What Marketers Need to Know About Aging Boomers (Part 4)

It’s Not About Nostalgia; It’s About Life Review

If you tell me your stories, I will tell you mine, and together we will bear witness to the value of the struggle.

Julien Ryner

Nostalgia is becoming ever bigger in marketing. Radio stations devote playlists entirely to music of three, four or more decades ago. The PT Cruiser was an unabashed attempt to capture the 1930s in its design. Retro is appearing everywhere as marketers look for the key to boomers’ wallets.

But approaching boomers through the lavender mists of nostalgia is not the only way – or even the best way to get their attention. After all, we should not forget F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wry comment that “Nostalgia is a sentimental remembrance of things that never happened.”

Ameriprise’s clumsy attempt to reach boomers through invoking the tumultuous 1960s and ‘70s came to be regarded by many boomers as an exercise in pandering. No, nostalgic reveries are generally better left to the individual than to a squad of advertising creatives.

On the other hand, the second of Carl Jung’s Seven Tasks of Aging – life review – can have a deeper effect on many people than nostalgia does, especially the older they are.

Life review involves a critical examination of one’s life leading toward reconciliation between the sweet and the sour in life. It is a process for removing regret and anger from one’s worldview.

Writer Julien Ryner captures the essence of life review in talking about her experience in helping seniors develop their life stories:

In the eight years I've spent encouraging seniors to write about their lives, not a single individual has rejected the life discovered when examined. The irony of the search is that, in looking, we find self-understanding, and through this new understanding, we find self-acceptance and peace of mind.

Ryner and others with intimate familiarity of the life review process have seen the healing effects of confronting issues long since buried in the psyche that call for attention. Experienced life review docents have a different picture of aging boomers than many self-styled “boomer experts” have.

Remember – the most important things a marketer should know about boomers cannot be learned learn through traditional research methods. Deep understanding depends on knowledge of adult development in the later years. If you haven't turned 60 yet, and have never delved into the field of adult development in the later years, chances are you have some learning to catch up on.

I’ve been told that one of America’s best known boomer gurus advised Ameriprise on its ill-fated nostalgia campaign. There was a bit of irony in that outcome, given that this "expert" on aging boomers is a boomer. However, being a boomer – even having been a participant in love-ins, peace protests and round the clock rocking partying – doesn’t guarantee that you understand your peers – or even yourself.

But representing the past in the context of Jung’s task of life review is a matter quite different from wallowing in nostalgic reverie. Pursuit of this task is not about turning over in one's mind mawkish depictions of one’s youth, Instead, it's about abstemious reflections on life during the highly charged years of life's summer. This mandate for this task is not to relive the past, but to seek a keener understanding of the self by viewing the past through a translucent lens ground by the grit of life experiences. The operative word here is reality.

Next: Defining Life Realistically

 

 

Comments

[Brent Green]

David,

I'm enjoying -- and learning from -- your Boomer series. Bravo!

Now for some debate: Ameriprise built a new national brand in less than a year with its "Gimme Some Lovin'" ad campaign. When Ameriprise began its branding and national advertising program in October 2005, the share price was $24.00. One year later, the share price was $48.00. Today, AMP is trading for over $65.00 per share.

It seems that investors voted for Ameriprise and its Boomer-nostalgia advertising approach with their investment dollars and not their indignation over possible pandering... or at least it didn't hurt. (Astute observers of this spot even notice discontinuities such as the long-haired hippy skate boarding down a half-pipe -- didn't happen back then.)

I’ve played this spot before many Boomer audiences, and collectively they identify the song, the band, the artist singing the song, and the advertiser co-opting the ditty. So, from that point-of-view, the creative people (and our esteemed colleague who advised them on strategy) hit the right pitch.

[Tony Hall]

Hello, that's a good quote to start your piece. I've come across Julien Ryner previously on the internet, and she's produced some inspiring writing on learning to write life journals. Have you any idea if she has produced any books on writing or has a (new) web site - her previous web site, seniorswriting.com, isn't running.
Great site, especially the 'Must Reads'.