If you are a regular reader of this blog you are well aware of my disdain for the unscientific ratings monopoly that is Mother Nielsen. So, imagine my shock and awe when I saw an article in something called “Media News” today that showed the ratings juggernaut is in agreement with my Baby Boomer demo campaign.

I have been advocating for years that television advertisers - and NSI - must jettison their pursuit of the 18-49 or 25-54 demo and go after the real spenders - that huge Baby Boomer bubble. Well, “Media News” reports that Nielsen is now saying that by focusing on the younger demos - “advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power.” The article says “There are an estimated 78 million boomers, where the oldest are about 64 and the youngest around 46, meaning they are about to age out of the advertiser-coveted demos.”

Eureka! That has been my very point for years. Check out my blog from June of 2008 (”Change the Key Demo to 30-to-60″), or my blog from August of 2009 (”C’mon move that key demo to 30-to-60″). I wouldn’t expect Nielsen and I to agree totally on some issue - but we are close on this one - I say the key advertiser demo for TV should be 30-to-60, Nielsen is now advocating 46-to-64.

We are in total agreement on the spending power of those Baby Boomers. They have all the disposable income - and there are 78 million of them between the ages of 46-to-64. But, NSI estimates that less than 5% of all TV ad dollars are aimed at those aged 35-to-64.

So once again I climb on my soapbox - this time with the backing of Nielsen - and say, as I did in 2008 and 2009 - TV groups and general managers need to join together to move that key advertising demo to 30-to-60 year-olds. Your bottom-line will thank you for it!

Oh - and if Mother Nielsen and I agree on something - can world peace be far behind?

Jim

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 7:52 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.