Advertising to Baby Boomers (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Boomers have transformed American society and institutions, but not always in ways they had anticipated or like to remember ....." (more)
Key Phrases: marketing fodder, brent green, advertising creatives, Baby Boomers, New York, New Balance (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Nyren is a serious writer who's funny. ... His book will be the best guide yet to marketing to Baby Boomers. -- The Boomer Generation Site

Product Description

The business and marketing industries already "get it" when it comes to targeting the 50-plus demographic. Unfortunately, the advertising industry lags behind. Chuck Nyren tells you why in Advertising to Baby Boomers. Unlike most books about advertising, this one is written for "the client." Anyone with a product or service for Baby Boomers, from general consumer goods to high-tech electronics to planned communities to health care will find Advertising to Baby Boomers an invaluable tool. "Some simple demands, a bit of vigilance, and you could change things around and get much more than you are paying for," Nyren says. Do you really need an advertising agency? What questions should you ask when interviewing or being "pitched" by an agency? How do you help develop a campaign with your agency? When should you trust your advertising agency, and when should you question its judgments? When do you leave them alone? How do you critique a campaign. These are some of the questions answered in Advertising to Baby Boomers. In addition, the author gives advice and guidance to the small- business person on how to fashion a custom-made campaign.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 150 pages
• Publisher: Paramount Market Publishing, Inc, (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976697319
• ISBN-13: 978-0976697312
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,300,661 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Right-on marketing advice. , January 27, 2006

By	Hack "JC" (Pacific Palisades, CA) - See all my reviews

Even if I weren't a baby boomer, I would take this book very seriously. This book is a real wake up call and perhaps a watershed in the way marketers should look at reaching boomers. It is not enough as Chuck reminds us to simply stick images and sounds of the 60's in your campaign to allude to our youth, but rather he gives some very realistic and well thought out ways to tap into what really goes on inside the head of someone who is part of the single most important generation to walk the planet up to this point. And who better to tell that story than someone who has lived it and actually been born into the world of advertising. Read his bio--this guy is literally a creation of the ad world.

Bottom line if you get the idea that you need to reach baby boomers, Chuck's book is the foundation for that effort.
But in fact, he also gives some very practical advertisng and marketing advice to reach any demographic cohort, and his take on branding is a must-read, nothing short of a revelation. And his dry wit is quite compelling as a read. None of the usual textbook boring mumbo-jumbo often found in marketing books.

In my experience helping launch CNN, and redefining local broadcasting with the launch of FOX, I could have used this very practical tool over and over again. I would love to (and may) give this book out to all my clients.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Straight Talk... For Advertising Agency CLIENTS, May 3, 2006

By	EeeVee "Another reader" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews

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In the future -- after many of us Baby Boomers are dead and buried -- Nyren's book could well be hailed as a classic in the annals of advertising education. Looking back, some may call him a pundit. Others may call him a visionary. Both would be correct.

Whether you agree with him or not, Nyren's work is straight talk about the state of affairs at many of the world's leading advertising agencies today -- especially regarding the way in which they think about a cohort they choose to ignore.

Here's part of an imagined new employee orientation session. It takes place when a thirty-something veteran at an ad agency is giving advice to a recently recruited twenty-something trainee:

"At our shop, here's our attitude about Baby Boomers: Hey, if the client doesn't mention `the elephant in the room' that's okay. We don't bother bringing up the topic, either.

"And if nobody talks about them, the geezers will simply die off quietly and never be missed. After all, folks over 50 comprise only about 25 percent of the American population. (That's by no means a majority.) They hold only 70 percent of U.S. assets. (We don't really know who owns the other 30 percent.) Boomers wield annual spending power of only about $2 trillion. (Exactly how many zeros is that?) Well, heck, they need to buy stuff anyhow. So why waste creative energy in trying to influence them? Around here, we stick to doing the fun stuff -- creating award-winning campaigns for people our own age! We're the ones with the high credit card limits. Just yesterday I had to increase my card limit to 34 grand. By the way, what's yours?"

Does Advertising to Baby Boomers draw controversy -- sometimes scorn -- within the advertising agency community? Yes, it probably does. But its target market is not the agencies. Rather, the real target market is CLIENTS. Nyren's is one of the few books designed to better inform advertising agency CLIENTS on how to deal with a massive demographic shift forced by the relentless march of time. In my opinion, it's a "must-read" for any business owners or executives who wonder which half of their advertising dollars are being wasted.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a great book on Boomers, June 14, 2005

By	D. Sweet (Dorrington, CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If malpractice litigation against ad agencies becomes a trend, Advertising To Baby Boomers will be the plaintiff attorneys' Exhibit #1. Nyren blows giant holes in the ad community's unfounded ideas about boomers. He shows how agencies blindly accept trendy notions about Boomers being persuastion-resistant when the truth is they often don't know jack about boomers and run from the challenge, hurting their clients in the process.

I loved the author's witty vibe. It makes a great airplane read if you don't mind getting weird looks from chuckling too much. I predict this book will increase the trend of in-house agencies, especially where the target market is mainly Boomers. If I owned an ad agency I'd make every account exec and creative under 45 read Advertising to Baby Boomers and write a book report.