Immersion Active presents Ageless Marketing

The Puzzle of the Lost Boys

Matt Thornhill of the Boomer Project sent me the URL to a recent article in Media Life magazine entitled:

Puzzle of the Lost Boys: They just ain't

Fact is, the overall 18-34 population is smaller

The article addresses the mystery of males 18-34 who last year were reportd to be disappearing en masses from broadcast TV.

More and more, when in media interviews I’m asked, “The numbers favoring the 40-plus consumer population are so much better than they are for younger populations, so why aren’t advertisers and their agencies putting more money and effort into marketing to the older population?”

Of course the answer is that our brains evolved to resist change in the interest of giving us stabilized connections to the external world. To do this it simply blocks out information that conflicts with past experiences and beliefs. Oncologists call this behavior “denial.”

Since people who are in denial about shifting demographics are not dimwits, they do recognize conflicts between their beliefs and past experiences and current demographic realities. However, they resolve those conflicts with confabulations about why they must stick with youth and young adult markets as their main if not exclusive marketing targets.

Does anyone else have a better explanation why only a reported 10% of marketing dollars go toward 50-plus markets despite the fact that these markets are larger than the 25-49-year-old market and represent two-thirds of all private wealth?

Have a nice weekend!

The Age of Transcendence Revisited

May 31 I posted a piece, “The DARPA Future" in which I discussed Joel Garreau’s new book, Radical Evolution. Having just finished it, I feel constrained to once more bring the book to your attention.

Over the past year I have periodically talked in this space about humankind having entered a new age that I call the Age of Transcendence. Garreau’s book persuades me more deeply than ever that we are indeed in the dawn of such an age.

Human transcendence is the central theme of Garreau’s book. He quotes numerous people who see thing s the same way – not aerie fairy crystal-gazing types, but denizens of the mainstream – like scientists at the DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that created the Internet. Others quoted come from different distinguished mainstream backgrounds.

We’re destined to undergo a cultural transformation of unimaginable proportions within the next 25 years says novelist and mathematician Vernor Vinge of San Diego State: “We are on the edge of change comparable to the rise of human life on earth.”

Czechoslovakian playwright and former Czech president Vaclav Havel sees “transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction.”

German history philosopher Karl Jaspers believes we are headed directly into what he terms a new Axial Age – an axis in time when all that we have been as an intelligent species coalesces humankind into higher level beingness. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? But before checking out on this discussion, hear more.

Jaspers says the last Axial Age was between 800 B.C. and 200 B.C. when there arose worldwide a spiritual transcendence without precedence. Confucius and Lao Tse contributed to this awakening in China. The Upanishads of India and life and work of Gautama Buddha nurtured it in India. Zarathustra elevated the human spirit in his part of the world with his cosmic renderings of good and evil. Meanwhile in Palestine, a slew of mighty prophets fertilized the religious culture of the Hebrews. And not far away in Greece, philosophers, poets, playwrights and artists were elevating Man’s self to new, transcendent heights.

Karl Jaspers: “The new element in this age is that man everywhere became aware of being as a whole, of himself and his limits. He experienced the horror of the world and his own helplessness. He raised radical questions, approached the abyss in his drive for liberation and redemption. And in consciously apprehending his limits he set for himself the highest aims. He experienced the absolute in the depth of selfhood and in the clarity of transcendence.”

Princeton psychologist Julian James writes in his book, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind that prior to Jasper’s Axial Age the two hemispheres of the brain operated somewhat independently. But around the end of the second millennia B.C. and in the early years of the first millennia, the hemispheres closed ranks to create holistic consciousness as we experience it today. Now it was possible for Man to become “aware of being as a whole, of himself and his limits.” much as Jaspers says happened.

And what does this have to do with marketing? Well, as one Amazon reviewer put it in recommending Radical Evolution, "A must read for anyone who plans to live for 5 years or more." Everything!

To be continued…

The Ethical and Moral Transformation of Capitalism

I’ve just returned from a weeklong writing retreat in the Poconos, working on Firms of Endearment (FoE) with my co-author Raj Sisodia. First, thanks to those of you who have nominated companies you consider to be FoEs.

The Poconos are part of the Appalachian mountain chain, though they’ve been around so long they are more like big undulating hills than muscular mountains.. The weather was superb although we were outside in it only for a short daily walk. Otherwise, we worked long days. I started at around 6:00 AM and except for meals and the daily walk, usually toiled away until around 9:30 PM. Raj started a little later in the morning but usually kept at it until midnight or later.

Despite the long hours, the week was quite uplifting. The deeper we got into our subject the stronger our enthusiasm. FoEs are truly remarkable companies. We believe they are harbingers of a future when private enterprise will outclass government when it comes to activist concern for socially significant issues like the environment and individual personal well-being. Of course we’ll always have unconscionable executives doing unconscionable things and ignoring the welfare of anything but themselves. But we see clear signs of a radical change in the nature of capitalism that great numbers of companies will buy into.

Take the outdoor outfitter Patagonia. Not a huge company – 2004 gross was $240 million –“Patagonia exists to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis” said writer Holly Welling in Apparel Industry magazine.

Employees can apply to management for a two-month leave of absence, fully paid, with full benefits, to work for some worthy cause. It devotes 1% of its gross to an “earth tax” which is applies to some environmental cause.

Patagonia is becoming not all that rare. Other companies are similarly devoted to doing good while doing well. Whole Foods, L.L. Bean, Honda, Costco, Harley-Davidson, The Body Shop, Starbucks, New Balance and Johnson & Johnson to name just a few of the better-known names of FoEs in our book.

We hear relatively little about the wonderfully enlightened visions and missions of these FoEs because news of executive avarice generally ranks higher in reporting.But trust me for the moment: the future of capitalistic enterprise promises an ethically and morally brighter affect than we've generally felt was present in the past. It is that future that Raj and I have set out to describe and to explain why it will be as we believe it will be.

Bingeing on Writing and Indian Food

I’m getting ready to plunge into an intense week of writing in the Poconos with my good friend and co-author of Terms of Endearment, Raj Sisodia. Raj has promised me a week of divinely sensuous Indian food, one of my very favorite ethnic cuisines.  I like it rich and hot accompanied by flaming hot mango pickle where appropriate. Yummm.

To bring readers who are not aware of this new book up to date, Firms of Endearment is a book about a powerful idea, supported by illustrations of a number of companies. The idea is this: companies that combine solid management practices with proactive efforts to endear themselves to their stakeholders will consistently outperform in the long term any companies in their category that don’t.

In introducing the term “endearment” into business management philosophy for the first time, we are acknowledging the fact now solidly established by brain science that human loyalty to anything – in this case, the loyalty of customers, employees, suppliers – even shareholders – and other stakeholders is ultimately more a function of emotions than reason.

The idea of cultivating positive emotional responses by stakeholders is not some wooly-headed notion out of crystal gazing New Ageism. It’s worth is a fully verifiable determination. Over the past 10 years, during and after the dotcom bubble, the composite financial performance of FoE companies profiled in our book leaves Jim Collins’ Good to Great Companies in the dust. Collins book, you will remember present deeply researched evidence showing how some companies rise above the crowd to become top grade performers. FoE companies out perform Collin’s Good to Great companies in a walk.

Good to Great is one of the best selling business books of the past 10 years. Raj and I believe that the main thesis of our book gives it a similar potential. We only hope that our writing performance is up to the task of drawing a similar response.

In the months ahead, I will be sharing with you from time to time some of the insights we’re illuminating in what we hope will become an important new addition to the annals of business literature.

A Reader's Response

Reader Carolyn Hansen was highly critical of my last post, but with her gracious permission I reprint her email to me in full to provoke thought and bring attention to some of the points she ably makes:

I have trouble with the idea that you think searching for "transcendence for all" is not egocentric -- especially when you can say with no obvious irony that humanity is moving toward collective self-actualization.  I don't think you really mean "for all" -- I think you mean "for rich people like us."  By "the collective soul of humanity," you seem to mean "the collective soul of folks who have access to a lot of way-cool technology."  What about the tens of thousands of children who die every day from hunger in our world?  What about the billions (and, I believe, there are only about 6.5 billion of us here, right?) who survive on less than $1 a day?  It seems to me that most of humanity is still at the very bottom of Maslow's hierarchy.  And a lot of the rest of us who crave the transcendent have the luxury to do so in a pretty selfish way.  I'm not saying that the poor don't search for the transcendent.  In my experience, they don't think that searching for food precludes searching for God, which is what you (or maybe it's Maslow) implies.

Clearly this struck a nerve with me -- I've never really agreed with Maslow and I'm probably overreacting.  I realize this is a marketing blog and nobody markets to the third world. 

But it makes me unhappy to think that people like us can dismiss whole continents of hungry, needy people and assume everyone in the world is growing better off every day just because we are.  Bottom line:  It makes it too easy not to help the poor if we tell ourselves that pretty much everyone (or everyone worth caring about) is at the top of the Maslow pyramid.

So I guess what I would've hoped for is at least a brief acknowledgement that the Age of Transcendence makes sense for the comfortable niche we market to, but it's meaningless to about 95% of the population of the world.  Which, to my mind, makes the Age of Transcendence just about on par with every other age.

-- Carolyn Hansen

I answered Carolyn:

Dear Carolyn,

Thanks for taking the time to craft a well-thought through response to my blog post about human transcendence. With you permission, I'd like to post it to the Soflow Forum network -- http://www.soflow.com/  for discussions by members, most of whom work in marketing. Also, I would appreciate it if you'd let me run it as a post in my blog.

As to my own direct response to your thoughts, I can say without qualification that you are right about people who live a hard scrabble existence not being able to reach a Maslovian transcendent state -- which by the way is not about the culmination of a search for God. I know of many people who feel they have found God but who are far from having reached a transcendent state.

One of the best descriptions I've ever heard of the state I'm talking about was uttered by psychologist Claire Graves when he said the highest state of human beingness is reached when a person believes, "My life is not important, but life itself is unsurpassed in importance."

In other words, when a person's ego shrivels into almost nothingness while her/his regard for all life reaches the highest peaks of appreciation, then a state of transcendence has been reached -- that is, the person has risen above self.

My claim that we've entered a new age that I've termed the Age of Transcendence does not mean I am disregarding all the unnecessary hardships that daily rob billions of a decent life. When I say, "The collective soul of humanity is maturing – or as one might say, moving toward collective self-actualization, I do not mean that every one on earth is on that same path any more than the term "Age of Enlightenment" means every one was pursuing enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century, or that during the Age of Reason in the 16th and 17th century, every one lived by disciplined, high-minded reason.

However, like those earlier eras that laid the foundations for modern society and thereby improved life for many, but certainly not all, the Age of Transcendence will move us further beyond our primordial roots when life was ruled by tooth and claw. This age will see increased devotion to bettering the lot of the more unfortunate among us, not just out of the pursuit of political expediency and commercial exploitation, but also out of the genuine concern many of us more fortunate ones have for fellow beings living less well.

The reason I'd like to post your response is that many people need to live less matter of factly to be more conscious of the issues you raise and ponder what can be done about them.

Regards,

David

Anyone have thoughts to add?

A Joe Pine Special Event

This post is a shameless promotion -- not of  me, but of a good friend who has had a major impact on the mind of marketing -- Joe Pine. Joe is partners with Jim Gilmore in their theater of business enterprise, but Joe with his ever-present toothpick tucked in the side of his mouth is the only one of this dynamic duo whom I've met.

Of course, Joe and Jim made marketing history with their best selling business tome, The Experience Economy. They will soon (or so Joe keeps promising me) have a new book out on the transcendent importance of authenticity in consumer-company relations today.

Joe has an event coming up June 9th that might pay you well to participate in. From the event's website:

On June 9th, explore the current State of the Experience Economy with author Joe Pine in a live Xtend webcast. Sign up through tomorrow, June 2nd, to take final advantage of the early registration rate.

Six years ago, Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore of Strategic Horizons LLP released their best-selling book The Experience Economy announcing the emergence of experiences as a distinct economic offering.

Fast forward to today: many of their then-provocative insights have become conventional wisdom for businesses seeking real competitive advantage.

On Thursday, June 9, join Joe Pine online and learn what's happening now in the ever-changing Experience Economy. In this live web-based event called Xtend, Joe will share many of the new frameworks, key ideas, and best principles that have emerged since the release of the book.

In addition, you'll discover just who is blazing paths for staging great new experiences, and how they're doing it. And with the help of the Xtend Guidebook, you'll take these insights and apply them to your own business.

So whether you're new to the world of experiences, or looking to stay ahead of the pack, this is an excellent opportunity to enhance your knowledge of what's next in the Experience Economy and where it's taking you.

We invite you to register for Xtend by tomorrow - June 2nd - at the advance rate of US$225. If your schedule doesn't let you commit until after that, registration will be US$245. No matter when you register, Xtend also includes a complimentary copy of The Experience Economy personally inscribed by Joe Pine for your library or to pass along to a colleague.

For details and to register, visit  Xtend.  We look forward to continuing our conversation online on Thursday, June 9th.

____________

So consider giving it a whirl. I've seen Joe's presentations. He's good!

Transcending Our Primordial Roots

I thought I was being audacious when I first termed the era we have recently entered (c. 1990) the Age of Transcendence. However, the term transcendence has been showing up with increasing frequency in numerous books and articles describing the age we live in.

I view this lexical phenomenon as a sign of humankind’s reaching beyond its primordial footings to an extent that not previously entertained in many quarters. As Columbia University’s Andrew Delbanco puts it, “The most striking feature of contemporary culture is the unslaked craving for transcendence.”

Joel Garreau invokes the term transcendence many times in Radical Evolution, though he means it differently than I do when applying it to the present era. Garreau uses the term to signify human emancipation from properties that defined us as human beings for several hundreds of thousands years. Genetics, robotics, information systems and nanotechnology now promise us opportunities to become supermen and superwomen.

Garreau brings into his discussions of transcendence Francis Fukuyama, the author of Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution”. Fukuyama warns that technology could soon turn life on earth into a living hell for us (see yesterday’s post).

Fast developing biotechnology carries a high "possibility that it will alter human nature and thereby move us into a `posthuman' stage of history." Genetically engineered "designer babies" will be one result. Other genetic tinkering will be done to shape behavior. Neuropharmacology, which has already begun to reshape human behavior through drugs like Prozac and Ritalin.

I see human transcendence with a more optimistic eye than Fukuyama does. First, I define the Age of Transcendence as an era in which mainstream culture shifts from its traditional primarily objective, materialistic and rational foundations to postmodern subjective, metaphysical, and intuitive foundations.” In other words, I define transcendence in the present context from a spiritual rather than a physical perspective.

How ever one views the future, “We are headed toward a transformation beyond the human species in our lifetime” as Garreau says. But while he in essence sees humans evolving into cyborgs – part biology, part technology – I see us moving to higher levels of human beingness that take us further beyond our primordial roots.

One thing is for sure: Our future is not your father’s future. This is not inconsequential to us as marketers. The collective soul of humanity is maturing – or as one might say, moving toward collective self-actualization. In Maslow’s model of self-actualization, the well being of all transcends the well being of the individual. This is the direction that in which society is moving.

The notion that the well being of all transcends the well being of self guts the foundation of traditional consumer marketing. Most such marketing makes the individual consumer the center of attention. This promotes egocentrism. In the Age of Transcendence, this will increasingly seem crude and unwarranted. This means marketers should be realigning the values they project to regain synchronicity with consumer values. The bottom line takeaway is that gradually but persistently people are becoming less concerned with the pettier needs of the individual self.