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Is there Retail for Boomers?
This morning I posted an item on this site's Daily News section from Unity Marketing, a US market research company specializing in the luxury category. In the release, the company's president, Pam Danziger, said that marketers had to target their efforts at high-income consumers aged 40 and under. These "Young Affluents," as Danzinger dubs them, are outspending high-income earners over 40. But, I wondered, was this spending split at least partly attributable to the fact that advertising and to a large extent much of retail is targeted directly at the "youth market." Are people under 40 spending more because there's more for them to spend it on and more companies asking them to buy?
Ironically, an issue of Marketing magazine is sitting on the floor beside my desk. Moses Znaimer, co-founder and former head of CityTV, stares up from the cover. Much of the issue is devoted to the 50+ market and Znaimer, who is in the process of creating a media empire targeted at that segment (he calls them zoomers--boomers with zip), is interviewed ("The New Adventures of Super Moses," by Christopher Loudon, Marketing, March 24, 2008.)
In the article, Znaimer, who built an earlier empire catering to the youth market of the time, makes several interesting points. Boomers are "living longer but also living better," he says. The youth market has been the focus of advertising and marketing because during the Boomer years it was the largest segment of the market. "Given that it was massive, what it thought, did [and] consumed became the reigning claim," he explains."…that generation [the Boomers] has moved along, and the generation that comes behind is nowhere near half the size." It follows then that marketers and retailers are missing the boat when they ignore the Boomer segment.
In the course of the interview, Znaimer says companies have to talk to this "real target market and you'll see soon enough what the truth is." It's about engagement, he asserts. "It's a matter of getting away from set [assumptions] and into the reality of zoomers' lives, and seeing that they are consuming like crazy."
Are they "consuming like crazy" in your store? Or, are you missing the Boomer boat?
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Lori Smith, , Editor-in-Chief
Lori Smith is the editor of Gifts and Tablewares, Canada's premiere gifts and tablewares magazine. Written for retailers of gifts, tablewares, housewares, stationery and home furnishing accessories, its objective is to help readers increase their sales and run their businesses more profitably by providing information on new products, merchandising, small business management, customer service, consumer behavior and industry news. The magazine is published six times a year by BIG Magazines, LP, a leading Canadian information company.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on July 9, 2008 2:41 PM.
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