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| Mature Market News - Thought Leaders and Noteworthy Events |
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The Voice of Authority in Mature Market Advertising Marketing professionals still have a long way to go to understand the mature market and its distinctions. For example, the baby boomers have a radically different attitude towards authority than do their older counterparts. Marketing and advertising professionals have really jumped on the mature market bandwagon in the past couple of years, but they continue to overlook many essential distinctions and nuances regarding this large and diverse market. Segmentation is a particular, key tactic that seems chronically undervalued. How can you decide to target "consumers 50+," when a vast chasm of dramatic differences separate baby boomers from today's senior citizens? To formulate a mature market analysis that means anything, marketing professionals have to be willing to break down their target market into parts and really examine the deep divisions underlying the age brackets. One really notable difference between baby boomers and senior citizens is their relationship with, and response to, authority. Think about it: a wide array of products tend to be advertised with reference to expert opinions, and these opinions are presented as good reasons to buy. (In fact, the tactic is particularly prevalent in pharmaceutical advertising, which happens to target primarily – you guessed it – the 50+ market!) Is it a good idea to rely on experts and authority figures when targeting the mature market in your promotional marketing and advertising? Here's where the generation gap becomes evident. The World War II generation and the Silent generation – all born before 1946, and most of them remembering the Depression and the Second World War – grew up respecting authority. Their view of the world was shaped in a society firmly structured around respect for age, rank and education. When addressing this portion of the mature market, therefore, it will usually pay to call on expert opinion and, perhaps in more subtle ways, use a perspective that values clear societal and familial order. In contrast to older counterparts, baby boomers grew up amid the 1950s' worship of suburbia and, upon coming of age, ushered in more anti-authoritarian times. They questioned the government, their religion, and their parents. Baby boomers, an independent-thinking group, like to make up their own minds. They tend to be "self-referential," so instead of quoting what leader or professional said what, marketing should give boomers stories about themselves and their peers. Advertising and marketing can effectively use "role models," who look and think like the boomers themselves, to sell products – but try to avoid the pedestal when targeting baby boomers. Back To Mature Market News → Go To The GenerationTarget.com Mature Market Bookstore → |
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