Marketing:  Boomer Women offer opportunities for targeted and creative PR   

Published 2007

Public relations is a key marketing tool that performs best when it is targeted at a group with a clear demographic or psychographic profile. Boomer women - especially those in their 50’s - is one such market segment.

Boomer women today are different to previous generations of middle aged women. They have often worked, many are still working, and they have generally been more independent than previous generations.  They have:

• money to spend,
• make most of the buying decisions, and
• they live longer than their husbands

So who are the boomers? Officially the Boomer by definition was born between 1946  - 1964 (ages 43 - 61). But most marketers tend to concentrate on Boomers between the ages of 50 and 60 because their values and behaviour are much more uniform.

For women in their mid 50s, it can be a time of reawakening. With more time to spare, women in this age group are starting for focus on themselves again. Increasingly today’s 50 year old thinks of herself as being like the 35 year old of yesteryear. 

So what are some of the characteristics that make Boomer women receptive to public relations activities? 

• They tend to be suspicious of advertising and ‘hard sell’ and very skeptical of the traditional marketing tactics employed when they were growing up in the 60’s and 70’s.
• They often seek, and soak up, information.  They often want to feel that they are doing the research and applying their life experience and knowledge in deciding what’s right for them.
• Healthcare, wellbeing and personal presentation are BIG on their agenda.
• They tend to want engagement with brands. ‘Trend-watcher’ Faith Popcorn is reported as saying that Boomer women do not buy brands so much as join them.

A survey in the US in 2005 sponsored by Merrill Lynch found that Boomers were three times more worried about developing a major illness than dying.

 PR tactics that resonate well with Boomer women include: 

• Media placements across the whole spectrum of traditional media - especially print and television.
• Use of third party endorsers and ‘experts’ - but ideally people with scientific qualifications or role models that they can relate to as being genuine rather than ‘personalities’ that so influence younger age groups.
• Educational seminars, events and other activities that provide the opportunity for them to feel they are learning and making their own evaluation
• Provision of information-rich sources, which again allow Boomers to make their own evaluation. Traditionally this was in print, but increasingly content-rich websites (but with ‘real’ information not advertising and imagery) are becoming influential.
• Creating on-line communities that give Boomers the chance to engage with others and share experiences.

Boomer women see themselves as ‘market savvy’ and ‘experienced’ in the ways of the marketing world. They often feel they have ‘seen everything’ and that gives them a feeling that they can spot something false from a long way off.

Marketers need to be extremely careful in how they target and approach Boomer women as they are among the most suspicious of market segments - and they are easily offended. In fact they are very conscious of how they are seen by others in society as illustrated by research done by Unilever, well known for its "get Real'‘’ campaigns.

In their research report ‘Beyond Stereotypes: Rebuilding the Foundation of Beauty Beliefs’ Unilever found that: 

• 94 per cent of mature  women believe society should change its attitude to ageing.
• Nearly 90 per cent of mature women think the media needs to provide a more accurate representation of their age group.

Pharmaceutical marketers, and especially those who produce and sell complementary medicines (where there are fewer regulatory restrictions), have a huge potential market with Boomer women.

But equally, marketers of products as diverse as travel, home improvements and motor vehicles also need to think outside the square and begin engaging with, rather than simply selling to, boomer women. One of the prime ways to do this is through using public relations strategies, techniques and tools.