At least, that’s what the Financial Post thinks. The paper reports that growing numbers of marketers are tired of unsuccessful efforts targeting 18-to-35 year olds, and have realized Boomers have the money and preferable consumer habits. And here’s one you don’t see every day: Canada’s biggest traditional department store–The Bay–is pinning its hopes for survival on the 50+ crowd. According to one analyst:

[Boomers are]….”the only hope department stores have to survive in Canada. They will never get young people to open up their wallets so they have to get older customers to shop there,” he said. “This should have happened 10 years ago when everyone was blindly chasing youth.”

Can you think of a single mainstream department store in the U.S. that would admit this? I can’t.

Media companies are scrambling to build up their online health information websites, and new Focalyst survey research spotlighting Boomer media preferences in this area show why.

The New York Times noted the trend a few days ago with a story on the Hearst Magazines acquisition of RealAge Inc., a consumer health website that lets users determine their “real age” using a variety of factors like exercise, diet and weight. Hearst also is working to build out more content across its existing stable of sites, such as Good Housekeeping and Cosmopolitan. The story also notes an initiative at U.S. News & World Report aimed at bulking up on health information. Health also has been a major area of focus, of course, for Boomer-specific online launches such as Eons and TeeBeeDee and magazines such as More.

The Focalyst survey data underscores just how big health care media will be for Boomers as they age. The survey compares preferences of Boomers and older “Matures” when it comes to seeking advice and information on health-related matters. I’ve edited down the findings to zero in on Boomer likelihood to turn to online media for health information. Print media, television and radio also are beneficiaries of the trend. You can find the full press release and findings here.

Dick Stroud writes about the first anniversary this week of RLTV, noting marketplace skepticism that senior housing mogul John Erickson’s tv network venture will succeed. Challenges include getting wider distribution, and convincing marketers to target 50+ audiences. My take: one of RLTV’s major challenges will be appealing to Boomers as they age into this demographic, since most refuse to think of themselves as senior or retired.

If you haven’t seen RLTV programming, check out their extensive video archive.

Eons laid off about a third of its workforce of 72 this week, according to Wired and other sources. Eons raised $22 million in a second round of financing six months ago, but it sounds like the burn rate was too high–and the company sees its future in user-generated content and social networking. That requires far less staff, obviously. Founder Jeff Taylor told Wired that social networking now represents about 65 percent of all activity on the site.

The New York Times has a good roundup today on the proliferation of venture-backed social networking sites. The article catalogues some of the more prominent launches, including Eons, TeeBeeDee. Most recent deal to be announced is a $16.5 million round for Multiply. Not all these sites are aimed at the 50+ demo, but the article’s key point is that venture capitalists are discovering the value of older consumers - defined as anyone past their teen years. Why? One VC, Paul Kedrosky, told the Times: “The older demographic has a bunch of interesting characteristics . . .not the least of which is that they hang around.”

The current glut of sites points to a shakeout. But 50+ social network sites have these trends in their favor:

• Boomers are demonstrating that they will join communities where they feel comfortable–witness strong growth in unique visits, page views and time-per-visit at Eons.
• They are launching into a strong growth demographic. In fact, the 50+ age bracket will be the only growth demo between now and 2015, according to Census Bureau data.

That sounds alot better than battling over a shrinking audience of fickle teenagers.

Grandparents.com launched this week, accompanied by articles in Advertising Age and Mediaweek. Grandparents might seem like a pretty tight niche, until you consider that they represent a huge chunk of spending power in children’s products–the average grandparent spends $500 per year on a grandchild, according to the Grandparent Marketing Group.

Grandparents.com is run by Yahoo! veteran Jerry Shereshewsky. The site has a nice opportunity to serve as a translator and cultural bridge to grandchildren by alerting grandparents to the hottest new gadgets and gifts. The site focuses on travel, gifts and social networking. One nice feature is an activities database that can be sorted for location, type and child’s age. I put it to the test by doing some test runs on Chicago–the town I know best. Content looked pretty good, even in a tough sort like “outdoor fun for teenagers.”

I asked the site’s management to answer a few questions about their plans:

Tell us a bit about your professional background and that of your partners, and how you came to focus on grandparents as a market.

There are lots of sites and organizations that are dedicated to the older age groups (AARP, etc). There are also lots of family sites that give parenting advice. Grandparents.com is the only Web site that speaks to grandparents as grandparents with regularity about a wide variety of topics relating to the grandparenting experience. Grandparents.com does not speak to our grandparents in terms of age. Rather, we speak to them based on a lifestage - people whose children have children of their own.

Not only do we have a distinguished editorial staff pulled from top tier media outlets like the Boston Globe and New York magazine, but we also have an expert advisory board of experienced grandparents. In addition, Grandparents.com also facilitates the conversation among its community of users. This way grandparents can generate reviews or comments from which other Grandparents can learn. If a segment of the community does not like what Grandparents.com has to say about a particular topic or article, they have the ability to share their thoughts with others through the tools we provide. In short, if we fail to provide the best content, our audience is going to let us and each other know.

Grandparents represent a fairly broad range of age. For that matter, so do grandchildren. Where are the best opportunities within the age ranges, and where will grandparents.com focus its content and marketing efforts?

We focused on Boomer grandparents because of their greater familiarity with the internet and online tools. However, the content of the site deals with issues and topics universal to all grandparents regardless of age. We speak to active grandparents who want to get the most out of their relationship with their grandchildren.

The site focuses on travel, gifts and advice, as well as blogs and social networking. Which of these areas do you expect to be most important to site users and advertisers?

In both qualitative and quantitative studies, we found that grandparents were looking for information on the topic areas we cover on the site. To over 95% of grandparents, their role as grandparent is a high priority in their life and the site’s editorial content reflects that fact. More than two-thirds of grandparents indicated that they wanted help with gifts and with activities. There has been a 60% increase in the amount of trips that children take with their grandparents since 1996. As such that was a natural focus area for Grandparents.com editorially. With the recent launch of the site, we are going to talk to our users to see which content and functional areas they find useful, which they don’t and what they would like us to build.

As for our advertisers, the meaningful content and features will be those that allow them to have a dialogue with our consumers. Great advertising is about having a great conversation. Grandparents.com would like to partner with advertisers who want to have such a conversation with our audience, understanding their role and profound value. This audience is the single largest demographic cut of the population other than gender and race and controls nearly 75% of the nation’s wealth.

Who do you see as your primary competition?

Lots of sites are dedicated to the older age groups, but no one is speaking to grandparents specifically. For example, some might call AARP a competitor, but we are really doing different things for many of the same people. AARP’s focus is much broader than Grandparents.com - generally speaking to an age rather than a lifestyle. Grandparents.com is all about one thing - facilitating special relationships between grandparents and grandchildren. While there are a few mom-and-pop sites on grandparenting, none have dedicated the resources to providing grandparents anything like Grandparents.com