Resources - Mature Market Headlines

Six decades at the center of attention, and counting

The New York Times, 1/6/08

Abstract:

When the vast baby-boom generation exploded into adolescence in the 1960s, marketers exulted. Advertising consultants, always eager to coin a phrase, began happily explaining to corporations the difference between "teenyboppers" and "counterculture consumers." Over the next 40 years, as Aquarius aged and the billable hours accumulated, marketers explained that such "market segmentation" techniques were the key to untold riches.

Today, Jimi is dead, the revolution is over and fiber supplements are the pill of choice in Woodstock. But with 37 million Americans over the age of 65, and 30 million more expected to cross that thin gray line in the next decade, the boomers and older consumers still represent billions of dollars in potential sales. So once again, companies are scrambling to update their slicing and dicing of the senior marketplace.

But what they are finding, advertising executives say, is that osme old tactics don't work anymore. Older consumers don't want to be treated like teenagers; what's more, they don't want to believe they fall into any niche at all.

> Read the full story > Return to 50+ Headlines