“The millennial conversation, in a sense, is used by the media to get traffic,” says Dan Schawbel, a partner and research director at executive development firm Future Workplace. Schawbel admits that editors have asked him to include the word in his writing in order to draw a wider readership. And all this while Boomers are ignored.
Marketers are obsessed with Millennials — people born between about 1980 and 2000. They spend enormous amounts of time, energy, and money trying to reach these people, and yet people over 50 dominate our economy and are far more valuable to marketers. Here are some facts:
- People over 50 are responsible for over half of all consumer spending.
- They outspend the average consumer in nearly every major product category –food, household furnishings, entertainment, personal care, automotive…
- People over 50 outspend other adults online 2:1 on a per capita basis
- They have a net worth about 3 times that of other generations.
- They buy about 60% of all new cars.
- If they were their own country, Americans over 50 would be the 3rd largest economy in the world. Larger than Japan, Germany, or India.
And yet only 10% of marketing activity is aimed at them
Why? For one the ad industry has no use for people over 50. The ad industry has been demographically cleansed of people over 50. While people over 50 represent about 42% of the adult population, they are less than 6% of the ad industry population. Advertising has become marketing by selfie-stick.
If you want to be a successful consultant or marketing guru you must first convince the gullible business community that things are changing dramatically and the only way for them to stay ahead of the curve is to hire you for your unique expertise. So every 20 years they invent a new generation with distinctive, mysterious characteristics that only they can explain.
