Nielsen: Don't Ignore Baby Boomers

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July 20, 2010

While many marketers focus on the trendy youth segment, Nielsen Co. research indicates retailers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power ––the 78 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. today.

At a time when most analysts are predicting much slower growth in consumer spending, retailers and manufacturers “need to look at every opportunity to grow market share,” Nielsen said. “Boomers can represent tremendous potential to those who know how to reach them.”

While the oldest Baby Boomers are beginning to retire, they are much different then their predecessors. “The conventional wisdom that they spend little, resist technology and are slow to adopt new products needs to be re-assessed,” Nielsen said. “Boomers are an affluent group who adopt technology with enthusiasm (think about the number of parents or grandparents who regularly send e-mails or upload photos to Facebook and other sites). They have also shown a willingness to try new brands and products.”

“And if you think that the web sites Boomers visit are entirely different than those visited by adults age 18-34, you’d be mistaken: eight of the top 10 web sites are the same,” according to Nielsen research.

So why are Boomers so important? They spend 38.5 percent of CPG dollars, yet less than 5 percent of advertising dollars are currently targeted towards adults 35-64 years old (which includes the latter half of Generation X in addition to Boomers). With most marketers generally targeting 18-49 year olds, more than half of the affluent Boomer demographic is ignored entirely,” according to Nielsen.

Other Boomer facts from Nielsen:

• Dominate 1,023 out of 1,083 consumer packaged goods categories.
• Watch the most video: 9:34 hours per day.
• Comprise 1/3 of all TV viewers, online users, social media users and Twitter users.
• More likely to have broadband Internet access at home.

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• Nielsen: Look to Europe for the Future of U.S. Store Brands
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