Boomers: Keeping up with Marketing’s Most Valuable Generation
Published 11/1/2012
Author: Marguerite McNeal
Author Biography
Marguerite McNeal is a staff writer for the AMA’s Magazines and e-Newsletters.
Summary
A young twenty-something-year-old girl sits alone in front of her laptop and brags that she convinced her parents to join Facebook. They have 19 friends, she has more than 600. While she continues to idly browse the Web, her parents drive their Toyota Venza to the mountains with another couple for an adventurous bike ride. Ironic? This Toyota ad demonstrates what many marketers would like to do: target baby boomers.
“It shows boomers as vital and engaged with life, validating their personal belief set, which coincides with the vision for the car,” says Laurel Kennedy, president of Age Lessons, a Chicago-based consulting firm that specializes in baby boomer and senior research.
Why are boomers, individuals born between 1946 and 1964, appealing to marketers? At more than 80 million strong, they account for nearly half of total CPG sales, represent one-third of all social media users, and spend almost $7 billion shopping online, according to a 2012 report from Nielson and BoomAgers.
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