Advertising to Baby Boomers

A Potential Boom from Baby Boomers: Universal Design & Aging in Place

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:43:22 PST

For advertising folk, one of the most useful attributes of the internet is being exposed to online trade mags – ones you’d probably never see otherwise. With a new client or if you’re pitching, you need to find founts of knowledge fast.

I’ve been quoted in a few trade mags:

Boomers in Candyland

Boomers Beyond: Marketing to a 50-Plus Audience

Savvy sleep that knits the ravelled sleeve of care.

While fiddling around today, I unearthed this piece in a trade mag I’d never heard of – Kitchen & Bath Design News:

Look for a Potential Boom from Baby Boomers
DPH Perspectives
By Melissa Allen
Where can boomers turn for help with customizing their homes so they can stay where they are? Big-box stores offer deep inventories and economies of scale, but don’t provide carefully chosen collections of truly outstanding products or the expertise to help boomers combine products and solutions to meet age-related needs.

According to “Fixing to Stay,” boomers want knowledgeable and trustworthy professionals they can work with in upgrading their homes, and they’re worried that they won’t be able to find them.

This spells opportunity for our industry.

First I had to figure out what DPH meant. Wikipedia was no help. With some scrolling and deep deciphering, my incredibly big brain finally got it: Decorative Plumbing & Hardware.

Television, Movie, Pop Stars Least Persuasive

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:35:05 PST

Sort of an interesting survey (for two reasons) by Harris Interactive and Adweek Media:

Business Leaders Considered Most Persuasive in Ad Endorsement (PDF)
The issue of celebrity endorsements is something a number of companies grapple with as they are planning their advertising campaigns … One quarter of those aged 18-34 (23%) say television or movie stars are most persuasive while only 15% of those aged 55 and older feel the same way.

Sort of interesting survey reason #1:

I’ve talked about this for years when advising clients about reaching Baby Boomers. In an online presentation a year ago there’s a section all about celebrity endorsements. I used Liberty Medical as an example of a company that (at the time) needed to update its image. The section is about 19 minutes in:

Two graphics from the above presentation:

So you don’t have to sit through it, basically I say that it would be a mistake to find a ‘new’ Wilford Brimley.

Sort of interesting survey reason #2:

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS THAT ARE MOST PERSUASIVE

Odd that Harris Interactive would stop delineating demos after age 55, as if all people over that age are the same: simply old.

Of course, this myopia is nothing new:

The Jitterbug Phone
The real issue: Marketers assuming that if you're over fifty you're automatically a member of one and only one age demographic - all with the same needs and wants.

Tungate in Paris. Tungate in Istanbul.

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:26:01 PST

A few years ago I met Mark Tungate:

ADLAND by Mark Tungate

Mark Tungate, I find out after our brief rendezvous at Bayard Presse in Paris, after returning home and reading his book, after jumping on the web and scurrying around, after emailing a few friends in France and England, is a heavyweight in the ad world. He's written a bunch of books, loads of articles for advertising and general interest magazines, has a TV talk show. He puts together the text for an 'everybody in the industry has to pour over it every year' annual overview of European advertising …

Since then Mark has written two more books:

Branded Male: Marketing to Men
Branded Male discusses the evolution of the male consumer and the desire of marketers to tap into the still underdeveloped male market. Crammed with facts and anecdotes, Branded Male analyses how to effectively brand products and services for the male market.

Luxury World
With wit, accuracy and insatiable curiosity, Luxury World takes us on a voyage around the luxury universe, slipping behind the façades of the world’s most sophisticated businesses to show the reader how they function.

In December, Mark be taking his road show to Istanbul:

The event is produced by IMI Conferences:

IMI Conferences organizes Guru Events, Market Specific Conferences and Up-To-Date Panels … on topics that are of interest to the world and to Turkey. Its most fundamental target is to inform the business circles in Turkey of Global developments and trends.

While probably not quite arriving in the style Oprah did recently, no doubt Mr. Tungate will leave Turkey with almost as many new fans.

Television: It’s still a passive activity

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:30:23 PST

From The New York Times:

DVR, Once TV’s Mortal Foe, Helps Ratings
By BILL CARTER
Published: November 1, 2009
In what may seem a media business version of the Stockholm syndrome, television network executives have fallen in love with a former tormentor: the digital video recorder … more people seem content to sit through the commercials than networks once thought.

… The most basic reason, according to Brad Adgate*, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, a media buying firm, is that the behavior that has underpinned television since its invention still persists to a larger degree than expected.

“It’s still a passive activity,” he said.

I’ve yakked and yakked about passive and active activities and advertising. A few years ago it was about magazines (and television):

Positioning Magazines for Baby Boomers
At some point you have to climb out of your frenetic digital nest and concentrate on one thing. It might be reading a book, watching a TV show or movie, listening to music, looking out the window.

Or immersing yourself in a magazine.

This isn’t ‘down time’ (that would be sleeping), but nourishing your psyche by absorbing and not actively being involved …

_____

* It was 2005 when I first pulled a quote from Brad Adgate:

Over 50 and Out of Favor: by Meg James, LA Times

Another one:

Where’s the TV for us?

NABBW Teleseminar: The Path from Job Loss to Re-Employment

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:27:40 PST

The National Association of Baby Boomer Women is sponsoring a teleseminar this month with friend and colleague Dr. Carol Orsborn, along with Amy Hoster - someone I don’t know but it sounds like we all should:

Baby Boomers: The Path from Job Loss to Re-Employment
Date: 11/17/2009
Time: 3:00 PM EST
Listen in as Boomer expert, veteran marketing executive, and author of The Year I Saved My (downsized) Soul: A Boomer Woman's Search for Meaning…and a Job, Carol Orsborn, Ph.D, discusses the top five things one should do immediately after a job loss or the looming fear of one, and as she explains why attitude has so much to do with successfully becoming employed again. Orsborn, who has appeared on Oprah and The Today Show, and in the pages of People Magazine, Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, understands firsthand what Boomer Women face when caught up in a downsizing, and is ready and willing to share all …

On the call will also be Amy Hoster … who's been involved in the recruiting industry since 1999. Amy promises to give our callers specific tools they need for re-employment; like how to make sure you've got the right kind of resume, the all-important interview; what to say and what not to say, and also how job fairs can benefit you.

Dotsie Bregel founded NABBW.
I remember hearing from Dotsie when NABBW was simply an idea and a web page. Now it’s all over the place.

Watch a ton of videos about The National Association of Baby Boomer Women.

Sign up for the Teleseminar.

Can Boomers Lead an Elder Revolution?

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:12:52 PDT

In response to a New York Times piece in September, I tossed up a post with (much too) long excerpts from my book (first published in 2005):

Late Bloomer Boomers
The Late Bloomer Boomer Movement is going full blast, and there’s no stopping it. The magic equation: Thirty-odd years of experience plus not feeling old and being relatively healthy plus knowing you have another quarter-century of productivity in you equals . . .

Well, we’ll see. Some pundits are predicting that Late Bloomer Boomers may leave a bigger imprint on society than the “early bloomer” Boomers who were at the top of their games twenty-five to thirty-five years ago.

Now Philip Moeller of U.S. News & World Report is contemplating some of these same issues:

Can Boomers Lead an Elder Revolution?
… But what if, instead, an aging world turned out to be a good thing? Is this even possible? Well, nearly 80 million baby boomers are here to say that they've had a great run so far and they expect, no, they demand, that it will continue.

… Roszak, a college teacher and author of 15 books who is now in his late 70s, has issued another rallying cry to this generation with The Making of an Elder Culture, published earlier this year. In it, he argues that the baby boomers are hardly finished making their mark on the world. "Boomers, who will usher us into senior dominance, are the best educated, most socially conscientious, most politically savvy older generation the world has ever seen," he says. "I believe that generation will want to do good things with the power that history has unexpectedly thrust upon it in its senior years. What boomers left undone in their youth, they will return to take up in their maturity."

Requisite cliché:

Okay! Sounds like a plan.

The Joy of Book and Author Promotion Circa 2009

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:34:09 PDT

From: Brent Green
To: Chuck Nyren
Subject: The funny part is it's eerily accurate...

The joy of book and author promotion circa 2009:

Subject: Our Marketing Plan
by Ellis Weiner
Let me introduce myself. My name is Gineen Klein, and I’ve been brought on as an intern to replace the promotion department here at Propensity Books … I’ve attached a list of celebrities we think would be great to blurb your book, so find out their numbers and call them up … We’d like to see you on morning talk shows like the “Today” show and “The View,” so please get yourself booked on them and keep us “in the loop.”

From: Chuck Nyren
To: Brent Green
Subject: RE: The funny part is it's eerily accurate...

That’s great. I’m spray-feeding it on Hoster Broaster.

Chuck

Their personalities are far from grave.

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:35:15 PDT

NostraChuckus nails it again.

A piece from The Boston Globe:

Their personalities are far from grave
Funeral directors humor themselves at convention
By David Filipov
… He has been getting requests for personalized funerals all the time, as baby boomers “come of age,’’ as he puts it. Boomers were raised to have it their way. It is an attitude they take with them to the grave. And it has required funeral directors to evolve.

And a post from last year:

Funerals Are For The Dead
As the old saying goes, “Funerals are for the living.” Not anymore. Now there’s a place where you can theme, decorate, and DJ from the grave (or wherever you happen to end up) – thanks to two Baby Boomers: Nancy Bush and Sue Kruskopf.

… Of course, when I die I want a funeral procession with an old rickety horse-drawn carriage, open coffin, priests with long beards in long robes waving incense, and hundreds of women dressed in black and wailing.

But that’s just me. My personal statement.

AARP Targets Media Planners

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:01:38 PDT

I was going to pass on blogging this – since Dick Stroud already did the honors:

AARP Video – Boomer + Interrogation
The video was created as a way to overcome the objections that AARP heard at the forum. It is sad to say but these objections to the older market have been around since I began writing my book and are identical to the ones I encountered in the UK.

It is astonishing that people are still coming out with these lame excuses.

But a gentleman from AARP Media emailed me and wanted my take on it.

So, here’s the video and the take:

I told him it would be difficult for me to gage the impact on media planners, but was happy to note that the video didn’t do anything stupid – like denigrate the target market they’re promoting.

Way back in 2004-5, AARP was doing just that in a B2B campaign. I wrote a chapter about it in my book, and referenced it in a post few years later:

AARP's Chicken Coop Coup?
… The advertising campaign has one ad with ashen-faced Baby Boomers in body bags ("These days, doctors don't pronounce you dead. Marketers do."). Another shows Baby Boomers acting like testosteroned teenagers ("Outta the way, punks: older racers are the hot-rod kings!").Yet another has one of a middle-aged lady dead in a powder room (probably from overdoing it on the dance floor) with police chalk outlining her body. I don't know what the copy is because I haven't seen it. It's probably something like, "Give me wrinkle cream, or give me death!"

I just couldn’t figure out how trashing your ‘product’ was going to sell any. And even if it did …

More from the chapter:

The problem is that the advertising agency, like most agencies, is very much caught up in the trendy concept of Branding (one of those buzzwords overused in the last few years, and often misunderstood), and consciously or subconsciously did a bit of branding with their client’s product.

They’ve done this by introducing and presenting the product as immature, daft, and half-dead. Quite the product I’d want to buy (meaning: quite the demographic I’d get all hot and bothered about advertising to).

Even if this campaign convinces advertisers and media planners to consider targeting Baby Boomers, these silly stereotypes have been reinforced and will be carried over into consumer campaigns.

The AARP Media Sales Interrogation video stays on message – so other than being a bit long, it’s fine with me. I hope it works.

The News of IMMN

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:43:42 PDT

There’s a new news web page – for the public and IMMN members.

I had my greasy fingers in a few of these stories. But some are new to me. The profile of Stephen Reily of Vibrant Nation is fascinating (and a bit intimidating):

Stephen graduated from Yale College, summa cum laude, and from Stanford Law School, after which he clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court.

More intimidation:

Richard (Adler) holds a BA from Harvard, an MA from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA from the McLaren School of Business at the University of San Francisco.

Not profiled in the newsletter, but just as intimidating:

Dr. Harry "Rick" Moody, Director of Academic Affairs for AARP in Washington, DC, received the 2007 Outstanding Scholar award from the Creative Longevity and Wisdom program at Fielding Graduate University. Since 2005, an outstanding scholar has been chosen for this prestigious award given in recognition for the recipient's work with the aging population.

Okay … it’s not the intimidation. It’s the quality and expertise of so many IMMN members that makes it all worth checking out.

Me vs. We Redux Redux

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:06:43 PDT

I guess you should peek at the original Me vs. We:

Last week I read a piece of marketing advice: "Baby boomers have always been considered the 'me-generation,' and that doesn't change with age."

It's this type of reckless gibberish that is useless to marketers, and ultimately harmful to their clients.

And Me vs. We Redux:

A colleague sent this email:
Good story today - This Boomer Isn't Going to Apologize
I did read something about a bunch of pundits apologizing for the recession/depression or whatever we’re going through. Apparently, they think it’s all their fault because they’re Baby Boomers. (Did any generation apologize for The Great Depression? I’ll have to check the history books. If not, it should. Some of those evil bastards must still be alive. Anybody over ninety-eight had better atone.)

Now there’s more:

Me Generation Baby Boomers Find Fulfillment Through Volunteerism, Family Ties
Baby boomers may be popularly portrayed as whiners, complainers and narcissists, but a new study by University of Massachusetts Amherst psychology Professor Susan Krauss Whitbourne says the 50-somethings are getting a bad rap.

“It’s wrong to say baby boomers are selfish and only care about staying young,” said Whitbourne. “They have a feeling of connection to younger generations and a social conscience.”

Sounds familiar. From my book:

Today, Baby Boomers are two or three times removed from being a “me” generation. What constitutes self-actualization when you are twenty-five is different than when you are fifty-five. In your twenties a person thinks they are the picture. As you get older, you see yourself more and more as a picture that is part of a bigger picture.

Talk to some folks in their twenties, thirties. They are now in that ‘me’ stage. It’s healthy, smart for them to be so. I was just like them thirty years ago, get a big bang out of them, admire their boundless creativity, energy – and self-obsession. These ‘me generation’ twentysomethings today will become a ‘we generation’ in thirty years.

(page 171, Advertising to Baby Boomers)
(c) 2004, 2007 by Paramount Market Publishing

One other pull:

Even more from Richard O. Jones:

The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of the Baby-Boomers
The Baby-Boomer generation had its heyday and now begrudgingly passes the baton to the seemingly irresponsible Hip-hop generation – not that most Baby-Boomers were responsible in their youth because that’s not the case. However, Baby Boomers were the first generation to declare Women’s Liberation and experience the birth control pill. Baby-Boomers were first to experience breast implants, socially acceptable single motherhood, socially acceptable marijuana use, and to invite homosexuals out of the closet.

Kindle Kewl: Advertising to Baby Boomers

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:23:01 PDT

With no warning from them, my publishers just informed me that they’ve made me very, very, very kewl. Kindle Kewl:

Advertising to Baby Boomers (Kindle Edition)
by Chuck Nyren (Author)
Kindle Price: $15.95 & includes wireless delivery via
Amazon Whispernet
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

I hope my wireless ego will stay in check as it whispers through the ether.

Japan: The World's Most Mature Market

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:41 PDT

A worthwhile webinar next week:

Japan: The World's Most Mature Market
Tuesday, October 27 Japan is the most severely affected country by demographic change but also the most advanced in terms of product development and innovation. However, they have only touched the tip of the iceberg of the huge potential of this market.

Join IMMN and Florian Kohlbacher, Ph.D., for a webinar on the challenges and opportunities of the silver market in Japan. Dr. Kohlbacher, who is currently conducting research on the business implications of demographic change, will share case studies of leading edge mature marketing activities.

Dr. Kohlbacher is a senior research fellow with the German Institute for Japanese Studies, an adjunct research fellow at the Institute for Technology and Innovation Management at the Hamburg University of Technology, a fellow of the World Demographic Association, and an honorary board member of IMMN.

I contributed to an international business book co-edited by Dr. Kohlbacher: The Silver Market Phenomenon.

So did Dick Stroud:

A chunk from my chapter:

Today’s advertising industry needs a minor revolution. Talented men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s must to be brought into the fold if you want to target the Silver Market. This includes copywriters, graphic artists, producers, video directors, and creative directors. If you plan on implementing a marketing strategy that includes Baby Boomers as a primary, secondary, or tertiary market, and you turn it over to only people in their 20s and 30s, you will forfeit the natural sensibilities required to generate vital campaigns.

A free preview (PDF).

Read the Introduction to The Silver Market Phenomenon (PDF).

And don’t miss The Webinar.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash: The Newsletter

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:31:33 PDT

Boomer Project’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash is a Boomer marketing newsletter. I’ve been reading it so long that they still send it to an old email address I dumped years ago – so I don’t always see the newest issues. Through the grapevine I heard that it linked to one of my posts a couple of months ago.

Matt Thornhill and John Martin are the principals of Boomer Project. I’ve known Matt for years, and he regularly shows up on my blog.

A few posts ago I said some not-so-wonderful things about a Barron’s cover story. Mr. Martin was quoted in the article, but I didn’t mention it.

Thanks to Dick Stroud, I’ve now read the latest Jumpin’ Jack Flash – and oddly enough, Matt, John (or both) agree with me about the Barron’s piece: not much new there.

They’re more honest than I am. Whenever I’m quoted in the mainstream media, I make sure to toss up a post stating that whatever it is is one of the greatest articles ever written.

A frugal use of flash.

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:32:36 PDT

I’m not a big fan of long, convoluted, meaningless flash intros – which pretty much means I’m not a big fan of flash intros.

Ad agencies are notorious for boring you with graphic noise. I used to have a tongue-in-cheek piece of copy on my business site that looked like a post-it note:

Web Designer: Please insert long, gratuitous, convoluted, meaningless, waste-of-time flash intro HERE.

But I took it down because it was a waste of time.

Friend and colleague Joop Koopman and his business partner Peter VanBloem have formed a PR/Communications firm in New York City – and oddly enough, I adore their flash intro. It’s short, witty, tells the story. I’d call it a ‘frugal’ use of flash. Take a look:

Koopman VanBloom

I often point clients to this one as an excellent example of using flash effectively.

The Pros and Cons of Windows 7 for … Baby Boomers

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:16:29 PDT

I’m not a Microsoft basher. Every so often I might rip into one of their ill-advised PR ploys or marketing campaigns. Yes, I’ve seen this and really don’t know what to make of it:

Then there’s this:

'Family Guy' creator and Microsoft team up for Win 7 promotion

Not being a fully-fledged geek (or even a flimsy-fledged one), I have no major complaints with Vista or Office 2007.

And PowerPoint 2010 looks like it might be fun.

So yours truly has been sniffing around, researching Windows 7.

One redesign pointed out by Michael Gartenberg made my middle-aged eyes shiver:

Opinion: The pros and cons of Windows 7 for business
Gratuitous UI changes
I love the Win 7 UI, but I have a lot of experience invested in the old Windows ways of doing things, and some of the changes just seem gratuitous and make no sense to me. Also annoying are on-screen UI targets that you have to hit with your cursor but that are so tiny they make you think that Microsoft is hiring a lot of young workers who have great eyesight and/or high-resolution monitors. And using Touch and fingers to navigate is somewhat of an exercise in frustration.

If true, if this UI can’t be fiddled with, I’m not upgrading.

What if everybody over fifty who walks into a store and plays with the Windows 7 UI finds it ‘an exercise in frustration’? What if millions and millions of people over fifty purchase the upgrade sight unseen, and can’t quite get a mouse-grip on the ‘tiny’ targets?

Even if you can bump up the graphics/fonts on the interface, why would the ‘default’ setting completely ignore the largest consumer demo for this product?

Time for my ol’ tattered book cover again …

“It will be the Baby Boomers who will be the first to pick and choose, to ignore or be seduced by leading-edge technology marketing. There’s a simple reason for this. We have the money to buy this stuff. Experts say we’ll continue to have the money for at least the next twenty years. Write us off at your own peril.

Wouldn’t it be nice (and profitable) if software designers helped alleviate (and not aggravate) a big issue with Baby Boomers.

Marketing to the Undead

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:47:32 PDT

More international ether, this time from Canada:

John Farquhar: marketing to the undead
I thought I'd watch a little television this week and see how marketers see me, someone over 50. Apparently I'm dying, in constant pain, infertile, incontinent, undersexed and over-pollinated.

It’s one of NostraChuckus’ predictions:

Boomer Backlash II
If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

Marketing to Baby Boomers Conference: Asia

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:04:47 PDT

As I’ve said in a previous post:

50+ marketing is exploding worldwide.
That’s a cliché-ridden statement I’ve been wanting to use for years. Finally I can.

Kim Walker of Silver Group Asia is spearheading a November 2009 conference in Singapore, organized by Pacific Conferences:

Marketing to Baby Boomers Conference
This 2-day conference on “Marketing to Baby Boomers” will equip you with the marketing techniques and strategies to effectively reach out to Baby Boomers today.

Pacific Conferences has lined up an impressive array of partners and sponsors:

Download the PDF.

I don’t know why I’m so surprised by all this. After all, a few years ago I contributed to a book stuffed with huge chunks about the Asian 50+ Market:

It is with great pleasure to inform you that our book The Silver Market Phenomenon: Business Opportunities in an Era of Demographic Change has finally been published by Springer this week. You will receive your author copy from Springer soon. I am attaching the book flyer (PDF) for your reference. Please feel free to use it to spread the word and promote the book.

And recently I was approached by a company interested in a day-long presentation and workshop focusing on advertising and marketing to Baby Boomers. I won’t tell you what country it’s in, but what a surprise.

A worldwide phenomenon. Sometimes I think the U.S. needs to catch up.

5 Reasons Why 90% Of Social Media Efforts Fail

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:59:40 PDT

I got carried away over the last few days, commenting on a post at LinkedIn.

What’s below is from a ThoseinMedia discussion thread. You have to join LinkedIn, join the ‘group’, blah blah blah in order to read it – so I posted it here (without permission).

ThoseinMedia was conceived by Brent Willen. The initial post in the thread is from Andrew Ballenthin:

5 Reasons Why 90% Of Social Media Efforts Fail

I've been researching and writing a book on social media monetization and have seen upwards of 90% of professionals failing to get results from little or significant online efforts. After looking at over 400 professionals / businesses in the social media space and reading hundreds of how-to articles there's huge gaps. Why?

1) Lacking Zing
2) Spread Too Thin
3) Not Contagious
4) Poor Consistency
5) No Plan Stan

Feel free to leave your thoughts on why social media does not work or feel free to disagree or leave your solutions. All discussion is welcome. __________________________________________

Hi Andrew - is the failure rate really that high - 90%?

That's very interesting and suggests to me that social media is a creative marketing environment - some work - some don't.

So, perhaps the trick is to be highly creative AND know when to kill campaigns that aren't working?

Regards
Neil

__________________________________________

From my book:

When it all comes out in the wash, WOMM will be the best thing to happen to (silly retronym ahead) traditional advertising. Pretty soon, consumers won't believe anybody - even their best friends. They'll realize that they receive the most honest and straightforward information about a product or service from a TV commercial, print ad, or product web site. At least we don't lie about who we are and why we're saying what we're saying.

As far as all the claptrap about WOMM replacing advertising - people who are hawking that one have a slippery grip on history. Word-of-mouth marketing is nothing new. It's been around for a hundred years, since the beginning of modern advertising, always morphing into various forms. The latest morphs: online social networking and blogs.

There is plenty of marketing and advertising to be done on the Web, and who knows what forms they will take over the next ten years. We'll all be surprised. But word-of-mouth as the primary driving force of marketing? I think not.

Remember this: Advertising didn't die with the invention of the telephone.

And this video explains it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKCdexz5RQ8

__________________________________________

So Chuck your argument is the reason 90% of social media projects fail is because it isn't such a great promotional device after all?

And that we all get carried away with the one that did work (like google) and forget all those that failed (like, err, can't remember all those dot coms any more).

Is that a fair summary?

regards
Neil __________________________________________

That's fair. I love the web - but I'm not wild about social media for marketing/advertising.

Keeping an eye on social media is good so you can be on top of it all, good for research, good for some promotion - but it's not going to replace advertising. A great product/service site beats social media. Here's a funny and trenchant post by a friend of mine:

http://tinyurl.com/ya8wt5r

Thanks Chuck - just read your friend's blog - I'm with you both on this.

Another fad I see developing is non html flipping books software - everyone is now trying to shove their magazines into this super cool format - which is really just saying that if they built web pages that offer a forward and back scroll, then that would improve the user experience.

I reckon flipping book software will be dead within 12 months - we'll just get better web browsers and build better websites.

Perhaps the real impact of social media is to improve traditional forms of advertising too?
__________________________________________

No kidding about the non-html magazine format. The problem is that mag publishers push the PDF button - which is fine for print (then you send it to the printers) but not necessarily for the web. Here's part of an email I sent to a client last week:

The issue is ease-of-use and readability. I don’t know much about the program you use to render the final (PDF?) layout into an online version. The problem is that it’s hard to read, hard to negotiate. A straight-up PDF is great – but it loses a generation or two with this fancy pseudo-magazine widget. Maybe the technology I’m envisioning doesn’t exist.

A program needs to be invented where it bypasses PDF, you can do a magazine layout and turn it into something that is more like HTML or better, and is specifically for the web so the fonts aren’t small and spongy. PDFs are for printing.

It’s great that ********’s layout is like a magazine, that you can turn pages, that you can hyperlink ads – but it’s so difficult to read. Assume that most people don’t have huge, state-of-the-art monitors. It probably looks great to your designer.

If a print mag puts up a version of their magazine on the web using this software – fine. It’s secondary, for convenience. But if you only have an online magazine, it has to be pristine and the layout has to be specifically for the web.

__________________________________________

yep with you now - thanks Chuck - really useful comments
regards
Neil

"Contests" of user-generated work are almost ALWAYS disappointing to brands in my opinion. On our team at Behance, we have been discussing this a lot! We are starting to think of the Behance Network (behance.net) as a source for pre-populating a "sponsored gallery" for the purposes of brand engagement (as an alternative to a disappointing spec-like contest). Examples of the concept: typographyserved.com, fashionserved.com

Your 5 points are the reason why "contests" (a common "social media effort") often fail...

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Have to disagree with Chuck's comment about people ultimately concluding that more honest/useful info comes from ads. Word of mouth from people you REALLY know and trust always has been and always will be the most effective tool.

That said, while social media has the potential to expand the circle of influencers, most people will still be influenced mainly be the ones they know, not by the fake posters.

For me - I like 'word of mouth' in the form of comparison reviews of a product/service/organization by sites I have grown to trust and value and as a consumer of an incredible amount of trade journals and magazines - I hate the page-flipping formats that have become all the rage. As others have observed - I don't need to spend time working with clumsy navigation formats. And for social media - I think it comes down to an individuals bandwidth. Some social media portals/tools demand too much time to fully engage in and currently the selection is still very broad - too much waffle is usually just too much.

Love this discussion. I’d have to say I’d flip the order of Andrew’s list and place #5 at the top. I think failure often occurs when we become enamored with the tactic and forget the plan. When considering a social media effort as part of a marketing mix I think we need to ask ourselves the following:

1) Are our customers and prospects using social media or are we just putting something out there because we, as marketers, are engaged with it?

2) How does social media fit in context with the overall strategy and to what extent do we think a social effort will help achieve our business goals? Most importantly, how are we going to measure success?

3) Are we willing to commit the resources necessary to do it right?

I think there can be some real value in a social media effort as part of the marketing mix. But for me it still comes down to the basics -- understanding the consumer and how to best engage them in the media they use in order to meet our marketing & business goals. Social media is just another tool in the toolbox and must be strategically integrated into the overall mix in order to be effective.

Excellent points, Lori. Personally, I'd put #2 at the top. But maybe that's just my world!
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If 90% failed, does that imply that 10% succeeded? According to what success criteria or objectives? Aren't we really talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Where are the concrete numbers? How many $$$ spent on a social media initiative resulted in how many contacts, or sales, or...

How did this compare with other communication programs and what were the tangibles that resulted?

Personally, I'll go with 74 angels.
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Sorry I haven't been around, present research and writing on the book has kept me away for a bit. Thanks everyone for sharing such excellent challenges, insights and personal views. This post has generated over 2,000 page views on the blog and some 50+ comments from LinkedIn members since its posting on Monday morning.

If you go to the full blog post there will be over 40 comments which have expanded on this topic as this discussion topic was meant to do http://bit.ly/bnypg . My goal was not to give a definitive or empirical list but to engage your views and to be of any assistance if possible with what I’m discovering during my book research process.

To address the 90% question a few people have asked. What I've seen during my research is that the 90% are putting significant/insignificant time into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks and the medium is consuming time with negligible or no returns for their effort. The 10% that are receiving value are in some way coming close to an ROI that validates the effort invested.

I take a common sense old school approach to success criteria - if you were to invest the same hours and effort into another public relations, sales or advertising channel would the results be acceptable? I'm seeing in most cases the answer is no, the results are not on par with what other in person networking, offline strategic alliances, good old fashion promoting and sales calls achieve for the same hours and effort (social media like offline networking seldom delivers quick wins).

Thanks again for a very lively, challenging and sincere engagement with this discussion. I'm learning lots from everyone. I do strongly believe social media is a valid communication channel, we just have a long ways to go to understand it as well as other communications channels we use in business. Seldom is the pursuit of excellence conquered over night.
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"Word of mouth from people you REALLY know and trust always has been and always will be the most effective tool."

I'm a bit confused by this statement. A tool for what? By whom? A tool you use personally as a consumer? A friend buys a product, likes it, and tells you about it. That’s great. But what does that have to do with professional marketing/advertising?

My confusion is probably due to confusion defining concepts. Word of mouth is simply consumers talking amongst themselves about products and services. We've all been doing that since the beginning of modern advertising, for over one hundred years. Actually, it's been going on since the creation of civilization and trade - for thousands of years. It's nothing new.

Now there's something called Word of Mouth Marketing where 'citizen marketers' march into the ether and other places and, for baubles and beads and often more, create clumsy illusions that they're giddy over some product or service.

Why any advertiser would want to mess with good ol' honest word-of-mouth is beyond me.

So your product or service is getting some sort of positive response from users/consumers? Maybe a cult is forming. Or something. People are talking.

Take advantage of this. You'd be stupid not to. Bring in the PR professionals, the marketing people. Reference it in advertising campaigns. Support this grass roots excitement.

But trying to create buzz out of nothing? Paying shills to hand out lipstick and gum, paying bloggers for their so-called objective opinions?

I often wonder who's really being taken to the cleaners with Word of Mouth Marketing. Consumers … or advertisers?

But don't believe me. This is just some social media site, and I'm just somebody leaving a comment. Who knows if someone's paying me to trash word-of-mouth marketing ...

One thing's for sure: *You'll* never know.
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Hi Chuck,

I'm totally with you about paid, veiled, WOMM. My point was that I suspect that most (many? Don't know if it is most yet) people who are likely to buy things based on web-based recommendations are by now sophisticated enough to know not to trust everything they read online. So the effective WOM (from the viewpoint of building trust and sales) is that which comes to a prospective customer from someone they actually know and have reason to trust.

In terms of bloggers and "review sites" I think that people are unlikely to trust reviews that merely say "Try it; it is great!". They look for reasons to try it. That's why it is so powerful when sites like Amazon have people rate the usefulness of reviews. So if someone is being paid to promote a product, they at least need to be able to come up with reasoned arguments for WHY the product is good. If the product is a piece of garbage, they will have a harder time doing so, and will thus not be very effective.

That said, I've always thought media literacy is a crucial subject that needs to be taught in schools. Now we need to extend that to online media literacy, to ensure that people DO realize that much of what they read online is paid, veiled advertising.

"Word of mouth is simply consumers talking amongst themselves about products and services." Correct. Where social media has impact is merely in that it makes it easier for such talking amongst themselves to be among many more friends than previously. I wouldn't call a friend in another city to tell them how delighted I am with a paritcular product or service, but I may well post my reaction on a social media site, with the result that all my friends hear it instead of just those I see regularly.
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Laugh out loud at your comments Chuck...

Andrew, my role life seems to be the summariser - so to summarise you are saying that social media is great for research and forming opinions about ideas and service - but pretty rubbish at everything else?

If so, we are the lucky ones - using linkedin for research and networking - the advertisers and perhaps the social media companies themselves are unlucky and investors should keep their money away from social media...?

Regards
Neil

90% Failure Rate?

Based on what measurement? Social media is unique to the user. "One size fits all" simply doesn't apply.

It's the first communications tool that:
1. We get to invent as we go along.
2. Is continually evolving, shifting and changing.
3. It's a tool where we can learn more from something that didn't work, than what worked.
4. That said, "What worked" is based on your needs, not the measurement of others.
5. Finally and most important, there are no, repeat NO experts on social media.

I think we're still using analog measurement for a very digital medium.

If you're adding up the score, make sure Google is categorized under traditional advertising/marketing.

Google search is the new Yellow Pages. Paid Google search is like a half-page ad in The Yellow Pages. It has nothing to do with social media. It's the big boys playing with the big boys - good ol' fashioned big business.

And, of course, you would want people to click on an official web site for your product or service. An official web site is traditional media/marketing, not social media/marketing. It's a professionally produced marketing tool. Sure, you can incorporate a bulletin board (archaic for social network site), and that would be social media marketing, maybe even WOMM - but it's of secondary or tertiary or ... fourthindary importance to the site.

Minus Google from the social media results and you have a 99% failure rate.

Chuck

Posts of mine that have to do with WOMM:

Harris Poll & Advertising & Social Networking

A Smart Approach

Barron’s Weighs In

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:27:32 PDT

Gene Epstein, Economics Editor at Barron’s, has a cover story (subscription required) and video all about what yours truly and others have been screaming about for years:

Boomer Consumer
Companies that continue to ignore the over-50 set do so at their peril, as "boomer consumers" eat up a larger slice of the nation's spending pie.

Increasingly, the 77 million of them are being ignored by advertisers and marketers. They're being elbowed aside, ironically, by 18-to-49-year-olds, the very age group that they, in their younger years, put on the map as the most desirable consumer cohort. But the realities are changing, and any company that ignores them will be doing so at its peril over the next decade or two.

Here’s the pull quote from the cover of my book, first edition published in early 2005:

“It will be the Baby Boomers who will be the first to pick and choose, to ignore or be seduced by leading-edge technology marketing. There’s a simple reason for this. We have the money to buy this stuff. Experts say we’ll continue to have the money for at least the next twenty years. Write us off at your own peril.

And there’s a whole chapter about “Being elbowed aside, ironically, by 18-to-49-year-olds, the very age group that they, in their younger years, put on the map as the most desirable consumer cohort.” Pulled from the chapter:

Partly to save their hides, ad agencies turned their creative departments over to twenty-somethings. The sheer size of Baby Boomers made them the market—composed of scores of unwieldy cohorts. By attrition, this would have occurred naturally. It just happened ten or fifteen years sooner than with previous generations coming of age.

Barely out of college, Baby Boomers were in control of marketing and advertising to themselves—and became successful at it. After all, we knew the market.

The Barron’s story and video also covers subjects discussed numerous times in my blog:

Boomer Backlash II

The Backlash: If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

The Real Issue: Marketing and advertising folks grasping the fact that Boomers will be buying billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of non-age related products for the next twenty-odd years. If you target this group for toothpaste, computers, clothes, food, nail polish, sporting equipment, toenail clippers - anything at all (almost), and you do it with respect and finesse, they will appreciate and consider your product.

Another pull from the Barron’s article:

… A disproportionately large number of advertising copywriters, account managers and art directors are young. "Ask them to do an ad targeting the 50-plus demographic, and they default to a gray-haired senior limping down a beach trailed by an aging golden retriever," he adds.

That’s my book. Read a review:

Advertising to Baby Boomers
Chuck Nyren
by Joyce M. Wolburg, Journal of Consumer Marketing
I thought it was just me, but after reading Advertising to Baby Boomers, I now put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the copywriters. Most are Gen-Xers or members of Gen Y, who understand very well how to communicate with their own cohorts, but often fail to resonate with Baby Boomers.

More reviews.

And this blog post.

So … not much new from Barron’s for me or my readers, but certainly worth passing along:

Related Post from 2007:
Barron's "Geezer Power"

Update: Smart Money is now running the complete article.

Baby Boomers and The Kindle

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:12:44 PDT

A post from May 2009:

Not About The Kindle Controversy
I don’t want to get into a brouhaha over Amazon’s Kindle and whether it’s a swindle or a savior or Beelzebub. (Although the talking version seems to need elocution lessons.)

Multimedia Journalist Lauren E. Bohn did some research (including calling yours truly) and put together a trenchant piece:

Kindling a reading revolution among baby boomers? Baby boomers leading the perceived revolution
Berdell, a baby boomer, said he feels “hip” for owning a digital counterpart to the better portion of his library. He doesn’t bemoan the diminishing smell of paper and glue in his office. He’s not alone.

I don’t see books disappearing. They’re easier to read (and skim) than an electronic device.

And as one of Lauren’s interviewees says:

People can ingest content in more than one way …

The Google Phone

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:13:30 PDT

Here’s a campaign that (I guess) is age-neutral, maybe skewed a bit to Baby Boomers (two out of three celebrities, and a moldy tune for the TV spot)*:

I’m not a fan of using celebrities for ads, although there are exceptions. I generally smile when I see Whoopi.

Fast Company’s Chris Dannen says, “The Google Phone's Ad Campaign Bites, Here's How to Give It Teeth.”

The TV spot is aspirational, direct, fun – but it doesn’t do what it should do:

For the umpteenth time …
The Most Effective Marketing/Advertising Model For Reaching Baby Boomers: What is now called traditional advertising pushing you to an age-friendly, informative product/services web site.

It’s not a bad site.

And that hand-me-down soundtrack does everything a soundtrack shouldn’t. I’ll admit that I’d hoped to never hear that recording again – but even if you liked it way back when, it still doesn’t work:

Purely anecdotal: I’m watching TV. I hear a tune I haven’t heard in thirty-five, forty years. My mind goes off into the ether. “Wow. What a great song. I’d forgotten all about it. I had the album. The cover was blue . . . And there were a bunch of other great songs on that album. What the hell were they? I can’t remember . . . I wonder if I can get it on Amazon. There’s probably only a compilation of his hits, or a boxed set. But I just want the CD of the album. I’ll have to remember to check the next time I’m online ..”

By then, the commercial is over. In fact, probably three other commercials are over. I have no idea what the product is, or what any of the other products are.

But the real questions are these: Do advertisers benefit from invoking the past willy-nilly? When those tunes come on, am I really paying attention? Or do they send me off into the ether, conjuring up all sorts of bizarre and moldy feelings, images, remembrances?

If someone at Google or T-Mobile or their ad agency liked this tune so much, spend some money and redo the ditty, so it sounds relevant for today. When I hear that recording while watching the commercial, I think I should be picking up this:

More: Invoking The Sixties

* Thanks to Fast Company for the graphic.

Advertisers: Be Prepared For Big Boomer Brains

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:02:09 PDT

I was looking forward to less pain in the future, hoping the gradual wearing away of gray matter would take a load off my nagging neck. Now I hear otherwise:

Older Brains May Not Be So Small After All Decrease in gray matter isn't a given, researchers find
Scientists have assumed that people's brains shrink as they age, but researchers now suspect that's not the case … Scientists in the past had failed to screen out people whose brains had shrunk because of brain disease, they said.

In other words, simply growing older may not make the brain become smaller.

That’s great. That’s all I need. A fully-functioning, fat, juicy noggin and an arthritic neck that can barely hold it up.

Other bad news (especially for advertisers who continue to patronize and dismiss anybody over fifty):

Older Brain May Really Be a Wiser Brain

Baby Boomers are smarter than you think.

And generally better.

Late Bloomer Boomers

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:31:11 PDT

In the NYT yesterday:

The Summer of the Celebrity Deaths?
By SARAH KERSHAW
This summer could come to be known as the summer when baby boomers began to turn to the obituary pages first, to face not merely their own mortality or ponder their legacies, but to witness the passing of legends who defined them as a tribe, bequeathing through music, culture, news and politics a kind of generational badge that has begun to fray.

“This is a historical development in cultural history,” said Todd Gitlin, 66, the sociologist and author of “The Sixties,” who teaches at the Columbia University School of Journalism. “It’s the ebbing of figures who have a wide enough span of appreciation and admiration so they appeal to significant numbers of people, like incarnations of virtue. So people take a new measure of themselves when they ask, ‘Will there ever be anybody else like X’ ”?

The shinier side:

Going by actuarial tables, the boomers, now age 45 to 63, can expect to live to age 83, thanks to modern health care …

“I think this is the first time so many have simultaneously had an awareness of death and the prospect of a whole new act,” Mr. (Marc) Freedman said. “Never before have there been so many people who have so much experience and the time left to do something with it.”

The Late Bloomer Boomers

I don’t think that you should become a copywriter until you’ve done something else first . . . I wrote my first ad when I was 39 . . . I couldn’t have done it unless I had done a lot of other things first . . . I had experience that was enormously important when I sat down to write my first ad.
—David Ogilvy1

One of the ways Baby Boomers are redefining middle age is by beginning new lives.This is nothing that hasn’t been done before, but for a large chunk of a generation to do it practically en masse took many prognosticators by surprise.

When Baby Boomers were in their late teens through their early thirties there was an explosion of creative productivity in all fields.

Now Boomers in their late forties and fifties, the ones who didn’t quite “make it” or took safer paths, are finding out that their creative juices never dried up. Many of these folks are writing fiction and non-fiction, becoming graphic artists and photographers, and playing and composing music. And just as many are doing astonishingly creative things in the business world, often as entrepreneurs.

This isn’t like retired people taking on hobbies. The Late Bloomer Boomer Movement is going full blast, and there’s no stopping it. The magic equation: Thirty-odd years of experience plus not feeling old and being relatively healthy plus knowing you have another quarter-century of productivity in you equals . . .

Well, we’ll see. Some pundits are predicting that Late Bloomer Boomers may leave a bigger imprint on society than the “early bloomer” Boomers who were at the top of their games twenty-five to thirty-five years ago.
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1 Denis Higgins, The Art of Writing Advertising (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003).

Boomer Backlash II

nyrenagency@gmail.com (Chuck Nyren) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:03:26 PDT

Note: I’ve plagiarized myself with this post – but thought the ideas behind the original needed updating. The backlash predicted is happening now.
_____

A pivotal (you’d never forgive me if I used the word watershed) campaign by Kimberly-Clark for their Depend line is getting a lot of press. Culled from a piece by Bob Moos of The Dallas Morning News:

Adult underwear no longer being given the silent treatment
… The new TV commercials have ordinary boomer men and women engaged in some unscripted banter about the differences between the two sexes, such as whether men or women make better drivers and which sex actually rules the world … The TV spots are carefully crafted to appeal to boomers who, if they don't use Depends themselves, may be caregivers for parents who do …

The creative is lots of fun. No surprise, since the spots were directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (born 1948). A Boomer directing Boomers. Click one of the images below to watch the spots:

I guess what upsets me about this campaign is not the campaign itself. I love it. I see people around my age – they’re entertaining, loose, funny. I’m wondering what the payoff will be. What a letdown.

Why couldn’t it have been a car? Laundry soap? Baked Beans? Gender-specific razors? Aluminum foil? A smart phone? Anything but some age-related malady.

And there’s this:

Use only as directed
By Joseph P. Kahn
Take one night last week, chosen at random, when NBC Nightly News aired 17 commercials during its 30-minute broadcast.

Of those 17 spots, 12 were for (in order): Zyrtec, an over-the-counter allergy medication; Citrucel Fiber Supplement With Calcium; Advil PM, a combination pain reliever and sleep aid; Transitions prescription eyeglass lenses ("healthy sight in every light"); Spiriva HandiHaler, for use by COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) sufferers; the cholesterol-lowering properties of Cheerios; Bayer aspirin and its heart-attack prevention benefits; Omnaris nasal spray, a prescription allergy medication; Just For Men hair coloring (let's help graying old Dad get a date!); Boniva, which helps reverse bone loss in postmenopausal women, most notably actress Sally Field; ThermaCare heat wraps, for relief of muscle and joint pain; and Pepcid Complete, a heartburn and acid reflux remedy.

The Backlash: If every time someone over fifty sees a commercial targeting them and it’s always for an age-related product or service, pretty soon their eyes will glaze over, they’ll get itchy and grumpy.

The Real Issue: Marketing and advertising folks grasping the fact that Boomers will be buying billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of non-age related products for the next twenty-odd years. If you target this group for toothpaste, computers, clothes, food, nail polish, sporting equipment, toenail clippers - anything at all (almost), and you do it with respect and finesse, they will appreciate and consider your product.

And looking at the big picture: Let’s hope that ad agencies will see these spots and realize they’re missing out not hiring people over fifty to create campaigns for just about any product or service.

A quote from my book (1^st Edition published in 2005):

It’s going to be up to companies to be proactive when dealing with advertising agencies. Quality control of your product doesn’t stop at the entrances of Madison Avenue’s finest, or at the doors of small local or regional advertising agencies. If companies put pressure on agencies, and demand 45-plus creatives for products aimed at the 45-plus market, then they will find out that Baby Boomers are still “the single most vibrant and exciting consumer group in the world.”

Boomer Backlash I