Baby Boomers and the media

MEDIARAVE

Baby Boomers and the media

This year there has been considerable media coverage and plenty of opinion about how the media and advertisers, driven by their obsession to appeal to the young, are ignoring baby boomers.

The move by TV One to replace Close Up with Seven Sharp was a deliberate attempt to not just woo younger viewers but to try and position TV One as being younger and hipper than it is perceived. That move that has prompted many older media commentators to challenge whether the media and advertisers are right to ignore baby boomers. With a number of TV reviewers and commentators being baby boomers, the reaction in some quarters is to say that this is typical of baby boomers, a generation that thinks it should still hold all the power and influence.

Why the 50+ Market is Ignored

Advertisers by and large have always ignored the 50-plus market and for generally valid reasons. The generation before baby boomers was very conservative and set in its ways, including media consumption, with the joke being that they hadn’t discovered any channel other than TV One on the remote. This generation preferred to save what little they had as opposed to spending. They were extremely brand loyal thus offering very little appeal to advertisers.

But baby boomers are not like the previous generation.

Baby Boomer Power and Influence

Apart from their numbers and being at the centre of dramatic social change, the baby boomer generation was the first to grow up with television.

Through television, advertisers were able to target this audience who embraced new products and the brands that reflected what they believed in and who generated a sense of change and hope for the future.

For advertisers, especially television advertisers, baby boomers were the key, if not the only, audience they had to focus on.

This meant that for a number of decades the broad demographic target audience was under 50.

And that is largely why the television networks continue to have 18-49 year olds or 25-54 year olds as their core demographics with the skew towards the younger end of the market.

A system based on broad demographics that has been hugely successful now has a number of flaws when it ignores an influential consumer group.

Targeting Baby Boomers

Whether baby boomers are being ignored is somewhat debatable. Based on demographics, baby boomers are ignored but not as a psychograhic and that is where the media and advertisers need to move their focus.

Defining some audiences by age bands won’t work especially those where the difference in attitude, mindset, and behaviour can vary dramatically within a few years.

This is the case for both baby boomers and the youth. Hence why TVNZ had to shut down their youth channel U TV. Apart from television not being the first media choice for advertisers targeting youth, the reality is youth cannot be properly defined by a broad age range of 15 to 19 year olds.

This is why it’s questionable whether TV2 and FOUR should still have 18-49 year olds as their core target audience.

Astute advertisers who are not obsessed by demographics are able to capture baby boomers through their behavioural habits that are shared across a number of audiences.

This is where digital is proving so successful;whereby an advertiser can effectively target through an interest or mindset. In this context age is totally meaningless.

The ability to target active travellers or those interested in women’s fashion and delivering a highly relevant message can be more effective than the broad approach driven by a particular demographic which is how the traditional media model still works.

Although digital is leading the way in how an audience can be targeted based on interest or mindset, that does not mean it should replace other media vehicles. But if other media vehicles don’t embrace baby boomers as a key influential audience they are at risk of giving up a powerful consumer group that is not allowing age to stop them from spending on travel, cars, household items, investments and other consumables.

Media Rate Increases a Balancing Act

Bauer Media (ex ACP) recently announced rate increases for some of its key titles. In the accompanying letter Bauer stated ‘increases reflected the strong performance of those particular titles across the marketplace. These titles are Metro, Your Home and Garden, HOME and KiaOra’.

Given the increases coincided with the latest magazine readership survey, one would assume the rate increases were due to readership increases. The reality though is not as clear-cut as that.

HOME readership increased 65% year on year and the rate increase was 9%; KiaOra increased readership by 6.5%- rate increase 6%. So rate increases appear justifiable but what about those publications that suffered a drop in readership?

Metro suffered a readership decline of 2%- rate increase 3.5% and Your Home & Garden readership declined by 2%- rate increase 9%.

Strangely, North & South readership grew 3.4% and no rate increase. But what is more worrying is that rates have not been adjusted for those titles that suffered major readership declines: Australian Woman’s Weekly down 9%, Woman’s Day down 7.2% and Next down 23%.

This inconsistency in rate movements is probably due more to actual and anticipated advertising demand as it is to pricing based on readership changes.

By not adjusting rates for titles that have suffered readership declines, rate increases have in effect been applied to most Bauer titles.

Bauer needs to be careful as high rate increases can drive away anticipated advertising demand - something TVNZ experienced back in January when some advertising demographics were hit with a 20% plus rate increase, resulting in a number of advertisers moving share to TV3.

Rate increases highlight two key points for advertisers:

• the need to have a multi media strategy so they are not at the mercy of one medium or media company.

• if committing to a long-term contract ensure you have rate protection or some assurance that the value you receive at signing remains the same throughout the contract period.

Advertising Features

For decades advertising features have been a core property for newspapers. We have never been fans as they are essentially created to generate advertising revenue as opposed to delivering editorial based on reader demand/interest. And why would you want your message placed next to your competitors when the rest of the time you are fighting not to be placed beside your competitors?

Their success at generating advertising revenue is a reason why magazines are increasingly looking at advertising features/promotions.

Fair enough, but unlike newspapers the relationship between the editor (do you mean “editorial” here?) and the reader is a lot closer, so the type of feature has to be more carefully considered, otherwise the magazine is at risk of losing credibility with its readers.

A recent proposal from Australian Woman’s Weekly (AWW) is an example of how even a highly respected magazine is in danger of generating content based on advertisers’ interest as opposed to those of the readers.

AWW is looking at a craft beer feature with a focus on the growing number of women enjoying craft beer. This is true but AWW has not provided any evidence to indicate that its readers are part of the growing craft beer drinking set.

The fact is the feature will only go ahead if there is enough advertising interest. Well if AWW knows this market then it will know that craft beer producers are loathe to be seen following the big breweries down the traditional advertising route.

The reality is craft beer either warrants an editorial story in AWW or it doesn’t.

We are not proposing that there is no room for features in consumer magazines, in fact they can be highly valuable, but they need to reflect readers’ known interests - take home improvement or personal finances for a couple of certainties.

MEDIARAVE

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Media At A Glance | Breakfast Radio Stations Ranked by Share

Males 25 - 39 yrs

Females 25 - 39 yrs

Christchurch

More FMZMEdgeBreeze

Mai FM

The Sound

Newstalk ZB

Auckland

Newstalk ZB

Rock

Edge

ZM

George FM

Mai FM

Hauraki

Christchurch

Rock

Mai FM

More FM

Edge

The Sound

Newstalk ZB

Breeze

Wellington

ZM

Rock

Breeze

Edge

Live

Classic Hits

Hauraki

Auckland

ZM

Edge

Mai FM

Breeze

George FM

Rock

Classic Hits

Wellington

Rock

ZM

Edge

Classic Hits

Live

Radio Sport

The Sound

Source: RADIOS 2/2013

ends

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