean money — lots of it.

By 2015, Boomers on both sides of the Atlantic will have a combined net worth of €17 trillion, the one-year gross domestic product for the US and the eurozone, combined.

Rock Me

In recent years, consumers have heard a succession of former hit rock songs become embedded in advertising.

Apple Computers began selling multihued iMacs with The Rolling Stones’ She’s a Rainbow. Wrangler Jeans drafted Fortunate Son, Credence Clearwater Revival’s anti-Vietnam War anthem. The Who’s Roger Daltry once sang, “The things they do look awful cold, (talking ’bout my generation), I hope I die before I get old.” And Boomers could only let out a collective gasp three decades after the song’s introduction when they heard Won’t Get Fooled Again in Nissan commercials.

Rod Stewart sells Pampers. Queen urges consumers to buy Aiwa stereos. Steppenwolf showcases Chevy’s ‘American Revolution’ with Magic Carpet Ride. Paul McCartney sells Fidelity Investments. Multi-millionaire Steve Winwood sells investment advice for Ameriprise. Bono, the charismatic lead singer for U2, sings hit song Vertigo to proffer greater profit margins upon Apple’s iPod.

Instant Karma: We All Shine On

The future of business with this insatiable generation is a set of possibilities, full of speculation and spin.

Earnest executives around the globe are strategizing in corporate boardrooms; entrepreneurs are dreaming up best-case and worst-case scenarios. Idealistic change agents propose halcyon visions of social evolution, an Age of Aquarius in gray tones. Disagreement abounds over which developmental pathways this fickle generation will follow.

Some critics view this generation’s alleged degeneration into materialism during the 1980s and 1990s as a presage of the future. Debt-ridden Boomers — purportedly over 25 million in the U.S. with net assets of $10,000 or less — will continue to tap into materialism, from Wal-Mart to Harrods, purchasing more and more and more, beyond necessity or practicality.

Boomer advocates, a less aggressive lot, see the future with the generation investing prudently in co-housing retirement communities, educational travel expeditions, grandchildren, and wellness pharmacopoeias.

A generation of wise mentors, attracted to learning, continuous self-development and social activism, will change the character of nations, making them wiser and kinder. Boomers will invest their social capital; Western countries will become much better places to grow old.

The one thing not being debated is demographic destiny. In 2010, about one-third of the U.S. population will be over 50. When 2020 rolls around, one in five American adults will be over 65. Half of Holland will be over 50 in 2012. Half of Norway and Italy already are.

The Boomer “age wave” will also have colossal impact in Europe, which already has 19 of the world’s 20 oldest countries. Over one-fourth of Europeans will be 65 or older in 2030.

Just as economists are predicting trouble ahead for Social Security and Medicare in the U.S., the Boomer aging trend will mean increased strain on European healthcare and pension systems.

Lookin’ Out My Back Door

Contrary to popular myth, Boomers have not been the only generation to challenge older generations and compel large-scale change. Young adults in the 1920s set many new standards for sexual liberation, obsessed about materialism, popularized self-improvement, and revered spiritual self-discovery and personal autonomy.

However, the Boomer generation is a byproduct of enormous population size connecting with art and technology at exactly the right moment in history.

Although the Baby Boom Generation is typically defined as those born after World War II and between 1946 and 1964, baby booms also occurred in Europe. The inclusive birth years of this generation in European countries are:
 
• France 1946-1974
• United Kingdom 1946-1971
• Finland 1945-1951
• Sweden 1946-1952
• Denmark 1946-1950
• Netherlands 1946-1972
• Ireland 1946-1982
• Iceland 1946-1969

A nearly universal and unexpected population explosion in the Western world dovetailed emergence of another phenomenon: broadcast television, reflecting and enlarging a generation’s unique sense of shared experiences.

Boomer children in the U.S. received steady doses of encouragement from the Howdy Doody Show and the My Three Sons. Many adult programs showcased idealized images of family life with Boomer kids as the centerpiece.

But the power of television to create generational consciousness around a continent and across the Atlantic found its true momentum on February 9, 1964.

By the time The Beatles debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show, six of their songs were playing continuously on the radio; two albums were running up the charts; and I Want to Hold Your Hand, a wistful ballad about puppy love, was one month into its dominance as Billboard Magazine’s No. 1 song.

The Beatles not only stimulated collective Boomer consciousness with messages of young love and social optimism; the Four Lads changed conceptions of everything from fashion to swagger.

Flaunting a thoroughly European sense of style, their mop-top hair looked weirdly out of place next to their crew-cut elders, and their lean legs finished defiantly in pointed boots. They boogied on Sullivan’s stage that night with focused exhilaration, as if to ease the mass hysteria overwhelming the television studio full of adulating teenage girls.

It was an incomparable moment of youthful celebrity uncorrupted, where rock ‘n’ roll became fully a generation’s chosen art form and a looking glass into the forthcoming countercultural years.

And 73-million Americans were watching all at once. The largest TV audience ever in the U.S. included the next generation of Boomer rock stars, most barely in puberty, sitting cross-legged in front of their TV sets — from Billy Joel to Gene Simmons of Kiss. Bruce Springsteen went shopping the following day and bought a guitar amp. “Most of us guys were screaming on the inside,” said Steve Van Zandt, guitarist for Springsteen’s E Street Band. “It was absolutely life-changing. There was no Plan B. There was no choice.”

Rock ‘n’ roll led the cultural bandwagon, and Boomers grew up confident, brash, independent and avid about owning things. They still are.

Never Get Old

David Robert Jones, a.k.a. David Bowie, personifies the dynamic changes guiding business today, a collective refocus on aging markets.

Bowie once tried to deny the reality of his possible irrelevance as an over-the-hill idol. But he is a chameleon who has adapted to change, continuously reinventing himself and updating an impressive catalogue — a 2003 addition to which is appropriately called, Reality.

Today he is comfortable with his musical shadow, with the person he is at heart: song-writer, performer, musician … Boomer. This 60-plus-year-old post-modernist rock legend isn’t finished rocking — not just yet — and neither is the generation that made him a star.

Feed Shark

The Personal is Mass Marketing: Boomers, Advertising and Social Commentary

Those who follow my writing know that I delve into many subjects concerning the social and political phenomena surrounding the Boomer generation. I have been confronted several times with a question: What do social and political issues have to do with marketing to Boomers?

Invariably, my answer is, “Everything.”

During my career, now spanning three decades, I have learned that some of the most powerful marketing strategies follow, reflect and sometimes move slightly ahead of larger social and political contexts in which we operate our contemporary lives.

This rings true when I see a financial services company heralding a novel life stage for Boomers instead of invoking an out-of-date construct called “retirement.” This rings true when an over-the-counter pain medication has less to do with overcoming pain than as an enabler of a continuing athletic lifestyle, long after joints have been barking their protests. This rings true when pundits reassign the birth year of a newly elected Boomer president (born in 1961) to another generation, rather than accept the dominant demographic delineation of his generational affiliation.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s the second wave of feminism inculcated a revolutionary idea that “the personal is political,” simply meaning that every aspect of our personal lives can be affected by the political environment in which we live and operate. Our personal lives can be conditioned by political and social forces. I submit that the milieu in which this Hegelian Dialectic occurs is often through marketing communications and mass media.

In contemporary marketing communications, Unilever’s Dove soap integrated “the personal” with “the political” through a spectacular advertising campaign designed to strengthen the brand by repositioning “antiaging” with a new product line called Pro Age. Dove set out to attract favorable attention from roughly 40 million Baby Boomer women, many of whom seek mitigation of wrinkles and other obvious cosmetic signs of aging but who also resent unrealistic and limiting portrayals of beauty.

Dove took a direct approach by unveiling a provocative new marketing idea: instead of demonizing or denying wrinkles and other signs of aging with illusions of perfection widely perpetuated by antiaging product marketers, Dove chose instead to celebrate aging by showcasing real middle-aged women, untouched by Photoshop or digital video equivalents.

In the spring of 2007, Dove unveiled its new campaign featuring magnificent photography shot by celebrity photographer and Boomer Annie Leibovitz. (Leibovitz, born in 1949, began her illustrious career in 1970 as a staff photographer for Jann Wenner’s iconic Boomer magazine, Rolling Stone, capturing memorable images of many rock ‘n’ roll notables such as John Lennon, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, David Cassidy, Sting and Bruce Springsteen.) The Pro Age print, television and Web ads feature full-figured women, none of whom are models and all of whom are over age 50.

Take a look at this television commercial, which was banned from broadcast television for being too provocative:

The stakes in the cosmetic industry are slightly greater than high. Antiaging skin care products have been projected to reach worldwide sales of $13 billion by 2010, yet Dove’s management found something disrupting through a study conducted in nine countries: “91% of women over 50 feel they're not represented realistically in the media.” By implication, Boomer women feel nearly invisible in typical cosmetic advertising that has traditionally glorified impossibly perfect complexions of girls barely out of puberty.

According to Nancy Etcoff, a psychologist at the Harvard Medical School and author of Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty, “We're seeing a real shift in how people are approaching beauty. Up to now, it’s been about fighting aging with everything you have. Now you have a choice not to.”

Millions of Boomer women, most of whom grew up embracing the ideals of women’s liberation and other social movements to eliminate sexism from American business and society, are now pushing those cathartic values into the marketplace where antiaging morphs logically into Pro Age. The personal becomes political once again. Or visa-versa.

In a never-ending quest to be relevant and arresting, marketing campaigns invariably tap into a current zeitgeist about our complex social and political relationships. This became apparent again to me when I observed a recent ad campaign produced by Bacardi Rum, which I discuss in detail in a previous post.

A television commercial involves a young male protagonist walking through a stylish nightclub but simultaneously walking back through time. During one segue, he passes through dancing couples set in the 1940s or1950s, and viewers see a quick glimpse of an African American man dancing with a Caucasian woman. This image is historical revisionism because people of mixed races would not dance together in the 1950s or earlier – certainly not in large, mainstream public venues.

But historical revisionism about racial relations reflects a contemporary mindset of inclusiveness in American society, the capstone of which has been election of racially mixed Barack Obama as President of the United States. In a rum advertising campaign broadcast widely on television during the past summer, the advertisement’s creators reflect a larger societal context of a nation finally coming to grips with its demonic history of slavery. The Bacardi ad plays one small part in changing our “collective mentality” about men of women of mixed races being together.

Is the Bacardi mojito ad an example of marketing or social commentary? I submit: both. It is marketing because it positions the brand of Bacardi Rum in a favorable context, showcasing the libation as post-racial, inclusive and hip to current standards of correct social behavior. It is social commentary because this brief image announces the extent to which the nation has evolved in our collective acceptance of racial integration and interracial dating.

My writing consistently juxtaposes complex social and political issues in the context of marketing communications. This point-of-view probably reflects my formative years after college working as a counseling psychologist, someone who constantly searched for motivations behind behavior. The behavior of advertising often manifests nuanced motivations that spring from our psychological evolution as social creatures: a hopeful quest for greater inclusiveness across races, cultures, nationalities and generations. Inclusiveness includes age acceptance and racial integration in the truest meaning of those ideals.

The personal is political. The personal is mass marketing.