Opinion: Boomer women demand close marketing attention

When they’re not patronizing women in commercial advertising, they’re mistakenly ignoring them in categories where the male buyer is less influential than conventional wisdom would suggest. One demographic sector in particular, the 40-plus female, demands close attention.

With 80 million baby boomers now working their way through society and the consumer marketplace, like the proverbial pig traveling slowly through the belly of the python, all have now reached the over-40 threshold. Within that opportunistic segment, women comprise the majority. They span an 18-year age range, live diverse lives, have established careers and money to spend on themselves and most importantly, make or influence the majority of their households’ purchasing decisions.

Let’s review the data.

• In the next decade, women will control two-thirds of the consumer wealth in the United States, influencing as much as 80 percent of the $2.1 trillion dollars that boomers spend on consumer goods and services.

• Eight out of 10 boomers say that they do not intend to retire, with an estimated 52 percent growth in the category of women 55-plus projected in the U.S. work force by 2010. As one would expect, disposable incomes also are highest for women ages 45 to 54.

• Not only will boomer women continue to earn income by working, they’ll also manage inheritance windfalls from their parents and husbands, who they’ll outlive by six to nine years on average.

• Even in traditionally male-dominated categories, women are responsible for more than half of the purchase decisions. Women make 80 percent of home improvement decisions, buy 65 percent of all new vehicles, and spend more than $55 billion on consumer electronics.

• In 2004, women aged 35-54 represented the highest proportion of Web surfers compared with male boomers and younger cohorts.

• Catalog marketers estimate that 70 percent of all online purchases are made by women, the majority of whom are boomers.

• The 6.7 million companies owned by women account for 30 percent of all U.S. small business, with this sub-segment skewing heavily toward women 35 to 54.

Next women’s lib

In their new book, “BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer-The Baby Boomer Woman,” authors Mary Brown and Carol Orsborn, who consult exclusively on building brand relationships with boomer women, proceed to shatter the myths and shibboleths that surround the issue of women’s influence in the consumer-buying universe. Orsborn loudly articulates the point of view that marketers have overlooked the 40-plus female demographic, which has become a powerful force in consumer purchasing and a vital and opportunistic market segment.

“What we are witnessing is the next stage in women’s liberation as it is applied to brand selection and buying,” notes Orsborn.

Brown and Orsborn assert that industries and business segments that have been traditionally associated with male decision-making, such as adventure travel, automobile buying and home purchasing and remodeling, now represent dynamic playing fields for women who are increasingly commanding greater influence in the purchase-decision process.

According to Orsborn, marketers must overcome the stereotype they hold of 40-plus women as set in their ways, not open to new brands and operating in a default position of “invisibility.” To the contrary, the authors note that a boomer woman is not a chronological clock-watcher. In fact, she has an aversion to aging. She keeps growing, and even in midlife and beyond, seeks meaning in life, wants to be productive, wishes to contribute to society and relishes a fully-lived life.

Understanding the mindset

Given this versatility of mindset and the nontraditional motivation of the boomer woman, marketers would be well advised to heed the following:

• Boomer women represent a marketplace of silent, untapped and unacknowledged potential. The segment is too large and too powerful to be ignored.

• Men are primarily left-brain thinkers. Their thought processes and behaviors operate in linear fashions: they’ll do the homework, check the specifications, research the competition and seek word-of-mouth validation before buying. For the female, more important is product performance and quality.

• Authenticity is mandatory in brand communication. Marketers should never over-sell or over-hype the brand if they wish to attract the attention of the boomer woman who can spot a fake and detect a false spiel at 40 paces. They’re much brighter, and much more perceptive and discriminating, than most marketers realize.

Alf Nucifora is a California-based marketing consultant, who produces The Alf Report, a monthly online newsletter. He can be reached at alf@nucifora.com.[[In-content Ad]]