Why target the mature market? That’s where the people and the money are.

“I have discovered that one of the most important characteristics of most economic trends is that they are too slow in their motion to be visible to humans. Humans do not get out of the way of that which they cannot see moving.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller

American advertising was not designed for the mature market; rather, it was a model, and a brilliant one at that, based on the youth-dominated culture of the country.

Today, our economy has shifted: there are now more Americans over the age of 40 than under it. By a wide margin. And the values of these older Americans are directly opposed to the values of youth. So how do you target both groups effectively?

Chances are, you don’t. We continue to follow our marketing model, based on these youthful values, and hope that older customers will get the message (which they don’t).

Economically, this is an odd decision because this group has quite a lot to like. For instance, older customers:

…are the nation’s largest cohort.

…control almost 70% of U.S. wealth.

…hold up to 80% of U.S. savings.

…hold over 60% of all stock market dollars.

…outspend younger ones by almost a trillion dollars.

…are 24% of the population, but 55% of all discretionary spending.

Now compare those statistics with these marketing truths:

No major U.S. advertising agency currently has a mature market division.

No major agency currently writes media plans for anyone over 54 years old.

U.S. advertising agencies, combined, allocate approximately 5% of their spending against this demographic.

So who, exactly, are we targeting? And who, exactly, are we ignoring?

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

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

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.

10 great things about getting older, part 2.

1. Old people love your kids (their grandchildren!) beyond reason. Young people have to take care of their kids.
2. Old people know what they like and buy it. Young people talk it over with friends.
3. Old people have more money to invest in worthy charities. Young people have to invest in themselves.
4. Old people appreciate not working. Young people fear unemployment.
5. Old people take care of each other. Young people take care of their families.
6. Old people volunteer their time. Young people don’t have any time.
7. Old people have 2/3 of the country’s wealth. Young people want to know how they did that.
8. Old people let the government pay their medical bills. Young people pay for the old people, then pay for themselves.
9. Old people go to school because they want to. Young people go because they have to.
10. Old people don’t worry about a mid-life crisis. Young people have them to look forward to.

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

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

When the boomers exit the stage, then what?

“Look on my works…and despair.”

– Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias”

As the boomers begin to leave the stage, holding onto their wallets with sweaty palms and wondering where it all went wrong, it’s time to take a summary look at their works.

First of all, let’s remember that the boomers lifted all boats. Soaring incomes and profligate spending combined to achieve easy credit for all. Savings accounts disappeared. In their place, credit card applications and home-equity loans filled every mailbox, and the percentage of households with $100,000 incomes rose steadily (reaching a record 21% by 2007).

Since 2007, we’ve been following the boomers down the other side of the mountain. In that time, only one age group (65+) has not been in decline, and they are not known for being big spenders. Moreover, the peak earning years for the boomers are over or ending. The housing bubble has burst, with catastrophic results, and easy credit is long, long gone.

Worse, the boomers have left the stage empty. Today’s biggest spenders, Generation X (aged 35-44 today), have almost no discretionary income; their spending is a result of much bigger mortgages (almost 27% higher than our departing boomers).  The next generation, the millennials, is in even worse shape. They are currently at all-time highs for unemployment, partially because of competition from the seniors who can’t afford to stop working. Ironically, with almost a third of the millenials moving back home, more and more boomers will have to keep working to support their kids.

So, as we look upon the “works” of this generation and compare it to the previous generations that pushed America forward, we have to ask: What is their legacy? What lasting values have they produced? What legacies of culture, politics, family, environmentalism, civics, religion, finance and education are they leaving behind?

Well, as Ozymandias might suggest, just take a look around and survey their works – and then decide.

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

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

Why your health might start improving at age 65.

When I was younger I thought that health insurance was a legitimate business. Then came the focus on wealth over health, on profits over people, and loathsome, inhumane innovations like “pre-existing “ conditions and a lack of preventive care.

Today, despite a 483 % increase in profits since 2000 (and our president is worried about them?), the insurance business has placed most Americans on the outermost boundaries of financial security; realistically, many of us are only one serious illness away from poverty.

Which is why 65 is such a good number. At 65, medical worries for the senior population are replaced by Medicare, and peace of mind. Unfortunately, the number of adults under 65 who don’t have insurance is rising every year (in 2008, 1.5 million Americans under 65 became uninsured). Right now, this represents about 20% of the mature market — and will likely get much worse, much faster, in 2010.

Why? Two reasons. First, more companies will continue to either reduce or eliminate their medical coverage for employees. Second, as millions of workers become unemployed, they (and their families) will lose their group coverage.

So 2010 may not be too pretty for the 65-and-under crowd. And don’t look to insurance executives for help; they don’t really have hearts, as we’ve seen, they have shareholders. And Congress, as we know, doesn’t vote with their conscience, they vote with their lobbyists.

Nevertheless, just when it seems like everybody has got our number, just remember: we’ve got a number too. And that number is 65.

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.

Life is like a visit to the optometrist.

For most of us, life is like a visit to the optometrist: Every time we go, we see things differently. Every time we go, our vision has changed. Our prescription has changed. The style of our frames has changed. The way we see ourselves has changed. Every time we go, it seems like we need new glasses.

In many ways, that’s what the first half of life is all about: Change. And while constant change is exciting, it can also be unsettling and exhausting. Moreover, it is a daily, unending process.

The more we grow, the more we change. We question ourselves. We remake ourselves. We absorb criticism. We change our minds. We change our friends. We change our partners. We change jobs, careers, hairstyles, wardrobe, politics, sometimes even our names.

Why all the change? Well, we’re learning what we like. Trying things on and taking things off, until we see things clearly for ourselves. When we finally see clearly, we stop getting new glasses.

And here’s what you see.

You see the wild desires and unpredictable consequences of your 20s start to fade.

You see the iron-clad reason and rationality of your 30s become a little less sure-footed.

You see the good sense and judgment that begins in our 40s, start to take hold.

Most importantly, you see that no matter what glasses you wear, you see just fine and you look just fine. And you don’t need anyone to tell you so, because at long last, you can see for yourself.

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

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

The old neighborhood is changing.

The younger generation is growing older at a faster pace than any other previous U.S. generation. And it’s not because of their metabolism.

It’s because the big neighborhood we call America is growing. Growing up. Growing older. And as the neighborhood gets older, we see the usual signs of turnover: fewer strollers being pushed by young moms, more older couples walking together; shorter lines at Toys R Us, longer lines at Walgreen’s; fewer parks, more park benches.

When did all this start? The year was 1989, to be exact. That’s the year when 40-plus adults first outnumbered the under-40 population – for the first time in human history. This seemingly insignificant fact is going to turn the world, as we know it, upside down in the next century (this issue is just surfacing here, although Europe and Japan are much farther on down the road).

So what’s going to change? Probably everything, and probably not overnight. The fact that America elected a 47-year-old senator – right between young and old – over a 70-plus senator, is not insignificant. What will change are our values, which will move from younger to older. From youthful, to mature.

And, just as youthful values had the numbers on their side, and those values dominated our culture (after all, the “majority wins” in America), so are the new values of an aging population starting to take hold. And that hold will only increase (as a prescient Jim Morrison once put it: They got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers).

Right now, youth may be a lame duck, but it is still waddling around more like a lion. And it is still dominant. But values, like neighborhoods, change slowly. So now might be a good time to look around your neighborhood and see how those upcoming changes might affect your business in the future.

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

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