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From a blog post by St. Petersburg Times business columnist Robert Trigaux:
"One thing is for sure. Over the next 10 years, the 18 to 49 age segment is projected to grow by only 1 percent to about 137 million. Meanwhile, the 50-plus age segment will swell 21 percent to 116 million. So there will be plenty of us to go around." |
Baby boomers, that affluent bulge in the population from the latter 40s to early 60s in age, were front and center at an all-day Florida Boomer Lifestyle conference held Tuesday (May 12, 2009) at Tampa's convention center. It was eclectic, to say the least, and certainly walking that fine line between offering concrete ideas for new businesses aimed at boomers and touching on new age marketing for a huge percentage of the adult population that refuses to go quietly into the traditional world of seniors. Part of the message of the day, I guess, is that trying to categorize and reach 76 million boomers is tricky but it can be done. It's a message reinforced in this piece ("Age Against the Machine") from Entrepreneur magazine and written by Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project and a speaker here on Tuesday.
One of the many trends noted at Tuesday's conference is the renewed effort by educational providers to cater more specifically to boomers. Dr. Larry Thompson, president of the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota and a big fan of the "creative economy," said his school had taken over the Longboat Key Center for the Arts as well as one in Englewood (both were struggling). Ringling will use those properties to offer more art classes to the 50-plus markets and generate more revenue for the school.
At Hillsborough Community College, a Boomer Institute is evolving as part of the college's continuing education services.
Dr. Kathleen Moore, who helps run USF's "E-Campus," said schools must become more creative in serving boomers. These are not people willing to go spend four years getting a BA degree, she said. Classrooms, she added, often have four generations of students in them.
Frankly, one of my favorite moments of the day was later in the afternoon when about a dozen diverse boomers took the stage for a live focus group on boomer attitudes and preferences. A common theme? Boomers have largely been smacked hard on the side of the head by big losses in the stock market, by sharp upticks in unemployment and the inability to find new work as "older" job candidates, and shunned by a health insurance market that makes it too expensive for coverage or is too quick to deny access to older consumers. So, a trio of needs being poorly served... equals business opportunities.
One strong sentiment expressed by the focus group was a distaste for advertising that insulted consumer intelligence or "told' people what they should be buying. In one exercise, moderator Keith Winn of the Nielsen Co. asked the group to pick a consumer brand that they are loyal to, that speaks to them.
Read full blog post here. |
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