Attempts to Reach Baby Boomers

BoomerCafe.com, the Web site about the baby boomer experience in America, is 10 years old this month. My old friend, former ABC News correspondent Greg Dobbs (he’s now with HDNet), and I launched it in July 1999 primarily to give voice to America’s largest (78 million) and most affluent generation that marketers had essentially ignored, then and now.

Then as now, the vast majority of companies and organizations do not market to baby boomers.  Unfortunate but true. The primary reason is that most marketing people are much younger and prefer to market to people their own age or younger. They lack the life experience and awareness to market to baby boomers.

BoomerCafe.com came about because of AARP‘s bumbling efforts at reaching baby boomers. In early 1999, AARP assigned a team of 30-something staffers to find a way to connect with America’s millions of baby boomers. The primary goal was to sell insurance, which is AARP’s core business.

The 30-something staffers, none of them even close to baby boomer age, spent millions of AARP member dollars on the project that included such things as wrapping AARP headquarters in a kind of really dumb-looking foil and signage, and the unveiling of a Web site called My Generation. The site never came close to comprehending the baby boomer generation and is long-gone. The whole effort was considered to be an AARP disaster, according to someone at the organization.

Greg and I, both in the upper reaches age-wise of the boomer generation, decided to launch BoomerCafe.com even though neither of us had any Web site experience. I remember teaching myself the old-fashioned HTML code from a book, Web Site in a Weekend. It took me months before I got the hang of it. (Today, BoomerCafe.com runs on a slick dynamic platform similar to that of The New York Times and PEOPLE magazine.)

Within a year, we had venture capitalists approaching us with hair-brained ideas to make millions. We passed on the offers, believing their ideas would compromise the site’s purpose as a place for baby boomers with active lifestyles to share stories and ideas. We never have marketed on the site, but rather have provided a forum.

Ever since then, BoomerCafe.com has been a passionate hobby for both of us. We’re supported by dozens of story contributors from around the world, all telling the experience of the enormous baby boomer generation. Greg and I pay the tab.

What are baby boomers? As I shared with Paul Briand of The Examiner the other day, “Born between ’46 to ’64, baby boomers were molded in an era of unprecedented economic, military and racial evolution in America, and a time for freedom of thought like none other.”

Entering its 11th year, BoomerCafe.com will continue to be a primary voice for all boomers.

Related posts:

1. BoomerCafé, the next 10 years
2. Behind the Boomer & Web 2.0 Curve
3. BoomerCafé Goes Home
4. The Passing of Icons
5. The Best Vacation in My Life!

Category: Featured, Personal notes