Targeting Baby Boomers…Madison Avenue has long considered consumers ages 18 to 49 to be the target of choice, but that may be changing

As a recent New York Times article, "Flower Power in Ad Land," reported, major advertisers — including automotive, financial and packaged goods companies— are reconsidering their fixation on youth. The baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 and comprising a market of 76 million, are, once again, rewriting the rules.

"Those wishing to be successful in the market can't ignore the boomer numbers, the wealth and spending power they have," Pat Conroy of Deloitte & Touche told the Times. "The boomers have redefined every age they've moved through, so there's no reason to believe they will not redefine the stereotypes of what it means to be retired."

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, while only 34% of Americans age 65 and older go online, over half (54%) of 60-69 year-olds go online, and 72% of 51-59 year-olds go online. The "silver surfers" are coming.




For online marketers, the "silver tsunami" is good news but the demographic shift, paired with a rising tide of viruses, spyware and other online dangers, is also a cause for concern.

There is a marked, and potentially dangerous, difference in the way younger and older users go about their business online.

Pew found that Internet users in their twenties are more likely than those in their fifties and sixties to have traveled far and wide online, trying new things and possibly learning hard lessons about the dangers that lurk on the network. Internet users aged between 18 and 28 years ("Generation Y") are also more likely than those in their fifties to make changes in their online behavior to avoid getting unwanted software programs on their computer.



Online threats are real and rising. The Internet Crime Complaint Center, received more than 231,000 complaints last year, up by 12% from 2004. The center also reported that the cost of fraud is rising. Last year, the total reached over $183 million, nearly triple 2004's $68 million in losses.