Matt Thornhill Quotations

Marketers trying to grow their business over the next 10 years can either target the stagnant 18-49 segment, or they can develop strategies to appeal to the fast-growing 50-plus segment.

Most large financial service companies have rushed new marketing materials to help boomers start thinking about retirement planning?and all are based on the financial services company focusing on you and your life, versus them and the products they want to sell. Where it falls short is when you call the financial services firm and interact with a planner or adviser who only wants to sell you products. The training hasn't filtered down from the marketing professionals to the front-line client-contact people.

Mick Jagger at 62 is not old. Frank Sinatra at 62 was old.

Those cars have boomer sensibilities in how they're designed.

Boomers will do aging on their own terms. At every stage in their lives, boomers have done it differently from their parents' generation. They won't be retiring so much as they'll be reinventing themselves.

Boomers over 50 may be healthier, wealthier and better educated than any previous generation of 50-year-olds in American history. But they also may be poised for a big fall if all they do to stay healthy is drink designer water and pop vitamins all day long.

Boomers have been mass-marketed to since they were five years old, and they're always interested in what's next.

Anyone who wants to grow his business in the next 10 years will need to target more than the 18-to-49 group.

There's a transition that takes place somewhere between age 45 and 55 when you come to grips with the fact that you are getting old. Boomers are going to have to come to grips with it.

If you have a product or service or company that can help boomers fulfill that quest for vitality in any aspect, you'll be successful over the next 30 to 40 years.