From “never trust anyone over 30” to “never trust brands that break promises.”
Brands that want to tap into the Boomers’ wealth must earn the Boomers’ trust. Again. And again. And again.
Boomers have trust issues.
After all, this generation was shaped by the Vietnam War, the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, the Cold War and Watergate. They invented the “sit-in”, burned draft cards and coined the phrase “never trust anyone over 30”. Who would have believed back then that these same Baby Boomers would grow up to be the wealthiest generation in history?
After all, this generation was shaped by the Vietnam War, the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King, the Cold War and Watergate. They invented the “sit-in”, burned draft cards and coined the phrase “never trust anyone over 30”. Who would have believed back then that these same Baby Boomers would grow up to be the wealthiest generation in history?Brands that want to tap into that wealth must first earn the Boomers’ trust. And that isn’t going to be easy. Boomers are the least likely generation to believe what advertisers and marketers say about their products and services. In fact, a 2016 study revealed that only 1% of Boomers are “very trusting” of big retail brands, compared to 5% of Gen X consumers and 23% of Millennials.
More than any other generation, Boomers want to know that the companies they do business with are companies they can trust. It is absolutely critical that your brand promise be honest, free of hype and delivered at every step of the customer journey. If you come up short, they’ll quickly turn their backs on you.
And once a brand fails to live up to the Boomer’s expectations, it’s almost impossible to get them back. So how does a brand establish trust with the Boomer?
Keep it real. Boomers have been exposed to more advertisements than any generation in history. By age 65, it’s estimated that an individual has read, watched and heard close to 70 million advertisements.
Boomers have seen it all. As a result, they have little patience for gimmicks, hype and dishonesty. Your communications must be genuine. Don’t overpromise, and don’t speak in absolutes. This audience knows better.
Don’t make age an issue. Too often, marketers portray Boomers as aged, fragile, sedentary and in need of constant care. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Boomers see this as the best years of their lives – old age is 20 years down the road. It’s said that 60 is the new 50. For Boomers, 60 is the new 40. They don’t want to be defined by age (and they despise being called “seniors”). Brands that understand and treat them accordingly have a good chance of earning their trust.
Don’t let automation replace conversation. Brands are becoming increasingly impersonal, and Boomers don’t like it one bit. The more brands seek to limit human interaction, the less trustworthy the brand becomes in their eyes. That’s why Boomers overwhelmingly prefer to connect with a live person before making a major purchase, either in store or on the telephone.
Brands need to encourage rather than discourage this behavior. It’s cheaper to automate customer service and move the consumer towards online purchasing, but it’s short-sighted.
Lift them up rather than bring them down. The Boomer processes positive messages more effectively than negative ones. Negative messages challenge their self-perceptions and results in increased resistance.
Avoid high-pressure sales tactics. Boomers are careful, deliberate decision makers. They won’t be rushed into quick decisions, and their necks tend to get a bit stiff when pressured by brands to act quickly.
We are the most sophisticated marketers ever to walk the face of the earth. From programmatic media buying to predictive analytics, mobile apps to marketing automation, we harness cutting edge marketing tools to optimize, personalize and maximize marketing results in ways previous generations of marketers could never even dream of. And for all our skill and technology, we haven’t figured out how to effectively engage the audience responsible for 51% of all consumer goods purchased in the United States.1
Boomers think, feel, respond and buy like no other generation. And yet, through their messaging and media tactics, it’s clear that marketers expect them to behave like Millennials.
