Bubbes, Beads, and Baby Boomers (Life Stage Marketing)

Most every marketer on the planet is pretty much busy right now either trying to figure out what to sell to baby boomers, how to sell to baby boomers, or how to sell even more to baby boomers (what's a baby boomer?). The hearing industry sure is, anyway...with the average age of first time hearing aid buyers hovering around 69, those in their early 60's are a key and very attractive demographic.

But, most companies are getting it all wrong.

As Virzi (2008) points out in Life Stage Marketing, most baby boomers did not smoke grass, wear beads, or drive a VW minivan...

Marketing to baby boomers - or to any demographic - needs to focus on what individuals can identify with NOW, today, rather than on what they may have identified with 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Nostalgia does have a role in marketing, but nostalgia is not a strategy...