Mary Furlong has been watching the Boomer generation closely since the mid-1980s, when she founded Third Age Media, a pioneering website focused on lifestage transitions. Today, Mary heads Mary Furlong & Associates, and consults with companies focused on the 50+ market. Furlong & Associates produces the annual Silicon Valley Boomer Ventures Summit at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, where she’s a faculty member.

I’m working with Mary on the What’s Next Boomer Business Summit, which comes to Chicago March 5 –6. She’s just published a new book, Turning Silver into Gold: How to Profit in the New Boomer Marketplace that offers outstanding insight into the opportunities in the 50+ market.

Mary, you note in the book that the 50+market will be the fastest growing population in the U.S. between now and 2015. Why haven’t more marketers and media companies seized this trend and capitalized directly on it?

There is growing focus on the 50+ market among companies—just look at all the business conferences that have sprung up in just the past couple years. Corporations are establishing divisions that focus solely on Boomers. And, we’re seeing more advertisers reposition for this market; Fidelity, Schwab and Ameriprise come to mind.

As far as media goes, I’m reminded of the Internet around 1995—a lot of things are in the air. You’ve got Retirement Living TV in Maryland, and there are six or seven business plans circulating that are aimed at the 50+ market. The real flow is around social media and lifestage changes. And, advertisers are realizing they won’t be able to reach Boomers through traditional channels like television. Boomers are adopting all the new technologies that fragment audience—they’re on websites checking their stock portfolio or sports scores. They’re uploading photos of their grandchildren. They are all over digital media. It’s a real Tapas table of choices.

Where are the best opportunities for startups targeting Boomers?

Remember “Plastics, Benjamin” from The Graduate? Now, it’s blood sugar and reverse mortgages. When you look at the big categories for new businesses they all relate to security and longevity for older people—money management, wealth transfer, lowering their bills and home income plans.

Technology is another great opportunity. With all this technology infused into our homes, who will provide the tech support to older people? Is there a geek squad out there?

Eldercare is a giant category. Everything from in-home services to adult day care, new assisted living solutions and cognitive fitness classes and fashion. We haven’t even imagined the services boomers will need when they start to need eldercare. And travel is just enormous. Boomers and their grandchildren are the fastest growing part of the travel business. I know someone who started a business running eco-tours in Africa. That is her new business.

You have a fascinating (to me, anyway) chapter in the book on sex and romance. What are the entrepreneurial opportunities here?

A sex toys company just got funded out here in Silicon Valley. I try to position sex as a deeper experience at midlife than when you are 17. Just as yoga has become popular, there is a whole series of products that can be focused around relationships—workshops seminars, concerts, restaurants, travel. This is about romance and the promise of romance.

Tantra.com is a great example in the book. It was started ten years ago as an e-learning business. The founder is a woman named Suzie who understood sexuality at midlife, and that people are seeking deeper experiences with a soul mate. It’s like what Jack Nicholson says to Diane Keaton in Something’s Gotta Give—“I’ve found my soul mate. Could you create a retreat center around that theme? Canyon Ranch has incorporated sex education into their programs, and other spas are doing it as well.

What’s the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make with start-ups?

Not getting started! I know people with lots of great ideas for companies, but they never actually start them. Jump right in, and refine your model as you go. Guy Kawasaki talks about this in The Art of the Start. Customers will tell you what they want.

Boomers are aging, but we don’t want to be reminded of it. At 60, we think we’re 40. We’re starting to retire…but think we’re too young to retire.

Marketing to this crowd is tough, as insurance companies and other financial services companies have learned. Best’s Review reports that financial services marketers are attempting to walk a fine line with products and advertising messages targeting what it calls the “large and in charge” crowd—a reference to the size and disproportionate wealth of the Boomer generation.

Who’s doing what, according to Best’s:

Ameriprise research showed Boomers “want to engage with their financial adviser on a deeper, more emotional level” and tries to connect with the market through ads evoking aspirations and hopes. Soon after they retire, they’re looking for new adventures and challenges:

“What really makes a difference in whether people are able to handle that is if they have planned for it. How can we as a company help them to reach that point that they can work because they want to, not because they need to? It’s really interesting to think about retirement in that way.”

Ameriprise ads address the market with a mix of rock ‘n roll, aspirations and a sense of humor. The pitch: “dream-plan-track” financial services.

Allstate positions itself as a one-stop financial planning shop for middle-income baby boomers through its agent network. The focus is on products featuring flexibility and transparency of results.

Matt Thornhill of The Boomer Project tells Best’s the most frequent question he gets from insurance clients: “How do we even get boomers to talk about this? Because we start talking to them about life products, and they’re like, ‘Hey, when I get there.’ They’re in denial.”

Unilever continues to score with its “real beauty” Dove soap campaign and frank talk about age and beauty. Sales were up 10 percent in 2006, according to Information Resources. ABuzz around the ads include a major feature on NBC’s Today show spotlighting the ads’ real-world 50+ models. They range from 50 to 64 years old, come from a variety of career and professional backgrounds…and they all pose nude in the ads.

Nancy Etcoff, a Harvard Medical School psychologist who researches issues of perception of beauty, is an advisor to Unilever and was featured on the Today segment. She points to research showing 50+ women don’t see themselves in media:

We tested women in nine different countries, from 50 to 64, and we asked them, what do they think? Do they think the media’s doing a good job of representing their age? Overwhelmingly, over 90 percent said no, the media is not doing a good enough job at representing women 50 and over as they are. They said that this generation is different from any previous generation of women 50-plus. They’re active, they’re financially independent, they’re confident, they’re outspoken. They’re not seeing that out there. They feel invisible.

Unilever and agency Ogilvy & Mather have done a nice job infusing Dove marketing with the feeling of a movement. The 50+ ads are tied at the hip to the brand’s viral “Evolution” campaign, which questions societal notions of beauty via time-elapsed sequences showing what’s underneath the typical model shot.

Brenda Hodgson of Hill & Knowleton posts interesting comments on viral marketing here.