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.

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.