If you’re in the Tokyo area the first week of October, consider attending The Silver Market Phenomenon symposium, which will look at the challenges posed to business and societies by the global age wave. The symposium is tied to the publication of a book of the same name, which will be published in early September by Springer. The book is edited by Florian Kohlbacher of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo and Cornelius Herstatt of the Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg, in Hamburg.

The book examines at the growing 55-plus population globally, and considers why the market is still underdeveloped from a product a service standpoint. I contributed a chapter–which I’ll be presenting at the symposium–titled “The End of Mass Media: Aging and the U.S. Newspaper Industry.” The struggles of the newspaper business is one of my favorite topics, due mainly to my long, sorry history as an ink-stained wretch. The essay traces the importance of Boomers in mass media in the U.S., and how the newspaper industry has failed to grasp this audience’s ongoing importance as publishers struggle to make the transition to new digital platforms.

Other contributors you probably know include Chuck Nyren on the role of advertising agencies in marketing to boomers and Dick Stroud on the importance of Web 2.0 to Boomers.

If you’d like to learn more about the symposium, download the flier here [pdf file].

The holiday shopping season is swinging into gear, and Baby Boomer bargain hunters are fueling a big gain in traffic at e-commerce sites. Traffic monitoring service Hitwise reported a 56 percent surge in marketshare for the week ended November 3rd. The gain was driven mainly by online shoppers over age 45 with the share of traffic from that age demo up 38 percent compared with a year ago.

“As we enter the holiday shopping season, consumers are beginning to research potential gift purchases and compare prices earlier than last year especially with retailers beginning to roll out seasonal promotions,” said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise. “Baby boomers are the main visitors of comparison shopping websites and our search term data indicates that consumer electronics continue to be popular amongst these comparison shoppers.

Biggest marketshare gainer in teh 45+ category was Shopzilla, where traffic was up 58 percent during the measured period, compared with a year ago. Shopzilla is owned by diversfied media company E.W. Scripps.

Detail on the Hitwise study, including rankings of the top e-commerce sites and brands, is here.

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.

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.)

Ann Taylor Stores confirmed earlier reports that it will launch a new chain of clothing stores for Boomer women. CEO Kay Krill told Dow Jones: “While there are a number of companies that currently play in the broader boomer market, we believe that this particular segment has been the most significantly underserved and a huge opportunity for us…” A former Jones Apparel Group executive, Mark Mendelson, will run the new chain.

Ann Taylor confirmed plans for the chain as it disclosed a 27 percent decline in second quarter earnings.

The New York Times reports that Ann Taylor is planning a retail clothing chain targeting Boomer women. Let’s hope they do a better job than the Gap’s Forth & Towne, which announced plans to fold in February. Is the market underserved? Sure. But age-targeted retailing is a mine field, as Gap discovered.