We listened intently as the marketing research director of the major cruise line described his demographic focus to us for the coming year. “We recognized that 80 percent of the time, it’s the woman who is making the major travel decisions for the family. As a result, we’ve decided to target women age 40 and under.”
“Targeting women is a smart move,” we said. “Women are going to control two-thirds of the consumer wealth in the United States over the coming decade. But is there any particular reason why you are targeting the age segment of the population that will see a 0 percent increase over the next few years while during the same period of time, the number of people age 45 to 64 will grow 30 percent?”[1]
The room suddenly grew quiet. After a brief pause, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled, “Perhaps we should revisit this.”
Many marketers have come a long way since the days of automatically targeting the “demographic of choice,” historically considered to be males between ages 18 to 34. Since the turn of this century, an increasing number of industries—and an even larger number of advertising, public relations, and marketing professionals—have come to recognize that there are demographic goldmines embedded in broad segments of the population just waiting to be tapped.
In our increasingly demanding marketplaces, many view appealing to previously under-represented segments of the population as critical to gaining the edge over less enterprising competitors. Marketing groups with specialized knowledge of the Hispanic, African-American, youth, or women segments, to name a few, have been rapidly springing up to meet the demands of the sophisticated marketer seeking expertise on issues of gender, age, ethnicity, and even religion. And like the research director of the cruise company, competitive marketers are more willing than ever to admit that in doing so, they often find themselves on largely unexplored terrain. For nearly everybody in the marketing field, this is an era of intense excitement, fueled as much by the adrenaline of trial and error as by the promise of the rewards. Many of those whose companies are willing to test the waters are already proving to be big winners. Others are going back to the drawing boards, learning from their mistakes.
The prize has to be worth the risk, and in the case of Baby Boomer women, the numbers promise that it is. Baby Boomers make up, at approximately 78 million, the largest generational demographic in history—and the majority of Baby Boomers today are women, a proportion that will increase substantially over the coming decades. Beyond their sheer numbers, Boomer households spend more every year on consumer goods and services than their younger cohorts. Additionally, with more established careers than younger generations, Boomer women are at the peak of their earning potential, with many planning to work well into their 60s, 70s, and beyond. Not only will they continue to earn income, but within the next decade, many Boomer women will be managing inheritance windfalls from their parents and husbands.
Happily, the cruise company hired us to consult with them on how to market successfully to women of the Baby Boomer generation. Just as importantly, out of this and many other encounters, we recognized the need for a practical, myth-busting book on the subject for marketers in a broad spectrum of industries. As we began sharing our vision, we also recognized the pent-up demand for a forum for those amongst us who are pioneering this new terrain, learning as we go. The result is the book you hold in your hands.
From the beginning, we felt it was important to give voice not just to our own insights and expertise. This moment in marketing history is not about any one individual’s pronouncements, no matter how wise and perceptive she or he may be. Rather, we recognize that we are poised on the verge of no less than a marketing revolution: the traditional wisdom about population segments worth targeting turned virtually on its head. Women 40+, heretofore largely invisible in marketing circles, are becoming increasingly recognized as the powerhouse consumer.
Even more compelling than the numbers is the intelligence on what has and hasn’t worked for the cutting-edge companies who have hands-on experience with Boomer women consumers. As marketers, we have been privileged to have a front-row seat, witnessing triumphs and misses—and most importantly, hearing the stories of these demographic pioneers.
Over the years, Imago Creative has partnered with clients in a wide range of industries, from fashion and food, to furniture and finance. Seeing the need for an area expert, Founder and President Mary Brown evolved Imago into the only strategic marketing firm in the United States specializing exclusively in helping companies build brand relationships with women 40+. We are additionally immersed in this emerging market by having developed Imago Creative.com, and through our e-newsletter, “Femail Focus,” a leading online clearinghouse for marketing intelligence about women 40+. Our database and archival research gives us access to the best-of-class marketing efforts from a broad range of industries, with statistical support to back them up.
In addition to giving voice to our smart and courageous gathering of marketing experts, we recognized the need for progressive proprietary research to fill in the missing pieces of intelligence. As a research associate with UCLA, senior partner at Imago Creative, and a 25-year public relations veteran, Dr. Carol Orsborn comes to this book with a unique academic and psychosocial perspective on marketing to the Baby Boomer woman.
Together, we began identifying individuals, companies, and industries both in and beyond our own client base who have launched, or are in the process of launching, marketing initiatives targeted to women of the Baby Boomer generation. The response to our invitation to join this book as a contributing author has been tremendous, reflecting peaking interest among marketers and the public in this promising and largely underserved demographic. Each of our contributing authors was asked to respond to their choice of any one or combination of the following three questions:
As you will soon be discovering in the following pages, their answers to these questions—and more—are illuminating, to say the least. There is, indeed, the sense of discovery as individual marketers working independently from one another have been brought together in the context of this book to help connect the dots. The intelligence and wisdom they provide is as generous as it is welcome, as the opening of this new marketing frontier takes on a nearly missionary zeal. “This is an exciting time to be a marketer,” says Melissa McVicker, director of Intel’s Global Communications Group. “Our industry is just now beginning to look at Baby Boomer women as the burgeoning market segment it is. Some of us are doing a better job figuring it out than others. But ultimately, what it is about, is enriching this previously underrepresented consumer’s life through innovative technology.” The same sentiment was echoed by contributing authors in fields ranging from travel, automotive and financial services to healthcare, food, and apparel.
Throughout the book, you will be hearing from market leaders from a broad range of industries, who share what they’ve learned about how to connect effectively with this new power consumer. Incorporating proprietary cutting-edge research, the book provides practical guidance and motivational tools for marketers who want to build powerful brand relationships with women of the Baby Boomer generation.
In the pages ahead, you will have access to all the intelligence you need to:
Develop a roadmap to increase your market share of today’s most lucrative consumer
Minimize the risks and maximize the potential of marketing to this challenging but promising demographic
Know what industry leaders (and in many cases, the competition) are thinking/doing about marketing to Baby Boomer women
Put your hands on the statistics and power points in order to sell others in your company on putting resources against this up-and-coming market segment
Make strategic decisions about the messages and communications channels you choose to use with her
Given the range and depth of voices, perspectives, and research represented in these pages, this book promises not only to sound the starting bell for this emerging consumer powerhouse, but to be a definitive guide on the subject, with advice provided by some of the smartest minds in the business today. So buckle your seatbelts. After all, She’s in the driver’s seat!