Who Designed This Experience?
Advertising for the recent CNBC show Boomer Angst featured Elvis and Marilyn.
They’re dead.
Was that the kind of angst you were going for?
Better naming could have made the difference here; of course, they could just think a little more about their creepy advertising.
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
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14 August 2008, 7:42 am
Maybe they know the show will be dead and gone in a coupla months anyway ?
Maybe they want to emulate network TV and have “stupid” as their mantra ?
Maybe the ad creator was only 29 ?
Maybe they didn’t really care to do a good job ?
Maybe all the above ?!
14 August 2008, 10:43 am
Mike,
Maybe I have to agree with you! Well said.
Regards,
Kelly
14 August 2008, 10:44 am
I had a look, and I still don’t know what they’re getting at. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the Boomer generation? (I don’t, in case anyone was wondering…)
Hmm, have to think about that one for a bit…
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post…can’t fly without wings? fake it.
14 August 2008, 11:27 am
Brett,
(And with apologies to boomer readers)… Navel gazing, or having angst about themselves, is considered a boomer characteristic. I don’t think you are supposed to feel sorry for them, and if that was what they were going for, they certainly wouldn’t get far with it. It’s hard for any generation to “feel bad for” another one, don’t you think?
Until later,
Kelly
14 August 2008, 12:35 pm
I though angst was more of a Generation X thing. Okay, here we go, another thing for me to fret over…
As for the mixed messages in the ad, I would think that there were two different departments working on it. One, the video team, was to find iconic images that would resonate with Boomers, the other, the writing team, was to find a catchy title that would bring drama to the topic. Perhaps nobody was overseeing the final image. (I also get the feeling that the “marketing” teams at big networks don’t get a lot of time to create a “campaign”, which would lead to the it-is-good-enough syndrome.)
~Graham
14 August 2008, 1:15 pm
Kelly,
That’s why I wondered what they were getting at – I’m not a boomer, so I’m not the target market – and when I clicked on the page, all I saw was exactly that – navel gazing. Just seems to me like a show designed to capitalize on the fears of a particular segment, to hold their attention just long enough to show them commercials.
(which is what most TV is about, right?)
In fact, I feel happy for them, just as I feel happy for my generation, and the ones that will follow me.
On the other hand, I know folks who despise the boomer generation as “the ones who took all the money, jobs, resources”.
If they do indeed have all of the wealth, then are they not a great target market for a business?
That’s my thinking, anyway!
-Brett
14 August 2008, 1:43 pm
Graham,
I think angst is more of a modern 1st-world people thing, honestly. I was discussing this with my daughter yesterday on a long drive. The higher you are on Maslow’s needs, the more time you have for sillyness like being concerned over being “unfulfilled.”
If you’re in Africa or India fighting to feed your kids one meal a day, you do not contemplate your angst.
It’s a horror to think that with all the people whose hands touched the marketing for this program, there was no one to look at it with one last critical eye. (I hesitate to mention that though both were certainly important icons of the age, neither were baby boomers, either.)
Brett,
“A show designed to capitalize on the fears of a particular segment, to hold their attention just long enough to show them commercials.” You may now become a CNBC exec. You’ve just written their new mission statement, eeeek.
I’m not a “target market” fan except as a starting point, I think we can do way better being far more specific, but *yes,* I agree, they are a great target market, and maybe (potentially controversial statement ahead) the last generation homogeneous enough to think of as a “target market”?
Until later,
Kelly
14 August 2008, 2:32 pm
Marilyn and Elvis.
I guess they figured they haven’t squeezed every last advertising dollar out those two pop-culutre icons yet.
I was born in ’64. Almost, sorta, but not quite a Baby Boomer. I’m just on the tail end.
As for the true Boomers. They didnt’ have to go to war. They ended up with the best jobs, solid pension plans, job security, cheap plentiful housing, people could afford summer cottages, they got tax exemptions on their capital gains (which we no longer have). Gas was still cheap and plentiful.
Yes, I admit, I envy them. They were the “Peak” generation, I think.
I can live with that, but what I find annoying is the Boomer-advertising.
About 55-retirees maximizing their money, improving their equity, and joining “Direct Buy” to save $20,000 on new kitchen fixtures they never needed in the first place.
It’s great advertising for THEM…but I find it can be ‘In your face”.
Way to turn off the younger crowd, by showing us their lifestyle that we’ll never afford.
(But then again, do advertisers really care…? After all..it’s the Boomers that have all the spending money now…).
Friar’s last blog post…Basil the Special Dog (Update Part II)
14 August 2008, 3:28 pm
Friar,
In your face boomer ads: Classic example of “you’re not their target market.” There’s an old saying that if you aren’t offending anybody, you aren’t writing to your audience tightly enough, so with those ads, maybe they’re hitting the mark—they’re bugging you, right?
Besides, you’ll get there.
Later,
Kelly
14 August 2008, 3:52 pm
@Kelly
By the time I get there, the Boomers will have stripped the carcass clean of all the meat, leaving us Gen-Exers the bones.
(But at least it’s more than the Gen-Yers will get!)
Friar’s last blog post…Basil the Special Dog (Update Part II)
14 August 2008, 4:13 pm
I thought angst wore a beret and lived in a garret. Damn I am soooo living wrong.
Marilyn and Elvis? Although Elvis is the highest grossing non living celebrity EVER. And they just anounced the Priscilla and Elvis Wedding Barbie Dolls… seriously it was on the news last night… okay Entertainment Tonight, but still. Lisa Marie and Priscilla are looking out for those 401k’s. No angst there.
I think someone failed on this whole project. Massively. It just does not work creatively with those images, AT ALL. And if you cannot get anyone in the door, how ya gonna sell anything? Even if it is an idea, or a point of view. Sheesh.
Hello, creative advice for hire over here, PBS.
14 August 2008, 4:30 pm
Friar,
You will be living large on a hidden lake, fishing all day and painting all night, growing a two-foot-long beard in your retirement. None of yer Gen X angst!
Janice,
Eeew. Priscilla and Elvis wedding Barbies? Yuck, yuck. She’s a brilliant businesswoman, but that sounds like a miss.
This is the first recession that I think is being created in large part by the media, who seem determined to prey upon every fear of every generation to manufacture distress. The marketing for the show, and even the “is this show necessary” meeting that should have happened first, strike me as a part of this. Fear does sell, though.
So, did they fail or did they succeed?
Later,
Kelly
14 August 2008, 4:32 pm
@Friar,
Like I’ve said over beers, our job is to come up with business ideas to extract as much money as possible from the older generation
And if nothing else, when Tyler Durden causes the downfall of civilization, there are a lot of boomers out there who are older and slower than we are – good eating!
-Brett
14 August 2008, 4:58 pm
Not only are they dead, but they both killed themselves through excessive lifestyles. Huh!
What exactly is the dividing line between Boomers and Gen-X? I was born in 1963, but I so don’t relate to the Boomers. And all Gen-X profiling points to me. Besides Douglas Coupland is two years older than me, and I am assuming he was using his own experiences when he coined Generation-X. I can certainly relate to his stories.
Urban Panther’s last blog post…Who is the Panther anyway?
14 August 2008, 5:03 pm
They failed.
I would have brought Phil Graham in as co-producer first off.
Buck up and quit whining. He said it so well. We are technically not in a recession. You are right, media has grabbed this ball and run with it even though they are not even on the right field.
Personally, I am holding out for the Paris Hilton Viking Doll. I plan to order several for the Friar and Brett….with all the accesories of course….
Janice Cartier’s last blog post…Steve Holl and the Paper Chase
14 August 2008, 5:04 pm
@Panther – Well, you’re either a cusping Boomer, or a cusping Gen-X’er, depending on how you identify yourself. (oh wait, is “cusping” just a zodiological term?)
I’ve heard 1963/64 as the cut-off for the Boomers. Which doesn’t make much sense to me — sure took that soldier a long time to get back from the war and start making babies…
But as you say, Coupland was before this cut-off time and obviously identifies himself more as an X’er. (Though he tried to become the voice of the Y Generation for a while there too…)
~Graham
Graham Strong’s last blog post…Blogging Au Natural
14 August 2008, 5:11 pm
@Janice,
What I want to know is, “does she vibrate?”
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post…can’t fly without wings? fake it.
14 August 2008, 5:17 pm
(New cartoon from Friar—Brett and Friar as dinosaurs, eating hapless baby boomers…)
Panther,
I wasn’t even going to go there, but yes, indeed. Their deaths are angst inducing, aren’t they?
Boomers: Begin at the end of the war (1945), end 18 ish years later (1963+/-). Gen X (Baby Busters), 1963–1981 +/-, Gen Y (Millenials), 1981–2000.
Doug Coupland originally tried to define Gen X as beginning earlier, because he began earlier, but I read somewhere that he later revised his own definition, maybe recognizing that he and his friends were only on the cusp of something new.
Generation X is one of my favorite books ever! In researching this (yes I did research this micro-post) I discovered that he didn’t coin the phrase, though I always thought he did. Apparently, somebody first said it about two years earlier. He sure popularized it.
Until later,
Kelly
14 August 2008, 5:25 pm
@Graham – Hurray! I’m cusping! Sounds like I’m on the brink of womanhood or something. (Brett & Friar, don’t even go there!) Well, I definitely relate to Gen-Xers. I totally don’t get the Baby Boomer mentality.
@Kelly – I loved Generation X and Microserfs. Slipping the flat food under the door to the distraught programmer was brilliant!!!!
Urban Panther’s last blog post…Who is the Panther anyway?
14 August 2008, 5:40 pm
@Kelly
“Freedom-85″ for me. A trailer in a trailer park. And one can of catfood a day (whether I need it or not).
That’s all I could afford (unless I marry Claire Chaffington or the equivalent)!
@Brett
Paris Hilton Vibrating Viking dolls.
You just gotta watch out for the sharp accessories (swords, axes, etc).
Ouch.
14 August 2008, 5:44 pm
Brett-
ROFLOL…
(I have had to delete the last 27 things I have typed, especially the one about room service, ahem. This is a business blog after all. )
Janice Cartier’s last blog post…Steve Holl and the Paper Chase
14 August 2008, 6:07 pm
Friar- But you get a life time supply of chocolate mints on your pillow.
Kelly- (your SEO keywords just went Naomi
)
I just took a look at their slide show too. I am not familiar with CNBC which I mistakenly called PBS. These people need some serious help. It’s as if they’ve been doing radio or something.
Janice Cartier’s last blog post…Steve Holl and the Paper Chase
14 August 2008, 6:24 pm
Janice,
I love giving up when it accidentally goes silly here. Google my name. You’ll find out my SEO was shot from the day I got married. Little did I know…
Later, y’all…
14 August 2008, 6:52 pm
@Janice
Does the chocolate vibrate? (I hope not!)
14 August 2008, 7:50 pm
Hopeless, you guys are hopeless….Rolling on the floor laughing
oh, rats , I cannot type my response to that EITHER… : )
Janice Cartier’s last blog post…Steve Holl and the Paper Chase