Mature adults are asking marketers, “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”

There are two kinds of trends that every marketer needs to watch. There is the overnight sensation, like Twitter, that demand your attention and force you to play catch-up. Then there are the Really Big Ones, like global warming, which change everything but are so big, and move so slowly, that long-range vision is demanded.

In the next ten years, the biggest shift in marketing will be the movement to the mature market (which shouldn’t be confused with the sudden uprising in “boomer marketing”), for 40+ customers. This is more than theory, by the way, it is numerically factual. Since 1989, this cohort has grown to be over 50% larger than the youth market. And just as youth and its values rightfully dominated our marketing culture for the past 50 years, older people and older values are now the majority (and in America, majority wins).

So welcome to the 21^st century, everyone. It’s an exciting time to be alive. An exciting time to be getting older. And, if you’re a younger marketer, that rare opportunity for some old dogs to teach us all a few new tricks.

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

Mature marketing expertise from one of America’s “oldest” authorities on boomers, retirement, aging, longevity, and inter-generational marketing.

Older man with a much younger wife? Oh, grow up.

Normally, the separation of two celebrities after 15 months of marriage wouldn’t cause a ripple in me. 15 months? Some celebs are married twice in that time.

But the news of Greg Norman’s and Chris Evert’s dissolution hit me like a tidal wave. They seemed perfect,didn’t they? Everywhere they went, their eyes were locked, their hands intertwined. Both were 54, yet they looked the part of teenage sweethearts.

To me, though, they were symbols of a grown-up, mature relationship that we see too seldom in the popular press. A relationship built on shared values that had developed over a lifetime of professional sports, of long first marriages, of raising children, of living private lives under public scrutiny, and arriving at similar crossroads at about the same time in life.

I was especially proud of Norman for choosing a mate his same age. The tabloids would have loved it had he dated 20-something starlets or squired around a trophy wife. Michael Douglas, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Larry King — the list of old men marrying women closer to their daughters’ ages would stretch the length of a par 5.

In Norman and Evert we saw dignity in their slightly weathered faces, in their mutual affection, in their gratitude for finding youthful bliss in their 50s. Their union was so refreshing and so hopeful, I was rooting for them. Alas, when reality washed ashore, it only made their breakup all the more disheartening.

Jody Olson, Chapter Two Communications

Mature marketing expertise from one of America’s “oldest” authorities on boomers, retirement, aging, longevity, and inter-generational marketing.