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MARKETING

Consumer Behavior

The Baby Boomers

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Anne Charlotte Beaumet Vilvet

Oldies but goodies

Marketers, take note: Baby boomers have lots of money to spend

By Kristin Davis

Forget minivans. German automaker Audi wants to put baby boomers--now that the kids are grown and out of the house--behind the wheel of the sleek A6 sedan or muscular all-road Quattro. It aimed to capture the boomer zeitgeist in a recent TV commercial that blended David Bowie's classic "Rebel Rebel" with his newer hit, "Never Get Old." As the voiceover intoned, "Where would we be if we always did things the way they were done before?" a progression of old (record player) v. new (iPod) images appears on the screen, and Bowie's "I'm never, ever gonna get old," hangs in the air as the carmaker's logo emerges.

Audi wants to connect with the generation that came of age questioning authority in the 1960s and 1970s and now expects to enjoy a vigorous, age-defying lifestyle in retirement. And it's emblematic of a marketing trend that's been surprisingly slow to gather steam.

The nation's 75 million baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, ought to be the most sought-after demographic cohort for American marketers. As a group, they are the most affluent Americans, with three quarters of the nation's financial assets and an estimated $1 trillion in disposable income annually. Yet while boomers are hurtling toward their retirement years--the oldest boomers will begin turning 60 next year--Madison Avenue continues to prize youth. Only about 10 percent of advertising is directed specifically at the 50-plus market. "The demographic sweet spot has always been 18 to 49," says Brent Green, author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers . "Once you turn 50, you fall off the planet."

But a small vanguard of marketers is abandoning that old thinking and is now beginning to design products and target advertising to maturing consumers. Anheuser-Busch, for example,