ReZoom

"Free-spending boomers think young, to quote from a Pepsi-Cola slogan of their era, regardless of how old they actually are."

The New York Times has finally done their version of a story that's been around for a while: marketers see Boomers as a luscious target.

Jerry Shereshewsky, chief executive at Grandparents.com in New York, is quoted in the story as saying: “It’s a demographic group that’s too big and too rich to ignore. There’s still a lot of missionary work, but little by little, advertisers are getting it.”

And Mary Lou Quinlan, who runs Just Ask a Woman, a marketing company in New York that works for clients like Clairol and GlaxoSmithKline, says: “They see life as something to grab and want to look great, feel great. They won’t settle for the meager choices marketers might have offered in the past.”

So what sorts of pitches can we expect? The article mentions that Biomet, a seller of artificial hips and knees, has kicked off a campaign with former Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton hawking high-tech joint replacements. Retton, who is 39, got an artificial hip when she was 37.

“She definitely trends in with our new group of demographics, boomers who want to be more active and don’t want to live with pain,” said Stacey Jones, director for consumer marketing at Biomet.