BouncingBabyBoomer.com

Pitch Points That Work (and Not) for Boomer Consumers

As both a journalist and a marketing vet, I spend some time watching sales pitches lobbed at people my age. At the same time, I am watching our evolving sense of identity as the gray on our heads grows more dense.

 

A recent piece aimed at ad pros by Robin Raff at MediaPost explores selling health care to Boomers. I found this angle a bit ironic since the larger question in Boomer health today is how the almost-aging can access decent service at decent rates, not what it takes to make us want it. But it was interesting to see what she thinks will be motivational, since ad types still seem conflicted about how to sell into the Boomer niche.

Below is my own rendition of some of the"pitch points" on which she and I agree along with some added thoughts from me:

• Self-Reliance
  Boomers may like hearing advice, but they don't want to be told what to do, Robin and her sources suggest.

This gets a "bingo" from me. Boomers don't like to feel like sheep, even when they appear to be moving in herds.

Cost and Convenience
Show Boomers how you will save them time and/or money, the author offers next.

As both a journalist and a marketing vet, I spend some time watching sales pitches lobbed at people my age. At the same time, I am watching our evolving sense of identity as the gray on our heads grows more dense.

 

A recent piece aimed at ad pros by Robin Raff at MediaPost explores selling health care to Boomers. I found this angle a bit ironic since the larger question in Boomer health today is how the almost-aging can access decent service at decent rates, not what it takes to make us want it. But it was interesting to see what she thinks will be motivational, since ad types still seem conflicted about how to sell into the Boomer niche.

Below is my own rendition of some of the"pitch points" on which she and I agree along with some added thoughts from me:

• Self-Reliance
  Boomers may like hearing advice, but they don't want to be told what to do, Robin and her sources suggest.

This gets a "bingo" from me. Boomers don't like to feel like sheep, even when they appear to be moving in herds.

As both a journalist and a marketing vet, I spend some time watching sales pitches lobbed at people my age. At the same time, I am watching our evolving sense of identity as the gray on our heads grows more dense.

 

A recent piece aimed at ad pros by Robin Raff at MediaPost explores selling health care to Boomers. I found this angle a bit ironic since the larger question in Boomer health today is how the almost-aging can access decent service at decent rates, not what it takes to make us want it. But it was interesting to see what she thinks will be motivational, since ad types still seem conflicted about how to sell into the Boomer niche.

Below is my own rendition of some of the"pitch points" on which she and I agree along with some added thoughts from me:

• Self-Reliance
  Boomers may like hearing advice, but they don't want to be told what to do, Robin and her sources suggest.

This gets a "bingo" from me. Boomers don't like to feel like sheep, even when they appear to be moving in herds.

That also gets a big "aye" from me. Most Boomers love a good bargain, especially today.

But note to any merchant tempted to bait and switch: We will take the time to verify the bargain is real. (See also next item.)

On becoming an "Encore" worker

My hub and I have just become "micro" workers at a large university. I say "micro" since we are each committing small amounts of time for what amounts to micro pay. In his case, it is a 1/4 time position at a pay grade miles below his last full-time salary. In brief, he will be netting less than 1/10th of his former pay to give them 1/4 of his time during the coming year -- all of course with no benefits.

But hey, it's a job. A nice job, in fact, doing something he finds truly neat, bringing business world methods to academic R&D. So it will keep his resume current while doing some good on both sides.

In my case, the pay is more psychic. I have a nice title, a tiny stipend, and a lot of leeway to shape my flex-time role in a campus lab doing brain science. Technically, I am not a real employee; I have a time-limited fellowship sponsored by an outside entity. In business, we would call me a consultant. But "senior fellow" will sound nice on my resume too; and like the hub, I have a smalll quixotic hope it might aid in some way with some real pay some day. If not, at least I will learn some interesting things about current-day research while helping them to communicate.

That may be as win-win as it gets in this frozen economy.

 

We each got our gigs on the same campus at the same time via different routes. He was recruited after his second year judging in a national science fair that put him on the radar at the School of Engineering. I applied for my mine in response to a flyer found on a table after a lecture, and wound up being one of four people picked for a cross-disciplinary program in Psych.

That our offers came around the same time seemed completely coincidental. We did not know when we accepted these posts that we were joining a movement with a name. But, in fact, we are part of a new wave of "Encore" workers filled with Boomers extending careers with new kinds of employment. 

A Double-Whammy for Early Boomers

Some early Boomers over 50 may have a double whammy coming. Not only might your job be "right-sized" away along with what remains of your shrinking 401(k), but it could prove quite difficult to get health insurance once your Cobra runs out.

"You basically can’t count on insurance remaining even mildly affordable in individual markets,” says Karen Pollitz, research professor at the Health Policy Institute in an article at SmartMoney.com.This goes double if you are older.

My hub found this out in spades when we became a 2-freelancer household far sooner than planned. Self-employment and consulting are frequent fall backs for those can't replace their old job or prefer to strike out on their own, but if they are too young for Medicare, they fall into the "Med-i-Gap". That means you have to go to the individual markets for health insurance, where few carriers want to talk to the self-employed -- or anyone over 50.

Even if you get coverage through a trade or professional group, which we did for awhile, the insurance company might can the plan if its risk-to-income profile becomes too adverse. That happened to the group my husband was in, even though it covered thousands of engineering pros nationwide. The good news (if you can call it good) was that the carrier "let" us pay them $1800 per month to keep some coverage active while we looked for something new.

While checking the options, I found that the "Risk Pools" offered by states may only offer limited benefits with limited access to a limited pool of physicians, if you can get on the rolls at all. After weeks of looking, we found a good (albeit high deductible) plan at AARP on decent terms, and have had no complaints in the two years since. If this"Med-i-gap" issue impacts you, you might check them out too. Then let us all hope that Obama listens to the rising tide of citizens -- and physicians -- who say the time for a single payer national health plan is now.

To make it both hard to work and hard to stay healthy is too big a double whammy at any age.

The Nebulous Gray of Swirling Fog

From the tell us something we didn't know department.. Reuters reported this week on a new Harris poll about how we spend our days. The time we spent working rose by an hour this year  (you already knew you were pedaling harder just to stay in place, didn't you?). Meanwhile, time spent at leisure or play dropped four hours (ditto).

And what are we doing with this 'missing' five hours? The pollsters weren't so sure. They said the time fell into a "nebulous gray area" that the respondents could not easily tag as either work or play.

"As the American economic situation worsened, people who were worried about their jobs spent more time 'just checking in' via computer or wireless device," the folks at Harris observed. I take that to mean time spent commiserating with friends or surfing the web with nothing much to show for it.

 Queasy Worry
" Nebulous gray" is a perfect phrase for the zeitgeist of the moment. We are cloaked in a cloudy haze of queasy worry with an anxious ear cocked for the sound of another shoe dropping.

As I observed on the phone to a friend, it feels like "nothing but frozen tundra out there" even if you are sitting in a sunshine state. Instead it seems all the old signposts are getting lost in a swirling fog.

It used to be you could re-position, or re-invent, or resurrect a dormant part of yourself to adapt, and after decades of life in a roller coaster economy, Boomers got good at bouncing back from setbacks.

But today all the old fallbacks seem to be falling away, and they have yet to be replaced by new beacons of hope.

Hot Headlines in Boomer Health This Week

Recent health stories worth reading by Boomers || From USA Today: Study Shows Statins Help 'Normals' and Women: In a study with 18,000 subjects. people with normal cholesterol but high levels of C-reactive protein had such a dramatic reduction in rates of heart attack and stroke the study was stopped to let those on placebos switch to Rx meds. The study was also able to validate a statin benefit which applied equally well to women; see link above for detail... / Congress questions some AARP health policies: AARP agreed voluntarily to stop selling some controversial "limited benefits" health insurance policies to people between age 50 and 64 after a Congressman questioned "misleading marketing" which may have led buyers to think they had more coverage than they did... / Angio May Be On Its Way Out:  Three major studies suggest that using angioplasty to open blocked arteries or treat chest pain may be riskier and no more beneficial than medication. ||  From the New York Times: This week's cover story in the New Old Age blog (aimed at Boomers caring for elders) is a Delicate Calculus in End of Life Decisions; / also in New Old Age, click to read Where the Mommy Track Crosses the Daughter Track ../ and click for Assisted Living Care: ‘Uneven and Often Problematic’ the latest in a controversial series on a topic becoming increasingly relevant to some Boomer parents; the reader comments in this series are as thought-provoking as the articles... / and last but not least on my NYT list, Stretching the Truth which suggests much of what we've been told about warming up for workouts has been wrong || Meanwhile, from New Scientist: Men-o-pause in Males? More and more, graying males are seeking HRT for fatigue, libido and other symptoms of what is now being called  "andropause." ||

Update from the moshpit of my mind

Just back from a much-needed break in which I made myself read, relax and not write after an intense few days of conferencing and communing with Silicon Valley experts in future think. Now my head is overflowing with things I want to share, not just from the conference [prior posts below], but from the bulging digital folder of clips I have been saving for this space.

Bottom line, it has become clear that now is the time for this blog to divide, so that the tech-geek-cyber-surfing-future-musing content has its own place to live and its own room to grow. Meanwhile, this space will return to its regular programming about how to live long, lively and well in rapidly changing times.

On that latter front, my next multi-part series will be about the "e-patient" movement that is building momentum between self-helping patients and their growing cadre of physician allies online, all of whom want to increase quality (and reduce errors) in medical care. For that information I will be building upon my time as an "Osler Fellow" consulting with faculty at a nearby medical school and sharing tips colected from the growing community of doctor and patient pundits online. Between those posts I will be sharing updates on our other continuing themes, including Boomer health, employment, finances, entrepreneuring, lifelong learning and (un-) retirement.

 

But for that promised glimpse of the future as seen through the eyes of the pundits present at "The Singularity" conference in San Jose look for a live link in the far right sidebar next week to bouncingboomergirlgeek, the sister blog which I am also prepping to launch as we speak.

"Un-Retirement" Means More Than One Thing

from the Evolving Jargon Dept./

The term "Un-retirement" appeared in an AP press release I covered this AM on the topic of people deferring retirement. Coincidentally, I happened to use the same phrase when I set up the tag cloud of categories for this blog, but my own use of the term had a slightly different twist.

Lest anyone wonder how I intended it, let me compare the two meanings and then amplify my own.

In my first posting today (Survey Sez), I mentioned a study that ran in both the AP wire and in Newseek.  The authors of that study titled their data an "Un-Retirement Index." In their terms, this meant '"working at least 20 hours per week after 67, the age at which a U.S. worker is eligible for full Social Security benefits."

My own intended use of this still-evolving term is a more general reference to "still working."

Survey Sez "Delay Retirement!" (As if.)

A wire story out of Des Moines this AM on the AP talked about the growing numbers of people nearing retirement who are remaining employed instead.

As if most of us had a real choice. As if it were optional. As if all one had to do was pick from a menu.

After this week on Wall St., I suspect new income now looks essential even for those who thought they already had decent portfolios. These days it's hard to find any ROI worth counting.

Even before this month's upsets, many of the Boomers who are now orbiting 60 were holding on to their jobs, and many of those who had taken a stab at early retirement were recasting their life plans. They aren't feeling secure enough to hang it all up yet, especially given the predictions about our life expectancies.

But the Catch-22 today is how hard it may be to forego the fishing and remain in the game even when work is your preference.

Preview of the "New Old"

(a sequel to Post 1.3, Selling Us Daddy's Car)

The "New Old"

For Boomers, there is compounding evidence that our later years will be as big a departure from the old norms as our early adulthood.

Our health tends to be better than our parents at the same point, perhaps because we were raised with better diets from an earlier age. We got an early wakeup call about things that can deter decline, such as diet, exercise, brain fitness, and Omega 3s. Meanwhile, new medical breakthroughs seem to keep happening weekly, from pharmaceuticals tailored to one's own genome to pivotal proteins in Alzheimer's plaques. And if that isn't enough, they keep coming up with new lotions, potions and lasers that let you prolong a youthful appearance if you wish to fool Mother Nature some more.

Overall, we tend to be much better informed about our options and much less shy than our parents were about asking questions and expecting value and evaluating results. We've held more jobs in one lifetime and often acquired sklls in more than one discipline. All of this tends to create a wider point of view that seeks a broader menu of options, including the option of not retiring.

To a big bunch of us, much of this seems a good thing, since between the housing slump, the credit crunch, the declining dollar, and our shrinking portfolios, not to mention our rising costs of health care, we may have no choice but to keep on being engaged for pay anyway, especially if we want to access those nifty treatments they say will let us do that long and lively thing.

They're Selling Us Daddy's Car After All

The leading edge of the Boomers are becoming linked to their parents in ways they haven't seen since Detroit gave up on selling us Daddy's Oldsmobile. Whatever the specifics of our own needs and interests, we begin being herded back into our parents' marketing niche as soon as we sign on for AARP at 50.

It's no small irony for the generation who perhaps worked the hardest to separate.

As a group, we probably made the biggest leap ever away from the 'rents when we pushed back around the draft and Viet Nam, then insisted that Nixon not skate on Watergate. Later, we led the leap in to the digital age and on to the Internet, leaving a number of elders feeling out of the swim and pressed to catch up.

By combining those larger leaps with a lot of smaller shifts, we may have become more autonomous and self-defined than any generation before us. But today as they approach their own retirement phase, the leading wedge of 50+ Boomers find themselves lumped into their parent's demo anyway.

The leading edge of the Boomers are becoming linked to their parents in ways they haven't seen since Detroit gave up on selling us Daddy's Oldsmobile. Whatever the specifics of our own needs and interests, we begin being herded back into our parents' marketing niche as soon as we sign on for AARP at 50.

It's no small irony for the generation who perhaps worked the hardest to separate.

As a group, we probably made the biggest leap ever away from the 'rents when we pushed back around the draft and Viet Nam, then insisted that Nixon not skate on Watergate. Later, we led the leap in to the digital age and on to the Internet, leaving a number of elders feeling out of the swim and pressed to catch up.

By combining those larger leaps with a lot of smaller shifts, we may have become more autonomous and self-defined than any generation before us. But today as they approach their own retirement phase, the leading wedge of 50+ Boomers find themselves lumped into their parent's demo anyway.