Useful Work Props

7 Essential Marketing Insights for Marketing To Baby Boomers

I work in an advertising agency. Sometimes I have to get up at 6am and go to hotels in airports to make sweeping statements about large groups of people I have not met to salesmen from places I will never visit. Today it was BABY BOOMERS.  I am generous, so if you too have to make such a presentation, here is the essential info. (NB: on my slides I carefully noted the following: Source: The Internet, 2014 - and you should do the same.)

1. What is a Baby Boomer?
It depends what year it is when you read this, but according to the internet, they were probably born between 1946 and 1965.  So they could be my Dad, or they could nearly be my husband.

2. What should I do if I want to design packaging for them?
Consider the hands.  Their hands are going to fall off soon because of arthritis OR holding on too hard to their Harley-Davidson handlebars, so don't use that plastic they put new pairs of scissors in (that you then can't open - because you haven't got any scissors),  or small buttons.   Pre-1974 Sellotape is good, as is Velcro. (Those tapes they put on peas don't make sense to people of any age, so don't use those.)

Consider the eyes. As everyone knows, when you get past 40 your eyes fail and you go from being able to see the "9" on front of the Number 9 bus from a mile away to not being able to read the back of a packet of biscuits (let alone the back of prescription painkillers, which is why you can't remember what happened last Tuesday).   Because of this, you will be able to get all sorts of crap past anyone over the age of 40 -  for e.g. "contains equivalent of 23 spoons of sugar", or "1 portion = 156g saturated fat", or even "Contains formaldehyde".    No-one knows this, but this is why the lard piles on when you get past 39. It is not the fault of your metabolism. It is the fault of your failing eyesight.

3. What is the ideal retail environment for Baby Boomers? 
Somewhere full of expensive, branded stuff they can buy and then take home and enjoy because the kids have finally left home.

4. What should I do if I sell cars? 
Stop being a mental and designing cars for 25 year olds. They haven't got any money. Design cars for older people. They are loaded and have enough time to use the self-parking function while listening to "Sting Live In Montreux" on the 'car stereo'.

5. Are they comfortable with technology?
Steve Jobs was a Baby Boomer FYI. Also Gates. Etc. Baby Boomers are watching cat videos like the rest of us. If they are not doing that, they are reading The Sunday Times on their iPad minis.

6. Do they like music?
Their musical references and taste are approximately 100,000 times better than "Millennial Teens" (whatever the fuck they are).

You will say "One Direction", and they will just look at you and say,  "The Rolling Stones". You will say, "Katy Perry", and they will say, "Joni Mitchell".  "Justin Bieber", says the youth. "Talking Heads", says the Baby Boomer.  This one could go on forever. What is interesting is that Baby Boomers are able to like OLD music and NEW music and hold both in their heads at the same time - while also using the self-parking function and listening to "Sting Live in Montreux".

In conclusion, using either Bob Dylan and/or Petula Clark to sing a tune for your commercial is probably a good idea.

7. What do they worry about? 
a. Their children living at home forever.
b. Retirement funds.
c. Getting tickets for "Sting Live At The Albert Hall"

If you can invent a product that solves any of these problems, you will become rich.

8. What do they look like?
They come in many shapes and sizes. You can choose depending on what you like the look of. Here are some good examples:

No-one needs to see this sort of thing, Baby Boomer or not.

If this is what being a Baby Boomer
is like, I am IN.

If this is what Baby Boomers look
like, I am ALSO in (their pants).

Coming soon: A Marketer's Guide to Millennial Teens (whatever the fuck they are).

Brand Unicorn

Pyramids, onions, keys. All of them ways of expressing your 'brand architecture'. They are all different, but exactly the same: someone in the marketing dept. gets in a tizz about it, you spend months doing it, the CEO approves it then it's laminated and stuck on a wall in the 4th floor & no-one  ever looks at it again.

All that is set to change with my new branding tool, the Brand Unicorn(TM).  It is really great. Any idiot can use it and any idiot can see why it's great.  It will work for you whether you own an ice-cream shop on the South Downs called "Betty's Whips" or whether you are IBM/Unilever.

If you are not an idiot but wish to introduce the BrandUnicorn (TM) into your marketing department, I am very happy to come and explain it to any idiots you may have in your team. My day rate is $2,000 and I am worth every penny.

Here goes.

Motivation

"Be your dreams!".  "A friend just knows."  "Do what you love. Love what you do."

And so it goes on. Every day Pinterest, the dank walls of lightless cubicles and the Facebook pages of someone you met a 'bonding awayday' in 2009 become ever-more densely filled with pictures of bridges, kittens, wisftul looking ladies on beaches or verdant forest paths covered in 'inspiring words'.

They are not inspiring. They are rubbish. Half of them don't make sense, and most of them are signed "anon",  or "unknown" or with the names of people who made their fortune writing Hallmark greeting cards.  The ones that are attributed to someone you have heard of do not sound probable. For e.g.:

"Reach for the Stars!"
Winston Churchill

"Be the reason someone smiles today"
 Charles Dickens

"One day someone is going to hug you so tight all your broken pieces will stick together."
Jane Austen

This is all rubbish, so I have invented some motivational posters that will help negotiate the bore-infested workplace that you, dear reader and/or fan are forced to negotiate every day. OK here goes.

A perennial classic. Useful in the seconds before you are tempted to report/send email about/complain about/punch Work Arsehole. He is Work Arsehole. Everyone can see it. You do not have to point it out. You will rise above it and behave with dignity and restraint like the grownup you are.

Uncharacteristic sensitivity to swear-wary readers here with the asterisks replacing the UNT, but 2 "cunts" are probably too many in one day. Anyhow, this is very useful if you are in a long meeting with a man talking about laddering up, circling back, touching base, etc.  You probably shouldn't say it out loud with your mouth, but you could print this out and put it in the back of your notebook. Or remember it in your head.

Not sweary, but useful - especially if your walk along a suspiciously well-tended path in an verdant glade is marred by worry about Jackson in accounts is saying about you to Jacquii in IT.   Who cares.  Really.

A classic, originally (apparently) from Poland.
Useful if you are witness to Grade A fuckwittery that isn't really any of your business and/or if you are the type to be irritated by inefficiency, bad decisions etc that are bound to turn out badly.  I now say this out loud a lot, having spent quite a long time involving myself in things that I wasn't actually being given money to do. Life is very relaxing now. 

What I won't be doing in 2014

Yes. It is 2014. Here are the things I will continue not to do this year:

• "Work on" myself, unless in expected and/or polite ways, e.g. trimming ladygarden when wearing hotpants, bleaching moustache, cleaning intimate areas with damp flannel before going out on hot days, etc
• Have an "attitude of gratitude" or claim to be "digging deeper"
• Wear undercrackers of any brand other than the Sloggis that go up to your waist and are 3% elastic
• Do the Namaste bow/greeting thing
• Eat cucumber
• Enjoy the oeuvre of Sting
• Get rid of the itch in my ear which is EITHER eczema OR ear dandruff*
• Use up all my laser hair removal vouchers (paid in full c. 2010) despite moustache and hotpants (see above)
• Pick up stuff I leave on the floor (e.g. bits of paper, fluff, safety pins, etc) 
• Eat enough fish.

What will you continue not to do this year?

* Mike on 'The Shahs of Sunset' was diagnosed with ear dandruff and it looked pretty much like what I have. Having enjoyed a quick search of said affliction on Google I discovered that a) dandruff is a fungus (or 'champignon' in French), and b) you treat it with clotrimazole, which informed readers know is what is in the Canesten you use when you are trying to treat your chuff itch.