Marketing to the Baby Boomers

According to a recent report from NielsenWire, advertisers focus on reaching consumers 18–34 or 18–49. While these consumers spend billions of dollars every year, the report states that advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power — the 78 million Baby Boomers. Read the rest of this entry »

The important of audience clusters.

A while ago, my friend Eric and his family came for a visit. When he pulled into our driveway, he asked, “Hey, Shari, does every homeowner get a Subaru Outback with the house?” I looked around the cul de sac and up the street. As far as the eye could see, driveways hosted different-colored Subaru Outbacks.

If you work in this industry, you know that clusters are not just for breakfast anymore. Clusters are segments of people who have so much in common, even their similar consumer-purchase habits are similar.

Understanding these clusters is important in everything from budgeting to positioning and messaging. Know your audience — in all their idiosyncratic glory. But don’t be fooled into thinking clusters are just demographics. Clusters are people who make decisions in similar ways based on similar needs. Understanding clusters means understanding how target audiences make decisions for themselves and their families. Read the rest of this entry »

Determining the all-important why.

My six-year-old son asks a lot of questions. More questions than I ever knew one human could possibly ask. If I am lucky, I can answer maybe a third of them. Sometimes the questions are about Star Wars or subjects he learned in school, but there is always one common thread with his questions that requires both my husband and I to think quickly — he wants to know the motive.

“Why did Obi Wan die so they could get on their plane?”
“Why did Anakin go to the dark side?”
“Why did Jack’s mom get so mad that he sold his cow for the magic beans?”
“Why is Dopey so dopey?” Read the rest of this entry »