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.”

Television networks are slowly waking up to the importance of grown-up viewers as their audiences fragment and decline. They’re affluent and more loyal to legacy media…or so they thought. Turns out adults are getting tougher to reach through traditional channels according to a Multichannel News report. Citing research from Wolf Resource Group, the article notes that adults 25 to 54 spend more time online than do younger demos–even though the kids are thought of as the Internet generation. Other highlights:

• 42 percent of YouTube’s audience is 35 to 54
• 30 percent of Boomers participate in user-generated content–although just 10 percent create content themselves
• Adults age 35 to 49 are the biggest users of digital video recorders–31 percent use them at least once a week, compared with just 26 percent among 18 to 34-year-olds.

Marketers will miss out if they rely only on traditional legacy media to reach lucrative Boomer audiences–especially as younger Boomers edge into the 50+ category.

The Wall Street Journal weighs in today on how department stores are working to serve the fashion needs of Boomer women. The focus is on Bloomingdale’s, which is going after women age 35 to 50 with Quotations, an in-store casual clothing department for customers Bloomie’s calls “yummy mommies.” Retailers see value in tapping the big market of affluent Boomer women, but chains like Gap’s Forth & Towne have stumbed an overt age focus. The Journal notes that department stores hope to avoid that pitfall by mixing it up with product aimed at younger customers:

The idea is that by pitching to boomers as well as younger women, Quotation will have a hip vibe that will appeal to a broad cross section. Each department is positioned next to contemporary labels like Juicy Couture, which are favored by women in their 20s, and has a diverse range of separates.

As noted here, Ann Taylor will launch a standalone chain targeting Boomer women next Fall.

The Journal package includes an interesting video tour of Bloomingdale’s Quotations, featuring fashion reporter Teri Agins.

Maureen Rogers over at The Opinionated Marketers notes with amusement a conference focused on “Marketing to Men, Women and Boomers.” First reaction to the conference theme: people over 50 are. . .neither? Second (more serious) reaction: anything that gets ad agencies to pay more attention to Boomers is good–so, segment away if you like. Speakers at the Nov. 12-13 event in New York City include PrimeTime Women author Marti Barletta and marketing uber-guru Seth Godin. He’s scheduled to speak on the Boomer track at this event, and has posted on mistakes marketers make when they ignore older consumers:

For a long time, the easy way out was to believe that 18 to 34 year olds were open and seniors were closed. Web surfers are open, National Enquirer readers are closed. etc. etc. Then the baby boom happened. Baby boomers have been open their whole lives. And now they are seniors. So all the conventional wisdom goes out the window. Senior travel, senior fashion, senior experiences… it’s all fair game, because there’s a different demographic inhabiting that age group now.

I’d just add that not all Boomers are seniors. . . today. There are clear lifestage differences between these two groups that will persist another 10 to 15 years. One small example: how Boomers use the Internet compared with seniors.

Americans are eating more spicy food, but it’s not due to a big increase in culinary adventure. Turns out taste buds start to go as we age–and when that happens, people eat  spicier food. The Boston Globe explains that the Boomer age wave is driving a major increase in spicy food offerings on grocery shelves, and the popularity of ethnic restaurants featuring hot food:

“So far, few marketers or researchers have studied the link between boomers and spicy food. The industry is just now starting to draw the connection, food scientists say. Research in this area has been slow in part because the science of smell and taste is complicated and still emerging. What’s known is that at a certain age - after about 40 for most people - the number of nerve receptors in the nose and tongue that respond to smell and taste dim and decrease. As that happens, complex flavors become duller. Sweet and sour tastes decline sharply; salty and acidic tastes remain brighter for longer. The tastes that penetrate the fog most clearly come from another group of flavors called sensory irritants. These hit the body not through taste or smell, but through the chemosensory system, which conveys sensations like touch, temperature, pain, and pressure. A list of foods in the sensory irritant category reads like a roster of modern flavorings: habanero, jalapeno, black pepper, horseradish, ginger, cinnamon. All of them - generally lumped together as “spicy” or “high-flavor” - help kick up the overall sensory experience of eating.”

Evidence of the trend turns up in older Americans’ preference for more flavorful cheeses, visits to websites for spicy food aficionados, and growing use of the word “spicy” on restaurant menus. (Yes, there’s actually someone tracking this–MenuMine, a database maintained by the Foodservice Research Institute.)