Automakers, retailers, home builders target age group, but avoid the word "old"
A 2003 consumer-spending survey shows that baby boomers spend almost twice as
much on new automobiles as those in younger age groups. They also spend more on
movies, computers, groceries, beer and wine, clothing and beauty products.
This spending might not always be more per capita, but the fact that the baby
boomers are such a large group makes consumer companies pay close attention to
their tastes.
These days, American car companies are making some subtle adjustments. They know
boomers will not buy the same sedans their parents have favored. Boomers like
sport utility vehicles or sports cars.
Baby boomers is the name given to the group of 78 million Americans born from
1946 to 1964, who strained U.S. school systems as children, challenged authority
as teens and swamped the labor force as young adults, are now aging and
affecting the U.S. economy in new ways. (See related article.)
But the car companies also know this generation is getting bad backs and poor
eyesight. J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Inc., said the automakers
are lowering the chassis of SUVs and raising those of sports cars, to make them
easier to get into and out of. They also are putting larger buttons and stronger
lighting on dashboards.
Smith said Gap Inc., an apparel manufacturer and retailer, also tracks this age
group closely. It began selling Levis jeans to the generation in 1969 and
eventually developed its own brands of casual clothes. As the boomers grew up
and had families, Gap added kids and baby stores. In 2005, Gap debuted a new
women’s apparel store called “Forth & Towne,” which targets mature women over
age 35. A spokeswoman said the mature-woman market has been underserved and that
these customers want to wear stylish clothes that fit. Demographer Cheryl
Russell, citing National Center for Health Statistics data, said baby boomer
women gained 33 pounds between their 20s and their 40s. The size range at Forth
& Towne will go up to a U.S. size 20.
Gap has done masterful ads to reach boomers, according to Maddy Dychtwald, of
Age Wave, a firm created to guide Fortune 500 companies and government groups in
product/service development for boomers and mature adults. She cites an ad
campaign in the late 1990s called “For Every Generation.” Print ads featured
young and old people, all wearing jeans, but expressing “their own style,”
according to a Gap spokeswoman. One ad showed actress Sissy Spacek and her
daughters.
Baby boomer women shop with their daughters, listen to the same music and, for
the most part, have had the same expectations in terms of education and working
that their daughters have. Demographers say baby-boom parents do not experience
the same “generation gap” with their children that they had with their own
mothers.
William Frey, of the Brookings Institution, studies the mobility patterns of
retirees, and he points out how builders have changed course to attract boomers
to new retirement communities. Pulte Homes Inc., he said, is targeting the
generation with “active” communities that are in nontraditional places. Only
about 1 percent of retirees actually relocate, but previous generations of
seniors typically headed to sunny Florida or Arizona, where they lived in
communities that emphasized “retreat” and offered amenities like golf or
shuffleboard, Frey said.
Pulte’s Del Webb brand communities are built in the Midwest and Northeast,
closer to where many boomers now live and work. The retirement communities
emphasize activities like mountain biking and hiking.
Universities, like Pennsylvania State University, are teaming up with builders
and offering products to retirees whereby purchase of a home in a certain
community provides access to college classes and facilities. Many boomers are
comfortable in college towns or smaller rural towns.
But, Frey said, most boomers will age in place in the suburbs. Particularly in
suburbs with low immigration, he said, emphasis soon will shift from paying for
schools and sports fields for kids to paying for better sidewalks and libraries
for old folks.
For more information about life in the United States, see U.S. Life and Culture.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information
Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
SOURCE: Washington File