Engage:Boomers gives us a great insight into several catagories that are being heavily influenced by Boomers...in direct contradiction to stereotypes and assumptions by marketers....
"Boomer-and-older consumers comprise a significant block of Category Influentials, those individuals who GfK Roper defines as highly trusted, well-informed consumers who make frequent recommendations across broad social networks. Older Category Influentials exert their influence by generating buzz through word-of-mouth marketing across a wide variety of big spending categories.
Percent of Category Influentials Boomer Age and Older
| | % | |
| % |
Household Furnishings
| 56 |
| Cleaning Products | 49 |
| Real Estate | 55 |
| Cooking | 47 |
Insurance
| 55 |
| New Food Items | 47 |
Finance/Investment
| 54 |
| Grocery Shopping | 46 |
Prescription Drugs
| 50 |
| Automobiles | 46 |
Coffee
| 50 |
| Restaurants | 44 |
Home Remodeling
| 49 |
| Pets | 40 |
Vacation Travel
| 49 |
|
|
|
Source: GfK MRI Spring 2011
Even in areas such as new technology, home electronics, music and movies, older consumers represent at least one out of four Category Influentials.
In an age where digital media has made sharing ones knowledge and opinions exponentially more prevalent and powerful, word-of-mouth marketing has exploded, and Category Influentials have become more important than ever.
Given the fact that Influentials are significantly more likely than other consumers to pay attention to marketing messages, particularly when making purchase decisions, smart marketers will seek out strategies to maximize their Influential reach. With Influentials comprising a mere 10 - 20% of all adults, directly targeting the influence-heavy Boomer-and-older population makes all the more sense.
While theres been a meaningful shift in recent years toward doing so, many brands still rely heavily on spill from youth-targeted marketing plans. This strategy may have made sense fifty or sixty years ago when older Americans accounted for just one-third of the adult population, but the Boomer-and-older crowd now represents nearly half of all adult consumers. In todays fragmented media environment where targeted marketing rules, it is increasingly difficult to capture this, or, for that matter, any secondary audience through spill.
Targeted messaging has been proven to work for people based on race, sports affinity, sexual orientation and life stage (think parenthood), and we have seen that it can be highly effective among older consumers.
Boomer-and-older marketing has the opportunity to be significantly more successful when it clearly portrays the older consumers vitality, priorities and relationships, as well as the crucial roles that they play in their families, communities, workplaces and in society at large.
Not long ago, Jeep specifically targeted grandmothers with a magazine campaign, placing the personality, lifestyle and priorities of the consumer front-and-center.
The ad featured an image of a fashion-forward woman along with the following copy, I know youre only as old as you feel and I still feel 30. I can text but I prefer to talk. Ill do a bake sale and hit a few trails, too. The grandkids say Im really cool now but what they dont know is, I always was. Just below that copy appeared Jeeps tagline, I live. I ride. I am. Jeep.
Jeep recognized its potential consumers as individuals, speaking directly to their interests, needs and passions, and validating their individual worth. It was a brilliant marriage of Boomer mindset and brand identity that produced sales.
If you want to influence the older Influentials, you need to demonstrate that you understand who they are, acknowledge their value, and then follow the other best practices we already know to be effective among older consumersproviding information, being transparent, developing multi-media marketing plans, etc.
Brands willing to adopt this approach will unleash not only the unrivaled spending power, but also the vast influence of the Boomer-and-older consumer market."