80 million boomers are turning fifty in the next 10 years, influencing trends and events by their sheer numbers. They are entering their fifties at the rate of about one every 9 seconds and bringing with them radical new expectations about living, aging, and defining success in life.

Most boomers say they feel younger than their age. They’re better educated and receptive to self-help advice, they’re working longer, and, at more than 80 million strong, they represent major buying power, controlling more than 40 percent of all discretionary income, about $170 billion a year (according to U.S. Census data).

The hottest markets emerging today are those services and products promoting "spiritual, physical and emotional health". Those companies which can offer consumers the genuine article will discover a huge demand in need of supply.

Baby Boomers are Challenging the Rules of Aging!
Fitness is hot! Demand for health and self-help related services has exploded dramatically over the last handful of years as our society grows an insatiable appetite to get fit, lose weight, have a better body and stay forever young – well at least longer.

Boomer Crunch Time.
Boomers Have No Role Models.
Anyone who can offer a product or marketing campaign that offers Boomers some idea of how to be their age will succeed. Because Boomers are like no other 40-50-something generation, one consequence is they have no pre-existing role models.

And what makes things more complicated is the Boomers see themselves as 10 years younger than their biological age. Getting fit and staying fit will become an epidemic in this age group. Although 66% of sport drink purchases are Boomers most of the advertising is aimed at youth.

You want to chart the Evolution of the Boomer generation? Look at the history of exercise. Jazzercise, arobic dance, leg warmers, step arobics and…yoga. Yoga’s popularity will rise because of how easy it is on aging Boomers limbs. Exercise trends will increasingly follow the physiology of Boomers who refuse to accept the physical entropy of age.

And how do they define living well? They want financial security. They want to look and feel good. They want meaningful work and collaborative corporate cultures. And they want adventure, freedom, and passion in their lives. And they are hungry for reliable information on aging successfully!

Down-Aging
We’ve had people ‘downshifting’ their lives and companies ‘downsizing’ their enterprise. Burn up your birth certificate and join the era of down-aging. It’s a mathematics that advertisers will have to learn quickly. Boomers see themselves as 10 years younger than they actually are. To capture their cash, advertising agencies need to imagine 50-somethings and 40-somethings doing 40-somethings and 30-somethings doing. Confused? You will be. What’s old? For Boomers, ‘old’ is now 10 to 15 years older than they are.

According to scientist, Paul Ray, 25% of the American population are Cultural Creatives. Interested in health and fitness and environmental and social causes, this diverse generation is cohesive in its shared beliefs and values and has greater expectations than any previous generation for living longer and living well.

Open Your Eyes to the Boomer New Deal. That’s what is is.
Boomers Are Staying Around And It’s Not About The Pension Crisis.
That’s Just An Alibi.

Boomers are vampires of ambition. They love their work and feed off their ability to perform it better than anyone else. They feed off the status and wealth it gives them. Fiftysomethings not only have talent and experience, they are now licensing themselves the luxury to experiment and explore like they did at college.They plug into the network. They are the network.

Bhutan Man
The original Backpack generation is doing it again. Once they went to India in search of wisdom and truth. Now a life style type called the “Yo-Yo” bounces from place to place, living off a series of short term jobs. More pragmatic than the first time around, when they have lived on the ‘food of love’ and crumbs of wisdom from the tables of Swamis, they now work to travel. Flavored destinations are Mongolia, Bhutan and remoter areas of South America.

Big Self - Self Expression is a Fundamental Boomer Value
Non-Boomers may see this as sweet, indulgent or naïve. More that anything else it’s a reminder that for Boomers self-expression is a fundamental value, a virtue that supersedes all others, including achieving realistic goals. The intrinsic self-orientation of Boomers is magnified by the stage they are in their life.

Multi-Dimensional Ads
The deepest revolution may occur in advertising. Smart businesss will use the currency of deep emotion to project back a self-image to Boomers.

The real innovation in advertising and marketing will be the emergence of sales pitches that offer emotional depth. Advertising that fills in the emotional backstory of a product. One feeling. One emotion. We may see the emergence of multi-emotional advertising. One-dimensional advertising may be another casualty of the Boomer revolution.

Self Actualization Language to Boomers
Those who figure out how to talk this language of self actualization to Boomers will cash in. Think of self-actualization in spatial terms. It’s a Big Self. They are able to absorb not just more powerful emotions compared to younger people, but more complex ambiguous emotions.

Boomers May Herald a Revolution in Advertising
Boomers are a generation who take themselves deeply, professionally, seriously. These people are no longer desperate for the esteem of others. And unlike younger consumers, they are les likely to swoon over products endorsed by celebrities. It’s not true to say that they don’t like “following the crowd”. It’s that “following the crowd” must have a purpose, a payback with real value.

The self-actualization model of psychology will be a great contribution to understanding the Boomers. Anyone who can create a spiritual, self-analytical, questioning take on their product will forge a hotline with Boomers.
Remember, they wanted to change the world armed only with open-toed footwear and beards.