PR Firm Comes Out of Five-Year Coma

Last night I had - ready to go - this long, nasty post about a really silly article in Ad Age. It talks about a 'new' survey with absolutely no new or useful information - along with the most simplistic and addle-brained crunching:

The Misunderstood Generation

But I looked at my blog and saw a handful of negative posts in a row and … well, I didn't want to sound like a sourpuss over and over. So instead I tossed up a playful, innocuous one about a couple of upcoming conferences and a book due out in the
summer.

Then in the morning I visited my pal Dick Stroud's blog - and he'd done it for me:

Edelman - where have you been for the past 5 years?

"We really set out to blow up some myths," said the exec VP-general manager of Edelman's Boomer Insights Generation Group. "The longer that marketers keep treating boomers as a huge mass as opposed to individuals, the longer it's going to take them to enter the market."

Give me strength. This is 101 marketing. I cannot believe this has come as a shock to Edelman and its clients. Have these guys been in a coma for the last 5 years?

Good. Let Dick do the dirty work. My hands are clean. (Unless someone breaks into my computer and finds the draft - which isn't much different from Mr. Stroud's astute invective.)

Ad Age should do a bit of research before printing tired assessments of Baby Boomers and how to advertise to them. They don't have to go very far - just read some recent pieces in their own publication - by their boss, Rance Crain:

Calcified Advertising Agencies

Rance Crain Makes Perfect Sense Yet Again