Immersion Active presents Ageless Marketing

A Couple of Recommendations

I have a couple of recommendations for readers today.

Conference recommendation: April 6th and 7^th the 5^th Annual Beyond the Numbers Summit takes place at the Eden Rock Resort and Spa in Miami. I have twice been a keynote speaker for this stand-out conference on 40+ markets founded by J. Walter Thompson, now known simply as JWT.

It is often said that young ladies have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. When it comes to seminars you have to breathe in a lot of hot air before you get well-ground, authoritative insights about aging boomer consumers. Beyond the numbers, or BTN as it is often affectionately called, brings together some of the best minds available to talk about aging boomers (as well as their aging parents).

Do what you can to get to this conference. It’s an outstanding opportunity to learn and to meet the real experts in middle age and older markets. Click here for the BTN web site to get more information and register.

_______________________________

A few weeks back I wrote about Posit Science’s brain exercise program that returns older people to cognitive functioning levels they had at least 10 years earlier in life. Some people have been restored to levels as far back as 20 to 25 years. Quite a number of you wrote asking for the discount code that had been available to me for sharing with readers. The code expired on February 28, but I am still recommending the program. You can learn more about it at Posit Science’s website. Also, the current issue of Forbes carries an informative article on the science behind the brain exercise program. Click here to get to the Forbes story. You need to register to gain access, but there is no cost nor ongoing commitment to doing so. The article is a very worthwhile read.

Why You Cry at the Movies

Brain researchers have figured out what makes you cry at the movies. Mirror neurons make you do it. Your brain, somewhat confused about reality, responds to the tear-tapping scene as though you were the actor you have empathetically connected with.

The discovery of mirror neurons by an Italian research team is considered by some to be one of the potentially most important discoveries in brain science in at least a decade.

Like many great discoveries, the existence of mirror neurons was revealed accidentally. Researchers had been tracing brain activity in macaque monkeys generated by physical activity such as reaching for a peanut. One day one of the researchers reached for a peanut while a macaque was stilled wired but sitting idly by. Immediately the crackling sounds of electrical activity generated by the macaque’s brain was heard through the monitors as though it was the macaque reaching for the peanut.

Once again I raise the perennial question: What does this have to do with marketing?

Well, just about everything.

It is clearly self-evident that when one person demonstrates an empathetic connection with another person, the second person’s response is most likely a positive one that pulls the two people closer together. That is what marketing is about: closing the space between consumer and marketer.

Now it would seem, based on discovery of mirror neurons, that communication objectives include triggering the firing of mirror neurons. If what you have to say doesn’t do that you’ll find it harder to arouse and retain the attention of the consumer.

PBS’s Nova recently did a 14-minute piece on mirror neurons which you can access at on the PBS website. Take 15 minutes out of your busy schedule to watch this short film. You’ll find it worthwhile.

Gender Specific Changes in Mid- and Later Life Worldviews

David Gutmann summarized the behavioral changes of aging men after studying them in four very different cultures: We find that, by contrast to younger men, older men are more interested in giving and receiving love than in conquering or acquiring power.

As though setting in balance a mathematical formula, Gutmann described aging women as moving in psychologically the reverse direction. “Even in normal patriarchal societies, women become more aggressive in later life, less affiliated and more managerial or political,” he wrote.

These changes in gender specific behavior are developmental. They transcend cultural influences, although the way in which men and women respond to developmental imperatives in later life may stylistically reflect cultural idiosyncrasies.

These developmental changes promote the emergence of a fuller and more expressive human being and bring major changes in the worldviews of men and women. By worldviews, I do not mean what people believe, but how they connect with the world.

In her quite remarkable book The Quantum Self, a landmark treatise on the subject of consciousness, Danah Zohar defines worldview as —

“— a theme which integrates the sense of self, the sense of self and others, and the sense of how these relate to the wider world – to Nature and other creatures, to the environment as a whole, to the planet, the universe, and ultimately to God – to some overall purpose and direction... A successful worldview must, in the end, draw all these levels – the person, the social, and the spiritual – into one coherent whole. If it does so, the individual has access to some sense of who he is, why he is here, how he relates to others, and how it is valuable to behave.”

With the forgoing in mind, think about ads directed to men and women over 40. How many in reality reflect the more materialistic, narcissistic worldviews of the young? How many reflect the midlife emergence of a more nurturing self among men? And how many ads intended for older women capture the essence of their more masculine worldviews?

Few indeed. Young people (who dominate the creative side of marketing) view older consumers through the lens of a youthful worldview. The messages they create reflect that perspective. Without appropriate teaching and guidance, they can only perceive well-seasoned manhood and womanhood from the perspective of young adulthood.

A few tidbits from Gutmann’s Reclaimed Powers:

“The older men (60 and over) were more interested in being than in doing, and in present rather than in future time.” (P.93)

Young male divorce lawyers saw their role in adversarial terms. Half expressed this as a contest to defeat the opposing lawyer, the other half as a contest with the legal system. In contrast, “…the senior lawyers see themselves primarily as marriage counselors. They are more nurturant, more interested in saving the marriage.” (P.94)

“Across culture, and with age, (women) seem to become more authoritative, more effective, and less willing to trade submission for security.” (p. 133)

“Older men strive for quiescence and comfort. Their psychological defenses do not facilitate action but replace it with inhibitions. … By contrast, the ‘magical’ defenses of older women may run interference for their unflagging efforts at direct control of the external world. Older women do not conjure up a dream world in which the goals of action have been magically achieved; rather, they confabulate versions of reality that permit them to act without anxiety or guilt, in flamboyant and dominant ways.” (pp. 153-154)

Have you been reflecting gender specific developmental changes in your marketing to people 40 and older?

I invite your responses….

___________________

Reader Richard Royce wrote: “I've been following your Ageless Marketing posts and the most recent - about women becoming more male-like and visa versa prompted me to want to suggest you read (if you are going to dig deeper into the aging male mind) Dr. Herb Goldberg's book/s "The Hazards of Being Male" and also "Inner Male".

I checked Goldberg’s books out at Amazon and think reader Royce’s recommendation is worthy of consideration.

Midlife Changes in Gender-based Roles

Northwestern University psychologist David Gutmann (see previous post) has explored in great depth an idea that first reached the annals of behavioral studies via Car Jung. Working from personal experience as a psychotherapist, Jung wrote about men integrating their anima – their feminine aspect – in life’s second half and women integrating their animus their masculine aspect – in the same season of life.

Jung’s proposition was based on anecdotal evidence. Gutmann, however, has tested Jung’s hypothesis using formal research tools of psychology. Gutmann supports his empirical results with data derived from in-the-field ethnographic research.

Bottom line? Jung was right.

Implications for marketing? Don’t market to the middle aged and older woman as though she is a comely ingénue. She has likely adopted a more assertive demeanor, fortifying it with increased self-esteem and greater self-confidence.

As they pass through the second half of life, women generally look progressively less to romantic relationships in their quest for life satisfaction. Instead, members of the “weaker sex” tend to seek life satisfaction more and more in self-expression. This is not to say that women become less romantically interested, but rather that they don’t put most of their life satisfaction eggs in one basket as they might have done in their younger years. In short, women tend to become less dependent on men as they move through the second half of life.

In contrast, men tend to become more dependent on woman in the second half of life. I'll say more about this in a future post.

At one time in my life, all of my consulting work was in senior housing. Then I began fielding calls from companies in other industries. Recently, however, I’ve been called on by several developers of senior housing After a decade-long hiatus in senior housing, I have returned only to find little has changed in how senior housing is marketed.

It is quite telling that the overwhelming majority of ads for senior housing focus on the home and community amenities while ignoring all together aspirations whose satisfaction do not depend on real estate for fulfillment.

Effective marketing depends on connecting with people’s aspirations. Few people who move into so-called active adult housing need a new home. And despite bold claims about the “luxury homes” offered in a seniors community, most people considering moving in probably have a higher level of luxury in their present home. In the majority of cases, it is a larger home.

Further, rarely do I see an ad for senior housing that does a very good job of connecting with the altered psyche of the midlife woman. Marketers err in marketing to her as though she is but an older version of her younger self. However, she’s in a different place, with a much different worldview and an entirely different set of aspirations.

I’ve picked on housing marketing in this post, but across the board there is little understanding in the marketing community about the aspirations of people who are getting beyond or are already beyond their family raising and career development years. Why, because as I said earlier in this thread, there is an astonishing lack of understanding of human behavior in the field of marketing.

There is no getting around the fact that to be consistently effective in marketing, understanding the motivations of intended markets is quite helpful to say the least. I find that relatively few people in marketing have any awareness of the switching in gender-based roles that generally takes place in midlife. Yet this change in behavior has major implications for communication approaches and styles.

I’ll say more later…

"In Some Ways All Men Are Alike"

My February 25^th post promised a continuation of my discussion of developmental psychologist David Gutmann’s book, Reclaimed Powers: Men and Women in Later Life. In the meantime, I posted a brief entry concerning the fall from favor being suffered by Milton Friedman’s famous idea about the only social responsibility of a company is to lawfully make profits for shareholders.

So much to ruminate on these days. So much to write about. Oh well, this post gets me back on track.

Over many years, Gutmann’s research has clearly supported a proposition I’ve been promoting for several decades: there is much about the behavior of people in the second half of life (second half marked as starting at age 40) that has not changed in thousands of years.

As a society, it seems we’ve become so accustomed to shaping our perceptions around the superficial things that we’ve all but totally lost sight of the more decisive and defining dimensions of human behavior at all ages. But, I argue, to gain deep understanding of consumer behavior, one must – I repeat must – dive down deep in the human psyche and take measure of where we are all pretty much like everyone else near our age.

Gutmann shaped his research around an insightful construct framed by psychologist Ralph Linton in 1945. Linton said, “In some ways each man is like all men; in some ways each man is like some other men; and in some ways each man is like no other men.”

Marketing largely revolves around the middle part of Linton’s three-legged stool: in some ways each man is like some other man. Consumer segmentation is about sorting out who is most like whom. Very little attention is spent in trying to figure out the first leg of Linton’s conceptual stool.

Gutmann went about identifying behavioral traits in the second half of life that are common to all humans – in other words, behavioral traits that cannot be attributed to culture or life experience.

The Northwestern University psychologist focused on four distinctly different ethnic groups in his search for universal behavioral traits among people over 40: Navajo, Highland Maya (Guatemala), Druze (Islamic) and Kansas City residents. He supplements his research with information derived from studies of other cultures by anthropologists and other psychologists.

Notwithstanding the claims of many that boomers are aging differently than members of any previous generation, Gutmann’s many years of research indicate otherwise. Yes, boomers style of need satisfaction is different from the style of need satisfaction employed by their parents at comparable ages. However, in some ways – ways that hold consequential significance in marketing – aging boomers are like all aging people. I’ll get into some of those ways in my next post.

Milton Friedman's Ideas about Corporate Purpose Fall into Disfavor

In 1970, Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman famously proclaimed in the New York Times Magazine, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game.” Many still swear by Friedman’s proclamation. However, the tide has turned against the Friedman view of corporate purpose.

Read more at Firms of Endearment.

And while you are there consider typing your name into the SUBSCRIBE box so that you get automatic notices of new postings.

____________________
Why am I now doing two blogs? To have one that tracks the evolution of new ideas and practices in the fast changing world of marketing and one that does the same thing on the corporate organizational front. Occasionally I will link the two blogs, as I did today, when I think something warrants the attention of both audiences.
_____________________