Most would agree “millennials” and “disruption” are among the most influential marketing buzzwords at the moment.
Huge Base
There is good reason why so many companies have embraced the disruption to traditional marketing practices required to harvest the huge consumption base millennials represent now, and more importantly, in the future.
To Peter Hubbell, though, that’s no reason to forget baby boomers. Hubbell, director of creative marketing agency BoomAgers and author of “Getting Better With Age; Improving Marketing In The Age Of Aging,” illustrated for housewares leaders at the recent IHA Chief Housewares Executive SuperSession (CHESS) how a diversified marketing portfolio addressing boomers could pay immediate dividends.
“Today’s disruption is the aging of the world,” Hubbell told CHESS attendees. “Marketing to people that are older doesn’t fit our definition of normal. Buy you have to get over it: They are too valuable to ignore, and they’re here now.”
Hubbell doesn’t cheekily dismiss millennial buying power, but he cautions it’s still premature for any industry to rely on it. As companies understandably adapt to the distinctive millennial tendencies and preferences, he said, they also would do well to adapt to the $7.1 trillion “longevity economy” spearheaded by a boomer generation defying traditional aging conceptions.
Manage The Gap
“The staggering potential of millennials is so seductive it’s distorting today’s reality,” Hubbell said. He advised that the bulk of millennials won’t reach peak spending potential until 2030 and that most boomers plan to work past 65 while standing to inherit some $15 trillion over the next 15 years.
“People have to figure out how to manage the gap,” Hubbell said.
Where boomers differ greatly from aging generations of yesteryear, Hubbell pointed out, is in their staunch denial that they should give in to their ultimate demise.
“They define aging as living, not waiting to die,” Hubbell said. “They believe the best years are to come… They’re not stopping; they’re starting. They’re not retiring; they’re re-wiring. Maybe they are downsizing, but I think in reality they are simplifying and streamlining.”
That clarifies and amplifies the marketing opportunity for products and services that support the active aspirations of boomers over things that simply make getting older more bearable. No more or less brand loyal than their younger counterparts, Hubbell explained, boomers gladly shift to veteran and new brands that signal vitality.
Balanced Portfolio
Hubbell recommends marketing to a balanced portfolio, not unlike what a financial advisor would advise. “How many of you would put all your funds into emerging markets?” Hubbell asked somewhat rhetorically. “But that is exactly what is being done now by so many [in their marketing strategies]. “Millennials are high-risk, long term. Boomers are low-risk, short term,” he continued. “You need to have some boomers in your portfolio.”
Baby boomers have driven mass marketing since color TV went mainstream, Hubbell said. Don’t expect them, he declared, to relinquish their disruptive influence— or buzz worthiness— any time soon.
