Louis Menand, a staff writer at The New Yorker and professor with Harvard University, wrote a combative article entitled: It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations.” His subtitle then draws a line in the sand: From Boomers to Zoomers, the concept gets social history all wrong.
His op-ed piece denouncing the construct of “generation” mirrors articles by other pundits and social critics, including anti-ageism author and activist Ashton Applewhite and sociology professor Philip Cohen for The Washington Post.
Menand may be a brilliant writer and Harvard professor — even the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize — but he is not a marketer who has conceived and executed generational marketing programs with measured results for 40 years.
Case studies back up my claim that he is shortsighted.
First, a little background about direct mail testing. What does it takes to "beat a control" subscription pitch for a major magazine or newspaper? Once a publisher discovers a winner, their control direct mailers get tested against all the time, and challengers often fail. A direct mail pitch for the Wall Street Journal remained unbeaten for over 25 years. Martin Conroy, who created the famous control mailer and mentored me, brought in a staggering $2 billion in subscription sales for the newspaper, mainly because his captivating publisher letter was pitch-perfect and motivating.
Here are two control-breaking direct mail packages that I conceived and wrote by applying knowledge of generational sociology:
My firm's case studies are as close to hard science as social science gets because we measure human behavioral responses to emotional triggers presented through advertising, including timing, subscriptions, source lists, demographics, renewals, and cross-promotional activities.
When critics, such as Menand and Cohen, declare that generational constructs are irrelevant and ineffective in the marketplace where the rubber meets the road, I say: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
One does not even need to use a generational label to create effective cohort-sensitive advertising and direct mail programs. One merely needs to understand and communicate deeper “collective mentalities” inculcated by membership in a distinct generational cohort. Generational research from significant companies such as Pew Research Center can inspire profound insights into dominant and dynamic shared values. These insights can be transformed into subscriptions and sales.
What about Menand's denunciation of accepted Baby Boomer social history? The professor declares: “Most young people in the sixties did not practice free love, take drugs, or protest the war in Vietnam.” He asserts: “In a poll taken in 1967, when people were asked whether couples should wait to have sex until they were married, sixty-three percent of those in their twenties said yes, virtually the same as in the general population. In 1969, when people aged twenty-one to twenty-nine were asked whether they had ever used marijuana, eighty-eight percent said no. When the same group was asked whether the United States should withdraw immediately from Vietnam, three-quarters said no, about the same as in the general population.”
Aside from the fact that I was in college during those years with observations that contradict his poll summary, I would ask the professor: “So when did you come to believe that people respond truthfully to poll questions that are potentially incriminating and uncomfortable to answer?” Or “Why would you expect Boomer respondents to be candid about personal beliefs and behaviors during a time they had deep suspicions of authority figures, including researchers?”
Menand does not get a pass from me as merely a “sociology pundit.” He asks: “Are they (generations) a helpful way to understand anything?” I have answered his question.
Marketing is what makes everything in society prosper, including Harvard University, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. If we eliminate the construct of generation from our lexicon in the name of social equity, why don't we also eliminate imprecise descriptors such as women, African Americans, adolescents, and college professors?
My counterarguments aren't mere opinions borne from a well of righteous indignation. My conclusions are straightforward: consumer cohorts (a.k.a. generations) have collective mentalities instilled during adolescence and early adult years, and, when presented with creative and impactful interpretations of those shared worldviews, they respond by subscribing, buying, joining, giving, and investing, etc. Generational collective mentalities are salient and can trigger desired economic behaviors.
In conclusion, Menand thrums his rhetorical question as if a dare: “Are they (generations) a helpful way to understand anything?” My answer is yes. Generational sociology helps marketers understand how to communicate with and trigger desirable responses from targeted cohorts.
I'm willing to look at other perspectives about the validity and usefulness of “generation,” but contrarian views need to be tied to equally rigorous experimentation rather than stand unchallenged as asserted opinions, no matter how fervent and articulate the messengers.
Never before in the history of this nation have so many men entered the 70+ life stage. A Boomer male turns 70 about every 15 seconds. This inexorable march to 70+ will continue until 2034, and then this generation’s longevity dash continues forward toward the ninth and tenth decades of life. Someday, millions of Boomer men will survive beyond the average life expectancy achieved by their grandfathers and fathers.
Demography by itself does not fully predict the future course for this generation. Values inspired by the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960’s and 1970’s add dimension to future scenarios. Here are four significant influences:
Boomer men were and are widely supportive of feminism, especially those aspects of the social movement focused on economic equality and full participation in institutional society.
Many recall early encounters with feminism during their teen years: perhaps a polite request not to open the door for a young woman passing by, or a more vociferous denunciation by being called a “male chauvinist pig.”
The experiences of feminism often served to confuse Boomer men; they wanted to please their female counterparts but did not necessarily wish to relinquish some of the privileges and territory of maleness as their fathers and grandfathers had defined it. Boomer men sometimes feel caught between opposing values about sexual roles: those celebrating full equality between the sexes, and those that honor the special privileges of manhood such as classic corporate and institutional power.
Many privileges under onslaught today spring from ancient religious traditions and time-honored customs when men practiced rituals of initiation, preferred separation from females during specific periods and seasons, and developed their own language nuances and culture.
Patriarchic traditions are under siege today in the cultural narratives expressed through books and movies. For example, an article in The Atlantic described how role reversals are impacting Boomer men, once-upon-a-time large and in-charge of romantic relationships:
“Up in the Air, a movie set against the backdrop of recession-era layoffs, hammers home its point about the shattered ego of the American man. A character played by George Clooney is called too old to be attractive by his younger female colleague and is later rejected by an older woman whom he falls in love with after she sleeps with him—and who turns out to be married. George Clooney! If one of the the sexiest men alive can get twice rejected (and sexually played) in a movie, what hope is there for anyone else? The message to American men is summarized by the title of a recent offering from the romantic-comedy mill: She’s Out of My League.”
It seems that Boomer men, out of choice in youth and out of necessity in middle age, have embraced the precepts and implications of feminism. Will women in the future embrace the possibilities of maleness as it finds new expressions in elderhood?
Baby Boomer men are dichotomous with respect to health & fitness. They grew up in a time when the adult population was largely ignorant of today’s diet and health maxims. For example, I recall consuming a steady diet of high-fat foods, prepared and presented by my well-meaning mother. My mother’s refrigerator was always stocked with cheeses, bacon, whole milk, bologna, and cheese casserole leftovers.
On the contrary, this generation also discovered outdoor sports and jogging in their twenties, influenced an explosion in the fitness facilities industry throughout their thirties and forties, and escorted many diet and weight-loss fads to popular and economic prominence. Thus, when it comes to health and wellness, this is a bifurcated generation. About 40 percent are overweight or obese; a smaller but nevertheless significant percentage is dedicated to maintaining fitness, with accelerating commitment to workout regimens. An entire new category of master athletes has become prominent in the last few years.
Boomer men are moving into a period of their lives representing unprecedented opportunities for growth, service, community, and fraternity. Along this path, dangers lurk: irrelevance, anger, depression, lack of appropriate role models, obesity, and a general dearth of purpose. The impact can lead some men to make abrupt and unwise changes, from quitting a job to leaving a marriage.
What might be the source for these challenges of male aging? According to Jed Diamond, PhD, author of Male Menopause, acting out by older males involves much more than external stresses.
“Often a man’s restlessness and irritability come from the pull of his inner world, not a pull from outside. He may think he needs to leave his family, have an affair, change jobs, run away from home, or leave the country. The real longing may be to fulfill his soul’s calling.”
These potential illnesses of the body and soul need healing, and this is the service that many companies in the future may provide. Marketing can be restorative when insights gleaned positively change the way men think about themselves as husbands, partners, fathers, grandfathers, and mentors. Just as marketers have been instrumental in teaching women about breast cancer, so can marketers take a leadership role in helping men understand their own needs and positive ways to address what they want through the choices they make as consumers.
Marketers can teach environmental awareness, the special role of fathers in the nation’s future, and how men and women can co-evolve, wherein both sexes share equally in the American dream.
The most powerful marketing premise of the coming years will be healing. In healing the nation’s aging men, those insightful and courageous companies will also heal many ills besetting the nation and the globe. Along this hopeful path, enlightened companies will also experience the economic and psychological rewards of making a substantive difference, while elevating late-life manhood to a status worthy of esteem and aspiration by younger male generations.
Although late middle age has been traditionally associated with predictability, quiescence, and gradual withdrawal from mainstream society, Boomer men are poised to shatter these stereotypical expectations, challenging barriers to employment for those over age 60 or 70. The softer side of maturity is a quest for reinvention and self-actualization. Boomer men have spent decades focused on their responsibilities as employers, employees, fathers, husbands, partners, and business and civic leaders.
The stage of life after 70 presents renewed opportunities to reach for greater idealism and relevance in life. It’s a time to discover life anew, and this perpetually seeking male cohort will pursue later life with questions, a search for meaning, and by finding ways to bring life into perspective while leaving behind meaningful contributions to society. These Boomer quests will include new ways to create a more sustainable economy, ways to mitigate poverty and attendant diseases, and ways to build greater influence for the nation’s thousands of nonprofit organizations.
Excerpted from Generation Reinvention: How Boomers Today Are Changing Business, Marketing, Aging and the Future.
Do younger generations understand the events leading up to the unusual happenings of the 60s and 70s?
A good question, inviting a rhetorical question.
How much do you understand about the U.S. Civil War?
Do you recall the significant battles, major turning points, and the commanding personalities who influenced the outcome? Probably you know a lot if you’re a history buff, but you’ll never understand that war the same way that those who lived through it did.
This is an underlying thesis of generational sociology. Concerning major historical events occurring before our youth and maturation, we “appropriate memories,” meaning we learn memories secondhand through books, movies, television, teachers, parents, and online.
For those historical periods we personally experience during youth, we “acquire memories.” Mediated and elaborated by our generational peers, acquired memories are much more powerful and enduring in formation of “collective values” and a sense of shared “defining moments” with generational peers.
Younger generations can, through scholarship, become well versed in the events and personalities of the 60′s and 70′s, but they can never understand the full panoply of emotional meaning and content that influence those who lived through the era as teenagers and young adults.
It’s one thing to read the transcript of a speech from Martin Luther King Jr., or watch a YouTube video; it’s quite another to have stood in a crowd in Washington D.C. with hundreds of thousands of impassioned people and absorbed the message of “I Have a Dream” for the first time it was ever uttered by a legendary Civil Rights leader.
Generations share common values through “intergenerational continuity,” but each generation forms unique values based on common and shared experiences during the formative years between the ages of about 12 through 25.
For those interested in gaining a deeper, more nuanced understanding of 1969 and 1970, I invite you to check out Noble Chaos: A Novel, my literary novel. The book is available in softcover, Kindle and Audible formats.
Check out this link to listen to a five-minute sample of the award-winning audiobook.
Generational Sociology and Boomers
Karl Mannheim (1893 — 1947), a founding father of the field of sociology, conceived the essence of generational theory through a seminal 1923 essay entitled "The Problem of Generations." Mannheim insisted that when a youth cohort faces substantial turmoil during its formative years between ages 12 and 25, a sense of generational identification strengthens.
The leading-edge of the Boomer generation came of age between 1964 and 1975, an intense era of social, political, and technological changes. Protest marches, lifestyle experimentation, and social role reinvention became hallmarks of Boomer youth, a movement full of fervor, fun, and fantastical ideas about reorganizing society and culture.
Quantitative Research Supports Generational Theory
Even before I became fully aware of Mannheim's theories, and as I was finishing the first draft of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers in 2002, I was convinced that Baby Boomers had substantial generational affinity influenced by extraordinary turmoil during our youth, buttressed by a mass-market advertising industry that had targeted us since we were in diapers.
But I had no quantitative evidence, other than the insights I have gained since 1978 from creating myriad successful advertising and promotional campaigns targeting Boomers.
The Pew Research Center conducted a national survey from March 10 through April 15, 2015. Researchers studied 3,147 adults who are part of their American Trends Panel, "a nationally representative sample of randomly selected U.S. adults surveyed online and by mail."
Pew's study concluded that Baby Boomers have the most pervasive sense of generational identification when compared with four other living generations: The Greatest Generation, the Silent Generation, Generation X, and Millennials or Generation Y. Pew concluded: "Fully 79% of those born between 1946 and 1964, the widely used age range of this generation, identify as Boomers. That is by far the strongest identification with a generational name of any cohort."
Not only do the majority of Boomers identify with their generational label, 70 percent also feel that their assigned generational label applies to them "very well (31 percent) or fairly well (39 percent)."
Research evidence suggests that shared generational values formed during external conflicts and cultural turmoil do not perish with time passing; rather, the sociological phenomena typical of Boomer youth are finding newer ways of manifestation as the generation ages. Shared generational values can also be thought of as "collective mentalities" or "dominant ways of thinking."
How can marketers tap into the powerful influence of generational values?
One method is to employ nostalgic memories creatively, and this has been done successfully by a number of international companies, including Subaru, GE healthymagination, and Fidelity Investments.
Here's how Volkswagen recently delivered a nostalgic advertising message targeting Boomers for its People First Warranty:
This ad scored an 85 percent positive "sentiment rating" on iSpot.tv.
Another method is to examine topical issues confronting members of the generation today, such as possible exposure to the hepatitis C virus infection. Gilead Sciences directly addressed Boomers in the following commercial:
Also ranking high for viewer reception, this ad scored an 82 percent positive "sentiment rating" on iSpot.tv.
Whichever method advertisers use to attract attention and instill positive brand impressions with Boomers, it is critical that creative directors and copywriters understand subtleties and nuances of what it means to have reached adulthood during the Vietnam War era.
Like all generations, we retain positive memories of our youthful years and struggles. Like all generations, we have contemporary needs, wants, and concerns unique to our generational journey.
Appropriated vs. Acquired Memories
Generational theory recognizes that memories we appropriate from other generations — meaning those memories we experience vicariously through stories shared by members of older generations and historical media — are not as powerful as memories we acquire through personal experiences during adolescence and young adulthood.
To members of younger generations, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy represents an abstract lesson from history; to leading-edge Boomers, the killing of this president remains vivid and enduring. Every one of us born before 1957 remembers that fateful day — exactly where we were when we heard the shocking news. America changed, and the Boomer generation lost much of its innocence and trust. Kennedy's assassination persists today in our collective psyche.
To members of other generations, the Woodstock Music & Art Fair may sometimes be seen as a hackneyed cliche. To Boomers, the festival represents a time and place when everything changed in dramatic ways, whether or not as individuals we attended.
To members of other generations, being at risk for infection with Hep C may represent a moral failing of too much "free love." To Boomers, the possibility of being infected hearkens back to memories of long-lost lovers when "making love" was not seen as something awful but rather natural.
The inexorable journey of contemporary aging includes novel opportunities to reach and motivate Boomers+ through TV advertising that rings insightful, authentic, and compelling.