May 7, 2006

Finding a market for boomers

By Steve Tarter

The light has come on. After ignoring older folks for years, media marketers are actually waking up to the fact that somebody besides the young spends money.

TV Land, a cable channel that offers television programs to members of the Pepsi generation, folks now in their 40s and 50s, has hooked up with marketing guru Ken Dychtwald to formulate strategies to make more noise with baby boomers.

It's Dychtwald, the author of "The Age Wave" and "The Power Years," who has declared a new power demographic - people 42 to 59.

"The reality is that 70 percent of the adult audience falls within that age group," he said.

"There is no demo that is as important, that has more money, that has such an enormous appetite for life and that is as underserved by marketers," said Dychtwald of the boomer group.

It's not just wealth that makes this group attractive. "Empty nesters have disposable time and (represent) a fabulously untapped market," said Dan Veto, a senior vice president with Age Wave, Dychtwald's San Francisco consulting firm that's working up a study for TV Land on boomers and entertainment.

Television Week reported that TV Land is following the example established by fellow cable outlets Nickelodeon and MTV that serve youth markets.

"Super-serving the baby boomers is the way to go. No one's really speaking to this audience," TV Land President Larry Jones said.

Will other media start speaking up and follow the old-is-gold trend? "The smart ones will," Veto said.

Acknowledging that older consumers warrant special attention may finally mean that media outlets lacking large youth audiences no longer have to hang their heads.

Maybe Peoria radio station WOAM-AM 1350 should adopt a new theme song instead of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable." A better choice might be Frank Sinatra's "For Those Who Think Young."