Unilever Resuscitates the Demo Left for Dead

Yeah, I’ve been feeling a bit like Nostradamus lately.

Here’s a good piece by Ad Age’s Jack Neff:

Published: May 28, 2007
Unilever Resuscitates the Demo Left for Dead
Marketer Spies Goldmine in the Often-Overlooked Baby-Boomer Consumer

When Unilever researchers started looking into the shopping patterns of baby boomers, many of its younger marketing executives wondered why ...

"When we first started launching this project internally, we received e-mails from some of our younger colleagues asking, 'Who cares about these people?'" said Mike Twitty, senior group research manager-shopper insights for Unilever."

Gee. That's a major theme in my book - originally published over two years ago.

More from Mr. Neff’s article:

Stereotypes aside, many boomers are actually early adopters of new technology and switchers to new brands, Ms. Kozin said. "Younger people may be more excited and write about it," she said. "But boomers have the money to spend on it." … And they'll do so, she said, particularly when the communications are geared to them.

I think I’ve read all this before. Click the image on the right to see the pull quote on the cover of the 1st edition of my book.

And about brand switching - a quote from a book review in The Journal of Consumer Marketing (PDF):

A second favorite excuse of agencies is: “Baby Boomers don’t change brands.” Nyren dismantles this excuse nicely with examples of brand switching, and he further acknowledges that in cases where loyalty to a brand does exist, marketers who do not target Boomers give them no reason to change.

I also talk about AARP’s ‘body bags’ in a chapter – but I’m too lazy to go find it and pull some quotes.

Actually, if you read Jack Neff’s piece along with Rance Crain’s piece you don’t need to read my book. (Unless, of course, I’ve predicted bunches of other stuff and you’d like to know the future. Or, you can wait for brand managers, research folks, and CMOs to catch up and be profiled in Ad Age in a few years.)

Here I am at work – with my patented Crystal Ball of Marketing and Advertising Common Sense.