Captivating Connections.

baby boomers DO shop online.

My dad (who is celebrating his birthday today! happy brithday dad!) has what I like to call a small 'problem': he has an Amazon.com addiction. No, seriously. Every time we have a conversation about a project one of us like, a few days later there's inevitable a package from Amazon from him with said product in it. He even write product recomendations and places orders on monthly auto renewal.

I love it, and also think it's hilarious, but the point of this little story is that he, like many other Baby Boomers, DO shop online.

In fact, according to a study by the Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research, "52% of shoppers ages 50-54 are purchasing health and beauty products online, while 29% have bought food and beverage products online -- more than any other age group," debunking the myth that Boomers don't shop online.

So why are they shopping online? The same reason many of the rest of us shop online: DEALS! As Andrew Morse, director of insight and strategy at the Integer Group, explains, "The fact that the Boomer generation is buying more products online is less surprising in the context that the same group are core club store shoppers as well. We know Boomers are frugal; they seek out value for money in any situation. The same behavior is carrying through online.”

do you use facebook during working hours?

According to the Frank N. Magid Associates Generational Strategies study, "between 9am and 5pm, more consumers surveyed reported using Facebook than watching TV. This was true for each age group broken out from ages 15 to 46. Among the youngest consumer group, 8- to 14-year-olds dubbed 'iGens,' 16% logged on to Facebook during those hours, the same percentage who said they tuned in to TV."

Want to guess who the exception was? You got it: Baby Boomers.

"Baby boomers were the only exception. Those surveyed preferred TV over Facebook at all hours. But these older folks still aren’t ignoring Facebook—26% of those surveyed used the social network between 9am and 5pm."

We know social media is 'going grey'. However, perhaps Boomers just aren't that into poking, or just don't care enough (achem, or are addicted enough) to log on during the day (versus, um, you know....working).

who's REALLY buzzing about TV via social media?

....It's not who you think!

While us young'ns are all about the social media, we're not always the ones using it to talk TV.

According to research from  NM Incite and The Nielsen Company, "social media may be big with young people -- but not when it comes to social talking about all things television."

What does that mean? "While people under 18 years of age make up the biggest social media group at 34% of the entire social media population, they represent the smallest group in talking about television-related topics on social media sites -- just 12%."

Here's what's really interesting...

"By way of comparison, older U.S. social media users ages 25-34 -- who comprise 17% of the social media population, the next-smallest group --represent a 29% share of the entire population on sites talking about TV. Those 35-49 are the biggest group of people talking about TV on social media, at 30%. That group represents 27% of the overall social media population."

What do you think? Why do you think that's the case?

is your brain wired 'differently'?

Time Inc. recently took part in an incredibly cool-sounding neuroscience research projust, working with neuroscientists who wired two groups of consumers (Millennials and Boomers) with biometric technologies that track how their brains respond to media consciously and unconsciously throughout their day.

What did they find?

While final data from the study won't be released until early 2012, "a glimpse of preliminary findings from two respondents - Rachel, a 23-year-old 'digital native,' and Dan, a 47-year-old 'digital immigrant' - suggests it will reveal profound differences in the way generations process media. Rachel, who cannot live without her smartphone, incessantly multitasks media options, and could care less about television, averaged more emotional engagement, but fewer 'peaks' and 'valleys' of intensity compared with Dan, a 'digital immigrant' who could care less about his smartphone, loves TV, and didn't exhibit one instance of media multitasking in the day he was observed consuming media."

So, what is the value in this research?

"Both Rachel and Dan are part of a longer-term study that is following two simultaneous groups of Millennials and Boomers around throughout their media days, with each respondent equipped with a combination of unobtrusive biometric sensors tracking their heart rates, breathing, sweating, as well as a light point-of-view camera that can show and tell what media they are looking at. Those physiological data correlate to unconscious, emotional responses to the media they are exposed to, which is followed up by two in-person interviews, one aided by biometric testing."

how do you do lunch?

Personally, on the days that I remember/have time for lunch, I've started relying on snacks I keep around the office. Pathetic, I know. Apparently I'm not even in line with my own generation!

According to a new Lunch Consumer Trend Report from Technomic, Inc., "Millennials are the heaviest users of restaurants/foodservice options at lunch, but they're also the most likely age group to rely on 'value' items for luncheon meals."

Apparently I'm out of the loop of what my fellow Gen Y lunchers are doing. But what about everyone else?

"Baby Boomers are motivated heavily by value, but other significant motivations include health and quality of food," while "the most health-conscious consumers skew 45 and older, so their value equation is different than that of a younger person who sees value primarily as a price issue. Older consumers are less likely to perceive value in dollar menu items because of the broader context of their motivations.

At the same time, one-third or more of adults overall indicate that various better-for-you options and sustainability are important or extremely important to them when choosing lunch items in restaurants/foodservice venues."

So, what are your lunching habits? Do they match your generation's?

do you live in a 'booming' baby boomer town?

Forbes and demographer Wendell Cox compared population numbers from the Census for Baby Boomers  aged 45 - 54 in 2000 to the numbers for Baby Boomers ages 55 - 64 in 2010.

What'd they find?

"These population changes include reductions due principally to deaths. Census data do not include mortality information. This cohort lost 3.2% of its population over the 10 years. This would only marginally reduce the changes between 2000 and 2010, while the scale of differences between the metropolitan areas would be identical.

So where are these surviving boomers settling as they enter their likely extended golden years?  The results may surprise urban boosters who have confidently expected them to flock downtown.

To be sure, a few of the highly affluent — the ones mentioned in the mainstream media — may purchase homes, or pied-à-terres, in places like Manhattan, Chicago’s Gold Coast or San Francisco. But these areas actually have suffered an exodus of boomers over the past decade. In our ranking of the 51 largest metros in the U.S., the urban cores of San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago scored near the bottom, suffering double-digit percentage losses of boomers. According to the last Census, New York’s urban core, which the Daily News suggested is packed with aspiring seniors, lost 12% of boomers in their mid-50s to mid-60s  — or about 274,000 people."

older facebook users are catching on to the idea of 'liking' brands (this means you, dad!).

According to new research, comparable to how older consumers are quickly catching on to Facebook, they are also catching on to the idea of "Like"ing brands. 

"By April 2011, nearly half [of consumers ages 55+] were connecting with brands. Engagement had also risen among 18- to 34-year-olds as well as the 35-to-54 age group over the period. Overall, 59% of adult Facebook users had 'liked' a brand as of April, up from 47% the previous September. Uptake among the oldest users appears to have been a major factor in this rise."

What does this mean?

"Increased engagement among older boomers and seniors suggests that Facebook users of all ages have some interest in connecting with brand pages, rather than appealing only to young adults. Since most older Facebook users still have not 'liked' a brand, there could still be room to grow in this demographic. The climbing level of activity among the middle age group indicates that younger boomers could have just as much potential social engagement with brands as millennials and Gen Xers."

would you pay more for a healthier menu?

If you're a Baby Boomer, chances are, you wouldn't.

According to The NPD Group, "consumers over 50 typically express more interest in healthful foods than younger groups, but 70% of them also say they expect to pay no more for healthier offerings than for other menu items in restaurants." To break it down, "one-quarter of boomers age 50 and older say they would expect to pay 'somewhat' more, but just 5% say they would pay 'a lot' more for the healthier options."

So, what does this mean?

"One critical takeaway from the study is that restaurants should strive to achieve consistent pricing of their healthy and less healthy options."

women in their 40s are happier & more optimistic than their male counterparts.

According to a Yahoo and Digitas Health survey-based study, "Healthy Styles of the 40-Everything Woman,"  "nearly half of those [women] within this 'midlife sandwich' cohort (so called because she is likely taking care both of kids and parents) say they are optimistic. By contrast, only 36% under the age of 29 said as much. Over 34 million women in this age group go online both for health information and for functional and emotional support.

The study garnered what the agency and Yahoo said were five major insights, the first of which is the surprising outlook and the feeling among half of respondents that they can do anything they set out to do. Sixty percent said they aren't terribly concerned about what others think of them."

What does this mean?

"'This demographic is misunderstood,' said Alexandra von Plato, EVP and chief creative officer at Digitas Health. 'They are decision-makers and looking at their lives as complex, and stressful. We are the product of the post-feminist movement; if you are in your 50s you are a child of the Seventies, which is when pop culture was invented in mass media and idea of women's lib and what equality promised women was very aspirational.'

That means that women now in their 40s and 50s were really the first to believe in large numbers in the possibility of having it all. 'So, what do labels mean for us? And why are [marketers] looking at labels that don't fit when we should be seeking what's really underneath this generation's pursuit of happiness?'"

 

boomers want brands as "youthful" as they are.

Juuuuuuuuuust in case you're still not convinced that you should be targeting Baby Boomers, or don't believe they're a lucrative target, this should convince you:

"66% of boomers are on the lookout for brands to better express their 'youthful' personalities, according to a new study conducted by WPP agency The Geppetto Group.

'Are [marketers] offering [boomers] optimism and social conscience, and are they identifying with inherent qualities of their youths?' asks Julie Halpin, founder and CEO of The Geppetto Group. 'Think of the impact that kind of thinking could have for sports retailers or restaurant chains, for instance.'

For the survey, Geppetto Group polled 200 men and women ages 35 to 64 to discover what drives this target audience to gravitate toward certain brands, and what they are considering during the purchase process.

What it found is that 57% of adults expressed a desire to be 'surprised and delighted' by brands, while boomers led the way in this trend, along with brands like Swiffer for the home; Keurig for the palate; and Under Gear for the man inside.