Immersion Active presents Ageless Marketing

Season's Greetings from the World’s Largest Plant

(This is a reprint of an essay I have run before, usually at this time of year. As we leave the Winter Holiday Season and head off into a new year, I think this essay has special significance for what we face in 2009. The year is beginning amid the most unsettled conditions in generations. Many are predicting further decline in equity markets and consumer confidence is at its lowest recorded level. Despite those and other dark clouds on the horizon, signs are beginning to appear indicating that the worst of the 2008 Crash is behind us.  But turning things around will take a lot of effort at all levels of government and business, as well as in our every day lives. All are connected. No sector of society stands apart from any other sector. This essay presents a metaphorical look at why we really have no other rational choice than to pull together regardless of our place in society or our political label if we are to quickly recover from the ravages of 2008.)

Several years ago a great discovery was announced. The largest known plant in the world had been found in Michigan. It was a single mushroom plant covering more than 100 acres.

Looking over its vast surface in full flower, one sees thousands upon thousands of mushroom caps looking like a multitudinous crowd of individual tiny people huddled together under little white umbrellas. But below ground every stem is connected to every other stem. This amazing plant seems a marvelous metaphor for us human beings – individuals on the surface, but one organism deep down.

Developmental psychologist Dan McAdams writes in Stories We Live By about two “fundamental modalities” that organize human needs, desires and goals: agency and communion. He describes agency as “the individual’s striving to separate from others, to master the environment, to assert, protect and expand the self. The aim is to become a powerful and autonomous ‘agent.’” He describes communion as “the individual’s striving to lose his or her self by merging with others, participating in something larger than self, and relating to others in warm, close and loving ways.”

Thinking about that giant mushroom, if each cap had a mind of its own, how much mental energy might each cap devote to asserting its self while losing sight of its connection to the whole? But on further thought I realize that in spite of each cap’s illusion of distinctiveness and autonomy, the will of the whole 100-acre plant works ceaselessly below the surface to help organize the needs, desires and goals of each individual cap.

Readers may recall my previous discussions of the “psychological center of gravity” hypothesis. People within five years of the adult median age make up the PCG and have a disproportionate influence on cultural themes and trends. With an adult median age of 45, today’s PCG is bracketed by the ages of 40 and 50, making it the oldest PCG in U.S. history.

Several years ago the Wall Street Journal carried an article that reflected today’s middle age PCG’s influence on teens. It told of an unprecedented flocking of teenagers to churches and synagogues in search of meaning in life – a quest traditionally more typical of people in midlife.

In many instances, teens are following a course that runs counter to parental atheism. The WSJ article viewed this as a form of rebellion, observing, “It doesn’t hurt, of course, that spiritualism and ritual permeate today’s popular culture.” The article noted Madonna’s study of Jewish mysticism, Alanis Morrisette and Puff Daddy’s references to spirituality in their music, teen clothing lines devoted to the dark, mystical-looking “Goth” fashion, and Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul’s long-running position on bestseller lists.

But is the unprecedented number of teenagers pouring into houses of worship merely an act of mass rebellion? Is growing teen attraction to ancient rites of mysticism simply another fad that will soon pass? The ROI of untold product promotional dollars rides on the answer.

If the PCG hypothesis is valid, increased adolescent interest in spirituality will not be short-lived. It will remain in force over the next decade as the PCG ages more. The subterranean workings of the collective whole, influenced by the PCG, will continue to help organize the values, needs and goals of teens.

Ironically for a nation that has long exalted the values of the young, marketers to teens can gain keen insights into the values and behavior of today’ teens by learning more about the values and behavior of the middle-aged consumers who make up the PCG.

None of this is to say that teens are developmentally entering midlife decades ahead of Nature’s schedule. They simply are tapping into midlife themes, although they experience those themes in the context of their untested adolescent worldviews.

Today’s middle-aged PCG presents marketers with an extraordinary challenge: weaving the themes of midlife values into messages for the young in ways that feel comfortable and cool to them.

The PCG’s influence on teens supports the idea that below the surface we are one, just like myriad white buttons that belong to the world’s largest plant. Much of who we are as well as what we need and desire flows from that oneness regardless of our age.

In these days of overly expressed agency, it seems to me that giving more attention to the communion that binds us together as one would help extend the feelings of togetherness that we feel so strongly at this time of year throughout the rest of the year.

May 2009 unfold for you one an all as a truly great year!

(This is a reprint of an essay I have run before, usually at this time of year. As we leave the Winter Holiday Season and head off into a new year, I think this essay has special significance for what we face in 2009. The year is beginning amid the most unsettled conditions in generations. Many are predicting further decline in equity markets and consumer confidence is at its lowest recorded level. Despite those and other dark clouds on the horizon, signs are beginning to appear indicating that the worst of the 2008 Crash is behind us.  But turning things around will take a lot of effort at all levels of government and business, as well as in our every day lives. All are connected. No sector of society stands apart from any other sector. This essay presents a metaphorical look at why we really have no other rational choice than to pull together regardless of our place in society or our political label if we are to quickly recover from the ravages of 2008.)

Several years ago a great discovery was announced. The largest known plant in the world had been found in Michigan. It was a single mushroom plant covering more than 100 acres.

Looking over its vast surface in full flower, one sees thousands upon thousands of mushroom caps looking like a multitudinous crowd of individual tiny people huddled together under little white umbrellas. But below ground every stem is connected to every other stem. This amazing plant seems a marvelous metaphor for us human beings – individuals on the surface, but one organism deep down.

Developmental psychologist Dan McAdams writes in Stories We Live By about two “fundamental modalities” that organize human needs, desires and goals: agency and communion. He describes agency as “the individual’s striving to separate from others, to master the environment, to assert, protect and expand the self. The aim is to become a powerful and autonomous ‘agent.’” He describes communion as “the individual’s striving to lose his or her self by merging with others, participating in something larger than self, and relating to others in warm, close and loving ways.”

Thinking about that giant mushroom, if each cap had a mind of its own, how much mental energy might each cap devote to asserting its self while losing sight of its connection to the whole? But on further thought I realize that in spite of each cap’s illusion of distinctiveness and autonomy, the will of the whole 100-acre plant works ceaselessly below the surface to help organize the needs, desires and goals of each individual cap.

Readers may recall my previous discussions of the “psychological center of gravity” hypothesis. People within five years of the adult median age make up the PCG and have a disproportionate influence on cultural themes and trends. With an adult median age of 45, today’s PCG is bracketed by the ages of 40 and 50, making it the oldest PCG in U.S. history.

Several years ago the Wall Street Journal carried an article that reflected today’s middle age PCG’s influence on teens. It told of an unprecedented flocking of teenagers to churches and synagogues in search of meaning in life – a quest traditionally more typical of people in midlife.

In many instances, teens are following a course that runs counter to parental atheism. The WSJ article viewed this as a form of rebellion, observing, “It doesn’t hurt, of course, that spiritualism and ritual permeate today’s popular culture.” The article noted Madonna’s study of Jewish mysticism, Alanis Morrisette and Puff Daddy’s references to spirituality in their music, teen clothing lines devoted to the dark, mystical-looking “Goth” fashion, and Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul’s long-running position on bestseller lists.

But is the unprecedented number of teenagers pouring into houses of worship merely an act of mass rebellion? Is growing teen attraction to ancient rites of mysticism simply another fad that will soon pass? The ROI of untold product promotional dollars rides on the answer.

If the PCG hypothesis is valid, increased adolescent interest in spirituality will not be short-lived. It will remain in force over the next decade as the PCG ages more. The subterranean workings of the collective whole, influenced by the PCG, will continue to help organize the values, needs and goals of teens.

Ironically for a nation that has long exalted the values of the young, marketers to teens can gain keen insights into the values and behavior of today’ teens by learning more about the values and behavior of the middle-aged consumers who make up the PCG.

None of this is to say that teens are developmentally entering midlife decades ahead of Nature’s schedule. They simply are tapping into midlife themes, although they experience those themes in the context of their untested adolescent worldviews.

Today’s middle-aged PCG presents marketers with an extraordinary challenge: weaving the themes of midlife values into messages for the young in ways that feel comfortable and cool to them.

The PCG’s influence on teens supports the idea that below the surface we are one, just like myriad white buttons that belong to the world’s largest plant. Much of who we are as well as what we need and desire flows from that oneness regardless of our age.

In these days of overly expressed agency, it seems to me that giving more attention to the communion that binds us together as one would help extend the feelings of togetherness that we feel so strongly at this time of year throughout the rest of the year.

May 2009 unfold for you one an all as a truly great year!

How Japanese Marketers Aim to Increase Sales in Older Markets by Changing Human Nature

While America’s economic wizards try to figure out how to extricate us from the worst economic downturn in seventy years, their Japanese counterparts are trying to change human nature in an attempt to restore vigorous health to the Japanese economy.

According to an article in the Washington Post this week, a push is on in Japan to reverse the buying behavior of “elder boys.” For a dozen consecutive years Japanese department store sales have fallen. Population shrinkage among the under-50 crowd is the reason.

To counter the negative effects of this demographic trend, Japanese business is looking to older people, especially men. The hope is that elders can be persuaded to return to return to the narcissistic and materialistically grounded behaviors of youth that cause cash registers to ring.

One can safely assume that sooner or later marketers in the U.S will pursue a similar strategy. But it work any better here than it will in Japan. Proponents of such a strategy appear totally unmindful of decades of research in adult development showing that the later life shift away from narcissistic and materialistic behaviors is developmental. It is a natural consequence of growing out of the years when focus on self and on materialistic metaphors of one’s self-image is important to social and vocational success.

Older people frequently complain about all the “stuff” in their lives. Later life is welcomed by many as a time for simplicity. It is also a time when self-centeredness typically gives way to others-centeredness.

Washington Post article on an amusing example of how many – shall we dare to say most? – marketers see older markets through the lens of their own worldviews rather than in terms of the older person’s worldview.

Seen through my eyes, most marketing to older people appears to be created by people who think of an older person as mainly an older version of their younger selves. However, that older person is likely so different from his or her younger self that they find it difficult to relate to the values of youth -- or even remember how much they once embraced them.

Those Japanese marketers are not likely to reverse the developmental changes that take place in the later years. Their efforts will be more fruitfully pursued in search of later life needs that can be more profitably catered to.