Household, Boomers Brands

Branding to Boomers Brands are gaining importance among boomers’ product choices. If you examine boomers’ spending patterns, you can begin to predict demand for various consumer and industrial goods. For example, when people are between the ages of 25 and 44, nearly everything they buy classifies as a necessity, because they need everything to build and run a household. In these markets, brands guide the choice between which food, cars, clothing, and household options will be bought, not whether the products should be bought. Although younger baby boomers and Generation Xers have definite brand preferences, their purchases are driven by such strong immediate need that they may not have the opportunity to exercise much brand insistence. If the household is empty, it needs to be supplied with furniture, food, and a car suited for commuting and carting kids to soccer practice; price often plays a more important role than brand during this life stage.

The baby boom buying frenzy of the 1980s and 1990s, characterized as the Need Economy, put retailers on Easy Street to growth and profits. Today, however, the Need Economy is giving way to the Want Economy, which ticks upward every seven or eight seconds, as another baby boomer someplace in the United States turns 50! Often, these peers of Mick Jagger are at the height of their careers and earning power, have low or no mortgages to pay, and have generally reduced family responsibilities.* Yet, as they reach age 50, their need to buy things to build a household is decreased, unless they have to furnish a second home due to divorce. For the most part, as they become empty nesters-with children out of the house and later out of college-they find themselves with too much stuff. They are in the unique position of having the ability to buy what they want but without the immediate need.