Extrawurst: The Film

Well, there's a thing! Extrawurst goes Hollywood. Or Babelsberg.

Nothing to do with this rather ageing and dilapidated blog, of course. But I did have to go and see it.

Extrawurst, the film, is about what can happen when we shove people into "identity boxes". The scene is a tennis club AGM, and what starts as a well-meaning suggestion (maybe) soon gets out of hand. The tennis club members are literally at each other's throats.

The film is a non-stop volley of insults based on what "women", "old white men" or "Turks" are "meant" to think or do. Rather than relating as the club members with a shared interest in tennis -  Melanie, Heribert and Erol.

Extrawurst is pretty damned funny, and a good reminder to look for universal truths when developing advertising. Putting people in target audience boxes, from "LGBTQetc." to "GenZ" is lazy and superficial. 

And it's just not tennis.   

Mixed up, muddled up, shook up world

 

I had a lucky childhood.

I grew up believing I could do anything or be anything I wanted. If I set my mind to it hard enough.

At the age of 3 or so (above) I was convinced I was a dog.

I wasn’t at all concerned about whether I was a male dog or a female dog - it seemed irrelevant. I didn’t have any dolls - just a pack of furry toys. Many of them were dogs.

My hair was cut short and I tended to wear my brother’s hand-me-downs. It was a question of practicality. I did have a blue party dress with a sticking-out skirt, which I hated wearing. Not because it was a dress, but because it was itchy.

The boys’ clothes continued into my teens. I grew my hair a bit longer in the 70s, but so did my brother and most of the boys I knew. I do remember us getting muddled up by an elderly relative, who’d thought “the boy was the older one.” He was in purple cords, I was in a Ben Sherman shirt and jeans. We thought it was funny, a bit subversive. 

If you look at photos of groups of young people in the late 60s, 70s and 80s, the boys and girls look pretty similar. From Woodstock to the New Romantics. I dug out what I think must be a book to accompany an exhibition, entitled 14:24 British Youth Culture. It was published in 1986.

You can see the effect in these photos of punks and skinheads by Nick Knight.

But something started happening just after my son was born, in 2000. When he was small, our house was a sea of yellow, blue and red plastic. I bought his clothes from flea markets.

But I did start noticing that the brand new toddlers’ clothes in H&M were sectioned off  into “boys” and “girls”. For  “Mummy’s little man” and “Daddy’s princess."

And Lego had started producing rather “girly” toys.

And our neighbours/fellow primary school parents would have parties where men and women sat in different rooms. Or even “women/men only” parties. This latter phenomenon I initially (rather snobbishly) put down to class or maybe educational level. Or possibly even an age thing, although this seemed unlikely as it didn’t seem to reflect any kind of progress.

And that “Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars” book started a whole industry of pop-gender-psychology. Excerpts from 1950s publications coursed around the internet, demonstrating how dreadful life was for women in the 20th century. I found these somewhat suspect - my mum had two degrees and was better academically qualified than my dad.

Ten years ago, we had the whole full-blown pink glitter pony stuff spilling from the kindergarten into adult life.  

And then came the whole #MeToo thing, the victim/oppression/patriarchy stuff and the omnipresent adjective “toxic.” 

I wondered why on earth I’d want to join a “women only” group from my college, that I’d deliberately chosen because it was mixed. And whether segregation really is progress. 

This data, published recently in the Financial Times, didn’t really surprise me.

But some of the extreme reactions I saw on LinkedIn certainly did. A lot of screeching about how this is evidence that all young men are unredeemable sexist and racist bastards.

Still, I can look forward with optimism. I hear there’s a brilliant new invention called “gender-neutral clothing” for children.

Whatever will they think of next?

Perennial bloomers

 

The older I get, and the more years I notch up as a one-woman band here in rural Germany, the more amusing I find the antics of some of my marketing and advertising partners-in-crime. It’s that slight shake-of-the-head, roll-of-the-eyes kind of amusement with a muttered “what planet are they on?” under my breath. 

I heard a marketing director speaking on a panel discussion yesterday, who was (I think) seriously suggesting that the following could be a good idea. AI could, in the future, “serve” an ad featuring a person of the same skin colour as the recipient - presumably all in the name of personalisation, diversity and “feeling seen.” 

Where do I start on how wrong this is? What next? I’ll be “served” an ad featuring someone of exactly my age, so I don’t feel ancient, left out and invisible? What a ghastly notion!

Whenever I’ve ventured onto LinkedIn these days, there do seem to be plenty of people (at least in my feed) talking about bursting bubbles and getting back to reality. A recent WARC article by Richard Huntington is titled The Future of Strategy 2023: Marketing is in desperate need of a reality check. 

Richard makes the point that we both work and live in a parallel universe he calls Marketingland. I’d rather use that nasty, twee “Adland” moniker. By the way, when did that creep into the language? It’s not the word itself, it’s the way people use it, as if it’s some exclusive place to be proud of. Whatever, this universe is populated by the well-educated, metropolitan, relatively young middle class.

And why do people not just work but live there, too? Because this world is conjured-up “through distaste for the real one with all its ugliness, mess and complexity.” Richard then takes aim at various of Adland’s favourite tools (so to speak), including “the stinking edifice of generational marketing". This is described as “a charlatan’s business” and “should be given as much credence in sensible organisations as astrology.”

I’m with him. The whole Generations stuff, beloved of lazy journalists and denizens of “Adland,” is more full of holes than a Boomer’s string vest. Or was it the lot before them that wore those? Not only do the generation years chop and change as often as the UK cabinet, but the whole thing is utterly US-focussed. Where you are born is just as important as when, as Ipsos show. And I’m quite tickled that “GenZ" are refusing to behave as many marketers want them to, as Nick Asbury points out.

What to do? Richard Huntington makes a call to “love and respect the people we serve”. I’d leave out the love part, personally, but respect and value their perspective (even if you don’t agree) - I’ll take that. As Richard says, “Everyone is trying in their own way to be a good person living a good life.”

Another perspective on the generations thing is to Adopt the Perennial Mindset as in this article by Tara McMullin. The thinking is based on a book by Mauro Guillén: The Perennials: The Megatrends creating a Postgenerational Society. This challenges the idea of linear lives, moving from play to learn to work to leisure/retirement, and “age-appropriate activities.” Getting rid of the concept of “milestones” beyond referring to babies and child development. A Perennial is defined as someone “not constrained by their age and what they’re ‘supposed’ to be doing at any given stage of life.”

Despite being a Planner, I’ve never been that great on planning my own life. I recognise the inevitability of change and the unexpected. But I liked what this article had to say about a broadened definition of work whereby people can stay active and connected to friends - work more along the lines of mentoring and support as one grows older and hopefully wiser. Tara writes that “the idea of retirement feels elusive to anyone under, say, 55 today.”

Well, that just proves a point. It’s a while since I was 55, and although I do have a bookmarks file of “retirement jobs” (mentoring, teaching, pivoting) the idea still seems pretty elusive to me!

I know this way of thinking can’t be a replacement for all that generations guff. Or indeed for media planning based on age breaks. But I do like the principle of getting away from pigeon-holing and rigid categories of age, life-stage, or when exactly you were born. Away from the sequential model of life. And from many of these frameworks when they are too strictly applied. I have said here often: The Map is not the Territory.

And, back to that panel discussion and what AI can do. One point that does give me hope are the increasing opportunities for contextual media planning. Catching me in the right mood, at the right place and the right time is going to be far more effective than “serving” me some old bag with pasty-white skin who doesn’t look a bit like me. 

From Accenture to Zukunftsinstitut

 

Here we go again - it’s that time of year, when all the futurologists and trend forecasters and other shades of seers and sages get those reports out on what we might expect for 2023. There used to be a manageable handful of these, but now every agency worth its salt and pepper wants to have a go. Thankfully, these days, there are bright and helpful people who curate these things, or at least bundle them altogether on one convenient link. This collection, for example, is put together by a group of six strategists, plus various collaborators across Europe and Asia. They started their good work during Covid and have compiled the trend reports since 2020.

I hope I’ll get a chance when things calm down a bit to look at some of the better of these reports. But at the moment, it makes me weary just opening the thing up. There are 76 prediction-type reports and then, on top, 25 round-ups of the last year. Where to start? It’s at this point that I start to see the attractions of AI to plough through this lot and pull out the mega-ultra-über-meta trends.

Was it easier in days of yore? Well, maybe, as trend-forecasting was confined to the printed page - reports you’d pay for, articles in the better journals - and books. Queen of it all was Faith Popcorn (still popping around), and I’ve got here the 16 trends outlined in Clicking in 1996 - twenty-six years ago, before GenZ were born. ’Scuse the shaky technology:

Look at the first three. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was published yesterday, or at least some time once we’d got the worst of the pandemic behind us. Oooh. Virtual Reality! What’s that, then? Sounds new-fangled. Not that Metaverse business, is it? Where you can go on a Fantasy Clash of Clans Adventure from the comfort of your own Cocoon? What century is this, anyway?

And so it goes. Yes, it’s got a middle-class US bias, but ... “stressed-out”, “affordable luxuries”, “spiritual roots”, “personal statements”, “caring and sharing”, “warmly embraces the freedom of being an individual”, “busy, high-tech lives”, “simpler way of living”, “better quality of life”, “angry consumer - pressure, protest and politics”, “icon toppling”, “endangered planet, social conscience, ethics, passion and compassion” ...

One reason that Ms Popcorn’s predictions stand the test of time is that there is precious little mention of specific technology. The focus is not on what we’ll be doing, or how, but on the “why?” - the human motivations behind all this. 

Amid the change- and doommongers' obsession with the disruptive, VUCA, every-changing world, the panics, urgency and desperation, the conviction that things will never be the same again, it’s quite reassuring to pick up a paperback from the last century and realise that the summary of those 76 reports was languishing on your bookshelf all along. 

 

RETROWURST: Old People November 2004

 

This month’s Retrowurst is particularly interesting from a personal point of view. I wrote it while in my 40s and it concerned my perception of “old people” in Germany at that time. It’s full of observations about the 60+ age group, Nordic Walking, the Verein and Gutbürgerlich food. My conclusion was that I’d far rather grow older in Germany than in the UK - that Germany was a friendlier and more respectful environment for the old.

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Having just clocked up another year, I am feeling a little sensitive about getting older so I thought I’d turn my attention to the older people in Germany and give you some idea as to why I’d probably rather get old here than back in the UK.

 

If I had to choose one picture that symbolised the current social climate in Germany this year then it would have to be this: a few weeks back I was in Aldi and the place was packed full of ladies aged 60 + in a bit of a rugby scrum. It was a very genteel rugby scrum with lots of helpful smiling and friendly joking and, once I managed a few polite Entschuldigungs, I was close enough to see what all the fuss was about. Aldi had Nordic Walking gear on offer. Not just the sticks, but special jackets, shirts and leggings, headbands, socks and gloves. Now, I still don’t have a clue how a Nordic Walking jacket might differ from something you might go jogging in, but there you go. Obviously, to these ladies, all these items were much sought-after. Not long after, while I was out jogging (no doubt passé amongst the older generation) I saw a group of similar ladies (and their men folk) striding towards me briskly, resplendent in their co-ordinating Aldi outfits. The self-confidence and general Lebensfreude of this group seemed a stark contrast to the continual whining and whingeing of the 30 and 40-somethings that I seem to know in Germany. And, generally, one can see that the 60+ group in Germany are less worried about the future than younger age groups. It may be selfish, but it also stems, perhaps, from a belief amongst this group that the bad times are behind them. For someone born just before, during or just after the war, childhood was tough with families depleted and also divided geographically for years on top of the shortages and rationing.

 

Somehow the whole education system and social structure of Germany means that everything is shifted 5-10 years upwards compared to the UK. Children don’t start school until they are 6 or even 7 and stay until they are 19. The compulsory military or social service means that further education may not be completed until the late 20s or early 30s. The result of this is that if you set foot in a German advertising agency, for example, and you’re the wrong side of 40, you wouldn’t get the same feeling of being totally out of place that you might in London. And ‘youth’ TV presenters regularly pop up who are pushing 40. All of this means, of course, that you are still described as ‘young’ well into your 40s and middle-age doesn’t really seem to set in until mid-50s.

 

In Germany, it seems more acceptable to be older. The whole country seems to be more set up for the tastes and needs of older people. Restaurants unashamedly offer Gutbürgerlich food and good wine in traditional surroundings, served by formal but friendly waiters and waitresses who address one with respect rather than the ‘Hi guys my name’s Max specials today are sauerkraut wraps and bratwurst with pesto mash’ approach. The independent butchers, bakers and greengrocers, along with the weekly markets where you can ask exactly which field the cow came from or whose apple trees your Cox’s are from do a roaring trade, especially with older people who have time for good service quality as well as the socialising opportunities that these shops provide. And one sees rather less of the mutton-dressed-as-lamb look and rather more independent ladies’ and gentlemen’s outfitters selling good quality classic clothes in dark greens and browns.

 

Older people seem to be present somehow in Germany, which is perhaps not surprising as the over 60s comprise 25% of the population currently, which is forecast to rise to 40% by 2050.TV is not dominated by youth – there are plenty of light entertainment and folk-music shows with jolly-looking 60-,70- and 80-pluses linking arms and singing along in the background – and none of this is tongue-in-cheek. In advertising, older models are often used – Nivea pioneered the ‘mature skin’ segment with Nivea Vital over 10 years ago and companies like Davidoff feature older men in their advertising campaign (‘the more you know...’).

 

Another unique feature of German life where the seniors hold much power is in the notion of Verein or clubs. Even a little village will have dozens of clubs, from rabbit-fanciers to carnival clubs, from handball to opera-singing. These clubs often have a long tradition and will play a major part in the social life of the town, organising local Fests and other events.

 

Many older people are also politically active. There is a political party called Die Graue Panther (see www.die-grauen-graue-panther.de ) who are calling for a radical reform of the Social Security System, amongst other issues.

 

As in the UK, there are plenty of Internet sites hosted by and run for older people, such as www.seniorenchatring.de or www.feierabend.de where you can even see a photo of my friends the Nordic Walkers!

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What is extraordinary is despite the obsession of marketing trend reports with change and disruption, tearing up the playbook, smashing taboos and stereotypes, there being no “new normal”, a frankly terrifying VUCA world enveloping us and all the rest, things seem to have stayed comfortingly stable. 

Yes, of course digitalisation has happened in the last 18 years, but it has been assumed organically, almost naturally, as part of human progress. www.feierabend.de is still chugging along, but in the meantime Facebook and WhatsApp are where the older people are online. 

Germany is still a comfortable place for the old. I don’t hear the whinging about “older women being invisible” that seems to wail out of the UK. Maybe because, until recently, we had one in charge.

While Germany with respect to the old hasn’t changed, of course I have. My parents and parents-in-law are all gone now, so I am the older generation. I’m in a couple of Vereine, and have been known to buy comfy merino-wool loden-style shoes. There’s nothing quite like a plate of Gutbürgerlich food, especially at this time of year when the leaves are falling and nights are drawing in.

But I still haven’t succumbed to the joys of Nordic Walking. Not yet.   

Here we go again

 

I’m always amused when clever young things at ad agencies rediscover topics and stories that are as old as the hills, with the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed conviction that they are the first to do so. One story that’s been going round and round and round and round like a broken record (showing my age here) is the one about the 50+ generation.

The latest study to cop onto the fact that over-50s hold 99.9% of the wealth but are only featured in 0.1% of the ads (or whatever the latest figures are) is The Invisible Powerhouse from MullenLowe Group UK. 

I know I’m as guilty as the next person when it comes to blabbing on about this stuff - and I can recommend this report in that it’s well put-together and thought through. There’s a useful segmentation based on approach to life which I can see having application.

But ...

Why do the old chestnuts still persist? “You’ll become invisible” “Older people are either portrayed as frail old dears or 90-year-old sky-diving super-heroes” “Old people don’t think of themselves as old” “It’s important because - gasp! - we’ll all be old one day” “Age does not define them”

There’s a certain lack of logic in it all, though. If Age is not Identity, if In our Minds, none of us is Old, if A 60-year-old Happy-Clappy-Activist has more in common with a 20-year-old Happy-Clappy-Activist than a 60-year-old Karen Brexit-Gammon, then ...

Why the heck should representation on the basis of age be so important?

I can identify with a 25-year-old man or quite honestly, an ageless, sexless cartoon character in an ad if it hits the nail on the head about a desire or need I have - and is presented in an entertaining way.

Maybe the real insight here is not “we’re all going to be old one day” but “all old people have been young, but no young people have been old” (not going to get into Buddhism here). I suspect that is where this is all going wrong.

By the way, if you’re an over-50 yourself, you might need your reading glasses for the Mullen Lowe report if you’re looking at it on the laptop. It’s a tiny typeface. 

Talkin’ ‘bout my generativity

 

Towards the end of the last millennium, at a time when today’s mighty oaks were saplings and I was navigating the first stage of adulthood amid a neon excess of cocktails and heartache, I read The Man who planted trees by Jean Giono. This short story - may the correct term is parable - had been originally published in 1954 and enjoyed a renaissance in the 1980s. The tale starts in 1913, when the young narrator meets a 55-year-old shepherd, Elzéard Bouffier, who has taken it on himself to plant acorns in the Provence countryside over the last three years. 

Even if you haven’t read it, you can probably see where the story is going, and it does, most charmingly, accompanied by beautiful woodcuts. Two World Wars cannot destroy the consequence of one man’s simple act, regenerating a whole community and landscape.

Elzéard Bouffier and his story is the perfect example of generativity, a concept I’ve touched on here and here. Generativity - a concern for establishing and guiding the next generation - is the main focus of the 7th Stage of Life in the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development. Interestingly, Erikson extended his stages from the Shakespearean “7 Ages of Man” in that he envisaged eight in total. Maybe this has something to do with increasing life expectancy - more of that later.

The 7th Stage of Life, or second stage of adulthood, typically occurs at what we’d call middle age - 40-64 approximately. Interestingly, once Erikson passed this age (he lived to 91) he reviewed his theory and admitted that generativity continues to play a major role beyond retirement age, too. Even more interestingly, his wife and collaborator Joan later added a 9th Stage of Life to the theory. She was 93 at the time.

Generativity, in its human/social meaning, has a lot of nuances as an idea. There’s a strong sense of altruism, but the “self” is not absent from the concept. It encompasses an inner desire for immortality in the form of leaving something of value as a legacy, making one’s life count for something. And there’s a strong component of responsibility to others, both now and in the future.

The language of generativity has been much used in sustainability communications. “For future generations” has become a cliche, usually accompanied by stock photos of carefree cute children running through sun-kissed meadows or fields of wheat. But maybe there’s an opportunity for companies and brands to use the generativity of their (ageing) co-workers to positive effect beyond tired sustainability tropes. 

The idea of “purpose” has been criticised due to its association with short-term activism and “cause of the moment”. It should be less about “high(er) and mighty” and more about the long-term. Passing on values, skills and knowledge. Mentoring within the company. Keeping the culture alive. Creating something new taking into account both what the brand and company does well and new human needs arising from our changing world.

The opposite pole to generativity is stagnation - and that’s not healthy for brands or people. 

Going overground

One of the better articles I've read about Post-COVID-19 culture is this one from Sturm und Drang. What I like here is it's not someone pontificating about the New Normal (groan) and "what we're all going to be doing/thinking" but instead outlines some of the key tensions that will be in play:

Online and Real World
Health & Safety and Getting out and living for the moment
Personal Freedom and Group monitoring
Self-reliance and solidarity
Humanity and nature

One thing that is certain is that the COVID-19 crisis will accelerate transformation and movements that are happening anyway. Take the first of Sturm & Drang's tensions - the shift online. Music and film and gaming were being created and played from bedrooms, our lives were becoming increasingly streamed and the couch potatoes and nerds were inheriting the earth.



People are learning to live without coffee to-go, or anything to-go for that matter. There's a certain power in having the world of work, leisure and everything in between at your fingertips, from the comfort of your four walls.

Maybe there will be a massive, irreversible shift online in all spheres of life.

Or maybe not. In the two world wars of the last century, entire young generations had their freedom curtailed by having to do their duty and go out and fight, or otherwise work night and day for the war effort. For the current young generation, COVID-19 is their war.

People of my generation used to bewail the fact that being confined to their bedroom was no longer a punishment for a teenager.

But maybe it's beginning to be. Days and weeks of unrestricted online access. Not just that, but parents, grandparents, teachers all invading the online world of the young: from making idiots of themselves on TikTok to hi-jacking YouTube for serious learning. One can sense an urge to rebel, to get out. Not going underground, but overground into the wild world of the Internot.

Perhaps this is another trend that will be accelerated by the crisis.

Who knows, maybe the young will spend their summer like Richard Jefferies' Bevis:

"It was living, not thinking. He lived it, never thinking, as the finches live their sunny life in the happy days of June. There was magic in everything, blades of grass and stars, the sun and the stones upon the ground."

Older but no wiser?

A questionnaire landed in my letterbox yesterday, from the local council. They are looking to improve the offer for "older citizens" in our town.

There are questions about mobility (or lack thereof), whether I'd want to live in a care home, whether I attend tea dances for seniors and whether I have an internet connection.

I have a strong desire to write "I'M NOT THAT OLD!" all over it.

It seems I've been put in a box (yet again) and it's reminded me of some new start-ups I've observed in the last few weeks.

First and fearless is FEARLESS. An agency that believes creativity is ageless and promotes that belief with a provocative, badass/punk attitude.

On the either side of the pond is London agency Ancient & Modern - proudly proclaiming that they're "the oldest advertising agency in London" and championing care, craft and ideas rather than quick hits and performance marketing. The attitude (and experience) here draws on the golden age of UK long-copy and TV ads of the 70s and 80s.

Personally, I find the look and attitude of these two new agencies very appealing.

But I'm not sure what I'd think as an ambitious young marketing manager - or whether I'd know what "Ancient & Modern" referred to.

Another approach is to focus less on the demographic profile of the agency founders and more on the opportunity that's up for grabs - the huge discrepancy between the wealth/income that people over 50 enjoy and the minuscule % of the marketing budget that goes their way.

That's the angle the new consultancy Flipside are taking - which is seems a wise move to me.

And yes, full disclosure, I do indeed have a personal connection to the agency ;)

Come together

Reading the stream of marketing newsletters and articles about younger people (or GenZ if you must), you'd think they are all utterly obsessed with social activism and eco-activism and think about precious little else.

I often wonder about the difference between my online reading (which is predominantly UK/US or other English language media) and what I observe around me here in Germany. So I was interested to come across the organisation More in Common who are dedicated to looking into the divisions in society, finding the source of these and working towards more social cohesion.

One report concentrates on Germany. The received wisdom in Germany is that society is divided politically (Right vs Left), geographically (former East vs West) and probably by age, although there isn't quite the obsession with Boomers, GenZ and the rest, which I find refreshing.

Instead of political views and demographics, More in Common groups people on the basis of values and beliefs - for example, authoritarian tendencies, perception of threat, personal responsibility and ability to take action and so on. Six groups emerge (I do question whether grouping people in this way and creating new "tribes" as well as talking about "fault lines" is possibly counter-productive, but I guess it's a means to an end). And what's interesting is that these 6 groups fall into three layers.

There are the Polarised, who are the loud and opinionated ones who dominate public debate and social media.

There are the Stabilisers, who are generally satisfied and optimistic, and could be called the backbone of society.

And then there are the Invisible Third - less integrated, less visible and less engaged.

There's little evidence of an East/West split, contrary to popular opinion.

How can marketers and brands use this? Well, instead of doing the easy and obvious thing, and getting embroiled in a debate with the polarised, through a "social experiment", for example, maybe brands can look to engaging and involving the Invisible Third, or harnessing the optimism and community spirit of the Involved and Established.

Going back to the young people, 45% of those aged 18 - 29 belong to the Invisible Third (Detached and Disillusioned).

Rather than listening to those that shout loudest, perhaps we should tune in to those on a different wavelength to see what they really care about.

Real Life Rebels

I've read a number of articles recently about how young people are shopping less than older generations online and more in real bricks and mortar shops. OK, most of these articles focus around the US, and malls, and Black Friday.

But I wonder - in the same way that Facebook now resembles the Darby & Joan club, and grocery online shopping and delivery services are mainly used by the well-heeled and grey-haired - whether younger generations will start to rebel in more and more areas by using the real life option.

Maybe rebel isn't the right word. It's more a sense of doing something different than what you grew up with, or to what your parents did. Discovering, experiencing, trying stuff out - and on.

The wild world of the Internot is ripe for discovery.

Elastic Fantastic

One benefit of the wonderful digital age in which we live is that agencies have become so much more generous with their information and knowledge. You may argue that there's no such thing as a free report, or that if it costs nothing, then it has no value, but I beg to disagree.

JWT Intelligence has recently released a report on the women of what they term 'The Elastic Generation'. It's a UK report, based on research amongst women aged 53 - 72. That age group, born from the late 40s to mid-60s, are more commonly known as Baby Boomers, especially in the US. The re-name has been chosen to reflect this generation's inner resilience, energy, strength and potential - as embodied by, for example, Pauline Black of The Selecter , above.

The report, which you can download here, is pretty comprehensive, substantial, and a million miles from the kind of customer-facing horrors that, for example, P&G put out. There are all manner of interesting links and references, including the fascinating Age of no Retirement

So, many thanks to JWT Intelligence, and I'll finish with two remarks:
It may be my age, but I'm afraid I immediately associated 'elastic' with comfy elastic waistbands, much as I get your reasons for the name.
And - the big question - what happens after 72, or do I have to wait to find out?

Don't just find your purpose

In the current depressing political atmosphere following the UK general election, I've been looking around to find something more upbeat and inspiring. I get the impression that it's time for some new blood on the UK political scene. It's positive that the younger people turned out in greater numbers to vote than for the referendum. Let's hope some of them get inspired to be more involved, actually change things. It can be done. This young man, at 33, is the youngest person to deliver a Commencement Speech at Harvard.



Mark - now Doctor - Zuckerberg addressed today's graduates as being from his generation. - the Millennials. His main message was about purpose:

My message was about purpose. As millennials, finding our purpose isn't enough. The challenge for our generation is to create a world where every single person has a sense of purpose.

What Mark Zuckerberg was saying is don't just pin your purpose on your (Facebook) wall, like a corporate mission statement, but get out and get doing. Where are the new generation-defining public works?

It's a good message for brands, too. So much time is spent in workshops and brainstorms trying to find a purpose, and even more in trying to articulate it. Your purpose doesn't have to be high-and-mighty . But once you've got it, get out there and do something with it.

'Time present and time past ...

... are both perhaps present in time future'
                               T.S.Eliot, Burnt Norton




I have noticed two examples of brands that have made news this week by combining past and present to (maybe) create the future.

I'll start with the one not absolutely everyone has heard of, which is Polaroid Swing. I've often wondered how the Polaroid brand lives on, while the Kodak brand seems to have died, or at least retired and disappeared from view. This is one reason: a nifty little app that combines the heritage of Polaroid (for the name inspiration, see the groovy ad above) with bang up-to-date technology. In this case, moving photos. These are kind of like gifs, put different. 60 frames are captured in 1 second and the picture comes to life when you tap it or get swinging your iPhone. The world of Harry Potter has nothing on this!

The people from Polaroid and their collaborators at Swing have high hopes - could this be the visual version of Twitter? The insight is that we perceive the world as a series of (very short) moments. I'm not 100% convinced, but let's see.

The other new launch needs no introduction - Pokemon Go . You can't avoid having heard about it unless you're living under a stone (although that, too, is unlikely as you're probably sharing your under-a-stone space with a funny little yellow creature.) As well as combining old (well, 90s) with new to appeal to at least a couple of generations, much has been made of the combination of real and virtual worlds. Here is one of the better articles about the success factors.

So there you have it - for a successful brand extension, maybe we have to think like a bride and combine the old, the new, the borrowed (preferably via collaboration) and the blue - or yellow.

Goodbye to all that

A few years ago, my mother was asked to take part in some market research. It was what used to be called a Hall Test, and maybe still is. It involved tasting samples of orange juice. My mother enjoyed the experience, and being asked her opinion.

However, at the end of the interview, the market researcher asked my mother her age and explained that she was 'terribly sorry, but they wouldn't be able to use her interview as she was past the cut-off point.' Needless to say, my mother was not too amused to be declared 'past the cut-off point,' as if her opinions didn't count.

When I did my stint as an interviewer, the 'cut-off point' was absurdly young - 65 or even 60. This was explained to me (if I remember correctly) that 'older people' were difficult to interview/find and all the rest. Some couldn't hear well, some couldn't see well, some couldn't manage the steps going up to the room where the research was taking place. I have noticed on surveys I have done that it has crept upwards, but I expect there is still a bias against say, the over 75s.

Orange juice is one thing, but decisions about the political and economic future are another. When I woke up to the news this morning that was so different from the last poll I'd heard last night, my second thought was my mother and orange juice.

It's only a theory, but I expect that the polls underestimated the 75+ vote. From the demographic breakdowns I saw before the referendum, there was a clear age effect, with the 60+ group strongly more pro-Brexit compared to the average. My suspicion is that 75+ would be even more so.

With Brexit, it seems as if the 'Silent Generation' have found the voice the pollsters didn't want to hear - and used it.

50 is the new ...no.

When my son was born, nearly 16 years ago, I signed up for freebies and tips from as many baby product brands as I could. I was entering a phase of the great unknown, and appreciated a few experts (even if they were connected to brands) giving me advice.

Procter & Gamble, who make Pampers, have hung onto my data with the tenacity of a terrier, and I was the recipient of their new magazine for 'Women around 50', Victoria, subtitled Lebenslust ist Zeitlos (Joy of Life is Timeless). My first thought was - if Joy of Life is Timeless, why mention 50? My second thought was - uh-oh, there's something squidgy in here that feels suspiciously like an incontinence pad. It nearly went in the bin. The whole magazine, that is, not just the free sample.

However, the sensible marketing part of me told the customer part of me to grit her teeth and have a look. How does one of the world's biggest companies go about marketing to such an important target group, in terms of numbers and spending power?

I'm afraid the answer, as far as I'm concerned, is not very well. I also looked at the UK site, and it's not any better. The first two comments on the site were negative, one woman saying she found the newsletters offensive and the second criticising Procter and Gamble for reinforcing stereotypes rather than challenging them.

P&G, of course, shout loud and long about how 9 out of 10 women enjoyed the first issue of Victoria. Well, these appear to be women who had already (for whatever reason) visited the website and chosen to take part in the survey, not those who had the magazine, complete with incontinence pad (sorry, Always Discreet) shoved through their letterbox.

The content of the magazine and website is as cliche-ridden as it comes. How to get through the menopause with herbs. SMS or WhatsApp? A little guide for beginners. Fashion tips to help us (sic) look younger. What's making you look older than you are? 50+ blogger and Life-Coach. A recipe (or is it a tip?) for 'Water with Cucumber and Radish.' Detox for your bathroom cupboard (Yeah, great idea - chuck out all those useless Procter and Gamble products). All accompanied by stock shots (like the one above) of models doing something no sane person would dream of doing unless they'd taken a few drugs.

There's a film of grinning women in clothes that don't suit them (probably chosen by the 50+ stylist) to one of those Coldplay soundalike tracks going on about 'my best time' and 'I feel super' and '50 is young' and '50 is just a number.'

And then there are the crap products. Teeth whiteners for those who still have their teeth and denture creams for those who haven't. The Always Discreet (according to a French study, one in three women in Germany has need of these). And then the thing that really got me - something called Lenor Unstoppables - presumably some cocktail of chemicals to make your laundry smell like a Proctor and Gamble factory. It's difficult to tell exactly what to do with it as the writing on the back of the sample is illegible to anyone over about 15, let alone 50.

And this is the point. Instead of going down some high and mighty 'empowering women 50+' route (have you ever thought, Procter and Gamble, that 50+ contains three very different generations?), why not do something practical? Packets that people can read? This is worth so much more than all that patronising 'best age' drivel.

And, if you must attempt that 'inspiring women' thing, take a leaf out of Boots No.7's book. I'm not into ballet at all, and I'd never heard of Alessandra Ferri, but this is a great piece of advertising.

Pre-teen Queen

The Queen is coming to Frankfurt on Thursday, and, despite never having had the slightest inclination to join the throngs at Buckingham Palace all the years that I lived in London, I may just go along to have a peek, for fun. I guess it's the same sort of ex-pat patriotism that has me carrying my iPhone in a Union Jack cover.

I have a pet theory which says that the Queen's generation may be the longest-lived generation of all time. Although I'm not a fan of all that generation twaddle that makes sweeping statements about tastes, views, beliefs of entire cohorts of people around the globe, I think it's fair to say that people born in the Western world in the 20s and 30s (assuming they survived the war) escaped the worst of poverty and infectious diseases yet managed to attain adulthood before diets got completely crammed with dubious chemicals. Even in my day, an obese child in the class was an exception. Look at films of London in the 1950s on YouTube and there are very few overweight people to be seen.

This generation was probably the last to escape the greedy clutch of commerce and advertising. The word "teenager" first appeared in 1941, but the term was not really in common use and associated with "youth culture" until the 1950s, by which time these people were starting families. Elvis would have been 80 this year, but even someone born in 1939 may have considered themselves too old to have been screaming at his hip-swivelling antics in the late 50s. And marketers aren't terribly interested in this age-group, with most surveys having a cut-off point at 65.

I wonder if the Queen has ever worn jeans? For those that spent their teenage years during wartime or the immediate post-war period, jeans are not an automatic uniform. But the Queen's generation certainly can't be accused of lacking in style. Many of Hollywood's most glamorous actresses belong to this generation, and there continues to be interest in them today, as fashion role models - see this article on Tim Walker's Granny Alphabet in Sturm und Drang, or the blog Advanced Style

Too old for rock & roll, too old to be teens, to wear jeans, this generation is also the last not to have flocked en masse to social media. But, strangely, the younger generations find plenty in their lifestyle to admire - The Women's Institute, the vegetable garden, gin, twin-sets and cupcakes are all enjoying revivals.

A quick internet search tells me that people born between 1925 and 1942 have been dubbed 'The Silent Generation'. It's apt, in a way, but I do ask myself if that silence is self-imposed, a wise choice.

The Guilty Generation

OK, my generation is probably guilty. Of all that generational cohort naming business, that is. I was born at the end of the Baby Boomer generation, and I think it's us that named ourselves, then went on labelling subsequent generations. Previous generations were, I think, too busy fighting wars and surviving the after-effects of wars to bother about something so trivial.

Now that even the youngest Baby Boomers are over 50, all of us that still work in advertising have got over all those "oh my God, I feel so ancient, everyone else is younger than me" moments and it's now funny to watch our younger Gen X or Y colleagues nervously looking over their shoulders at the next cohort to come along. And the attitude of the authors of such articles is always a sort of make-the-reader-believe-I'm-one-of-this-generation-they-are-just-so-great tone.

Here's an example from Brand Republic: Forget Millenials, brands need to win over Generation Z. The imaginatively-named Generation Z are those born mid 1990s to mid 2000s, so today's teenagers. The article is full of wisdom such as "they are active rather than passive" and "books and music are downloaded, games are played online..." or "they want to be part of debates, they want to feel involved in world issues - look at the recent hit of the Ice Bucket Challenge." There are facts, too: "They make up a quarter of the UK population and have huge spending power." Hmmm, yes, given that half of them aren't legally allowed to work, I wonder where the huge spending power comes from...  now, here's a clue: There's even a chipper head of an ad agency gushing in a Proud Mummy way about how "lucky" she is to have "classic Gen Z" daughters - the engaged, active and empowered young things have started a group called Teenage Feminists!

I have blogged about this stuff before, and I know that it's really just a bit of fluffy marketing fun. But I would warn against taking it too seriously, or basing your entire marketing plan on it. Remember where it comes from: 12-19s saying in a survey (probably online) what they think, believe, do.

For a real look at teenage attitudes, try a WhatsApp chat - you'll be lucky to find a monosyllable amongst the candy necklaces of emoticons. Or for teenage behaviour, try mumsnet for vile things found in teenage rooms - although, who knows, maybe these are all made up, too.

Food, glorious food!

My favourite brand idea of the year so far is one that appeals to my taste buds as well as my sense of zeitgeist. Cooking with Mama has been around for a couple of years, but tickled my taste as to being just right, just now.

The brand is a cookery school, based in London in Berlin so far, which offers unique cooking experiences to individuals and groups representing a range of worldwide cuisines. The clever idea that the founders had was based on an observation - big cities like London and Berlin are increasingly multi-cultural, a trend - people are hungry for cooking experiences, and an insight - there's no cooking like Mama's.

If you mix these ingredients together, you get a great idea: you recruit "Mamas" - super cooks from a variety of cultural backgrounds who have learned the secrets of delicious home-cooking from their mothers before them, and facilitate them to lead cookery classes.

It's a brilliant fusion of the traditional and new: harnessing wisdom, expertise and culinary tips and tricks that might or might not get passed down the generations with the new spirit of sharing, social generosity and community. The backgrounds of the "Mamas" include Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Brazil, Cameroon, Beirut and Mexico.

Best of all, it's empowering for the cooks involved - using food as a force for good.

The Kids vs The Kids

Kids of-the-past-vs-kids-of-internet-generation from Bhavesh Patel

I love good use of infographics, probably because I don't have a clue about how to use them myself. But that's probably a generational thing as I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boomers.

The presentation here is from Bhavesh Patel on Slideshare, and although it's probably based on US rather than global figures, it shows the differences between the post-war generations in a charming and engaging way. The main contrast is between those born pre-1980 (Baby Boomers and Generation X) or "Kids of the Past" and those born after that (i.e. anyone young enough to be my child, gulp!) namely Generation Y, or Millenials and Generation Z, who are yet to be named or defined.

While most of the media behaviour documented tends to follow a linear progression with age, there are some odd exceptions. For example, Generation X are more likely to watch more than 1hr of TV than either the Baby Boomers or Millenials.

As far as Generation Z goes, my bet is that they will have sorted out the public/private thing as far as self-projection goes. There are already signs that things are going this way, with "self-destruct" social media such as Snapchat.

And one more request. Now that the Baby Boomers are grey and snapping up the anti-age treatments, can we call ourselves Generation W for Wrinkly?