By Jim Gilmartin – Contrary to the perception that aging brings a calcification of shopping habits, many over-50 consumers diversify their spending habits as they grow older. That diversification, plus the narrower tactics of contemporary marketing practices, makes them much tougher to reach through advertising. As older consumers and the Baby Boomer cluster move from the crowd-think of their youth …
Understanding What Your Customers Can’t Say
By G. Richard Ambrosius – In the world of marketing, there is general agreement that emotions play a larger role in consumer decision making than rational thought. So, doesn’t it follow that research that forces rational answers is generally flawed? Since breakthroughs in brain science challenge basic assumptions about consumer behavior, isn’t it time to re-write the rules of market …
To Connect With Baby Boomers, Shift Your Marketing Paradigms
By Jim Gilmartin – A paradigm is not a way of doing things; it is a way of thinking about things. A new marketing paradigm cannot be understood according to the rules of the paradigm it replaces. Says brain researcher Bernard Baars in In the Theater of the Brain, “Our inability to report intentions and expectations simply reflect the fact that they …
Are You Willing To Swim In The Deep End To Connect With Baby Boomers?
by Jim Gilmartin – In a post written by Lori Bitter on Dec. 21, 2015, headlined “The Psychology of Marketing to Grandparents”, she discusses the value of understanding four of Abraham Maslow’s attributes and how they relate to connecting with grandparents. This is a follow-up to my comments applauding Lori’s insights. I mentioned that in In July 2008, David Armano …
12 Recent Brain Research Discoveries Having Relevance to Successful Communications
Introduction It’s only in the last decade that most of the literature has been written on how the brain functions and how we process communications. Because consumer reactions to marketing communications will depend on the manner in which it’s processed, an understanding of how the brain processes information can be very useful. Information processing refers to the process by which …
