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Tailoring messages a new audience: Wrinkled baby boomers

The New York Times (registration required), 10/4/07

Abstract:

"Young Love," the longtime siren song of Madison Avenue, is being remixed as marketers increasingly turn their attention to consumers born when "45" meant music rather than the number after 44 and "Apple" meant fruit.

The ardor for younger consumers has lasted for decades, fueled by perceptions of them as being more likely to try new products and change brands and to spend almost every penny they make. Older consumers, by contrast, were less desirable because they were deemed to be shoppers with entrenched habits who lived sedentary, frugal lives.

The arrival of baby boomers — the 76 million Americans born from 1946 to 1964 — into the upper age bracket is the leading reason for the shift in opinions about older consumers. Free-spending boomers think young, to quote from a Pepsi-Cola slogan of their era, regardless of how old they actually are...

...Another reason for the change is that consumers in their 60s, 70s and 80s are behaving differently from their counterparts in previous decades, particularly in their willingness to travel, dine out and adopt new technologies.

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