While consumers over 50 account for half of the population and spend more money than any other age group on products, the 18-34 demographic is still the most coveted by advertisers. This is mostly due to the perception by advertisers that once their product is associated with the Alpha-boomers they are forever doomed to that demographic.
For this reason the viewership for consumers past 50 is not even tracked. It seems that advertisers and companies are giving up a substantial opportunity to attract a large and possibly untapped portion of the market for fear of being pigeon holed and loosing other key demographics. The article mentions that the perception of "old" is changing. Will this be enough to start tracking alpha-boomers viewing habits? Can we market to 55+ demographics without loosing market in other demographics?
When you look at this news story it is demonstrating that the boomers are likely to change convention. Behaviorally and psychologically, boomers are quite different than their parents. The current conventions for demongraphic cutoffs were defined by boomers. So, companies should redefine the age cutoffs before evaluating success.
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