A Dutch organization called Route50Plus launched an ambitious new website this week, Route50plus, with a mission to “track, share and distribute” information and knowledge about the 50+ market globally. The idea here is a B2B resource for marketers focused on 50+ consumers, and we can always use more light in this area. The venture’s interesting group of partners include Plus Magazine, 50 Plus Beurs, SeniorWeb, Nederland Bureau door Tourisme & Congressen, Omroep MAX, De Telegraaf, MediaPlus, and Booming Experience.

The publisher’s description is promising:

On the home page is an agenda with upcoming international events and seminars. At the heart of the site is a digital knowledge centre with the latest news published in both Dutch and English. Content and links can be found from more than 4000 national and international sources. Topics include fifty-plus marketing, media, new products, services, and trends. “This is a website marketers around the world have been waiting for,” said Claudia Biegel, Project Manager of Route 50Plus. “Finally you can find and download the most up-to-date and relevant information about everything concerning the fifty-plus on one comprehensive website.”

Just one problem: all the navigation is in Dutch and the content is a somewhat confusing blend of Dutch and English. This will be a bit of an issue for those non-Dutch speakers out there, of which there are . . . a few.

Suggestion to the publishers: reorganize the site so that visitors can opt for an English or Dutch version.

If you think all Boomers are . . . well, doing anything en masse–think again. AARP and Focalyst go after the top ten myths about Boomers in a new report. Via Marketing Charts.

Retirement Living TV has jumped into the booming online health information market with the launch of Our Freedom Years, a site focused on health issues related to aging. This vertical market is surging as Boomers age and turn to the web for information.

Retirement Living is owned by Erickson Retirement Communities, which also publishes the Erickson Tribune monthly newspaper that circulates in the company’s communities. A press release says Our Freedom Years will draw from all those resources.

A 2007 Harris Poll showed that 52 percent of Americans “sometimes or frequently” go online for health information, up from 29 percent in 2001. Other media companies targeting the market include Hearst Magazines, which beefed up its online health presence last year by acquiring Real Age, and Healthline.com, which last year raised $25 million in new capital to fund expansion. AOL founder Steve Case has established a major presence in online health with Revolution Health, an online brand focused on healthy lifestyles. These newer sites are getting traction despite the presence of strong, entrenched online names like WebMd, the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health.

TV Week magazine ran a special report this month foced on the growing momentum in media and advertising targeting 50+ audiences. Along with the usual flotsam about affluent boomers and their supposed obsession with 1960s sitcom reruns (e.g.  TV Land cable), the report contained these interesting nuggets:

• Retirement Living TV surfaced as the “most-wanted” network that cable systems want to add to their lineups in a recent survey. The channel was named as the top “get” for networks passing 1 million to 40 million homes by 43% of respondents.
• A senior media buyer at agency Media Contacts claims that the old bias toward the 18-34 demographic is dying off:

“The old story of all advertisers wanting to focus on the 18 to 49 demographic is fading, because the boomer audience is continuing to grow and they control a tremendous amount of spending,” said Adam Kasper, senior VP and director of digital media at Media Contacts, a division of media agency Havas. “Advertisers are lagging behind a little, but they are starting to realize there is money here.”

The report also notes growing advertiser interest in targeting Boomers and seniors via online video campaigns.

PR firm Edelman this week launched Boomer Insights Generation Group, the latest in a string of big agency divisions to specialize in Boomer marketing. Others already out there include FH Boom (Fleishman-Hillard), JWT Boom and Focalyst. Edelman indicates a “growing number of clients” in need of Boomer-focused solutions. The group’s thought leader is Marilyn Mobley, an Edelman employee who writes the Baby Boomer Insights blog. Edelman research indicates the need to segment the Boomer audience, with Mobley observing:

Too many companies market to Boomers as though we’re defined by our age. Yet, one of the key findings of the Strategy One/Edelman Boomer Insights & Implications Study is that a full 28% of Boomers don’t see themselves as Boomers as all. Can you imagine spending millions of dollars marketing a car to people who have committed to walk everywhere they go? And yet that’s what companies do every day when they crank up their marketing and advertising campaigns and aim them at this massive group called “Boomers.”

No debating that; I’ve felt for some time that one of the worst ways to target this audience is by slapping on the “Boomer” label.

JWT Boom and C&R Research released high-level findings from its latest round of research in the Boomer Heartbeat series. C&R’s BoomerEyes unit, led by Anne Wall, does some of the best work around on the 50+ market. The new research focuses in on the leading edge Boomers, age 60-64, in three specific areas of life:

• The empty nest
• The role of technology
• The role of employment and the workplace

I didn’t find anything too surprising in the findings, to wit:

• Empty nesters might be a little sad about kids leaving the house, but for the most part are enjoying their new freedoms
• Boomers have always embraced new technology, and are using just about every form of it as they age.
• Work remains important to Boomers, and many are working “in retirement.”