Boomer Aging Means ... Lots of Ads About Aging Boomers

As baby boomers surge through midlife, advertisers are hot on their tail.

The Albany Times Union sheds some light on how the advertising and marketing industries see the baby boom generation. The selling of Viagra was just the beginning:

"Targeting baby boomers comes down to basic math," says Jennifer Kalita, a boomer marketing consultant in Washington, D.C. "They're responsible for nearly half of all consumer spending and are the best educated, wealthiest and most populated demographic segment this nation has ever seen. Companies who don't target boomers over the next two decades are simply leaving money on the table."

The article by Tom Keyser cites the boomers health, optimism, and willingness to change society as reasons that their generation will live a different retirement than any prior.

Another is that they have the money to do so. Expect thirty years of advertisers pushing novel ways to spend 401k funds!

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In an extension of the newly-identified "grup" trend -- they're 30- and 40- somethings who have the fashion, music, and career ethic of twentysomethings -- the piece notes "Gap, the clothing store, targeted 18- to 30-year-olds until launching its 'for everything generation' marketing campaign three years ago. It hired Willie Nelson to model jeans and Lauren Hutton to model hooded sweatshirts."