Editor’s leader, April 2009

I was appalled to spot UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown wearing jeans recently: my mother used to say that you know you are getting old when your clothes look like a politician’s.

But denim is the wardrobe staple of the Baby Boomer generation, to which Mr Brown and I belong (although he is much older than me . . . ). It’s a generation which was born after the stiff and starchy war years and grew up to sport a looser, less formal style. It also became ‘rapt’ with the careless consumerism which has now torn the global financial system to tatters – we shopped until it dropped and, as a result, our disposable incomes have shrunk an average of 20 per cent. 

Generally, we update our wardrobes faster than our lifestyles. Look at our media consumption; new channels have taken time to shape and gain popularity. Television – once an eviable but austere box of wires and dials, affordable only by the upper classes – became the gloriously colourful messenger/entertainer of the masses, to the detriment of the radio, cinema, even print to some degree. Then came the Internet – which, like early TV, took a while to become de rigueur. At first, we failed to comprehend the power of the web. The dot-com bubble burst as companies struggled to grasp why they should buy into a cyberspace version of the Emperor’s New Clothes, instead of advertising in the supermarket, through the letterbox or on the telly; as before. But slowly, the light began to dawn . . .

Baby Boomers are now seeing ‘heritage media’ (buzz words for ‘traditional’ channels) go out of style, usurped by the new media trend, which has attracted 67 per cent of web users (says Nielsen) to social networking sites. And its not just twentysomethings who are trying the latest trend on for size.

The website: www.myparentsjoinedfacebook.com sums it up most amusingly, telling young visitors archly:
‘Congratulations! Your parents just joined Facebook. Your life is now officially over.’

Facebook, with its 175 million active users (of all ages) has become the web equivalent of Gordon Brown’s jeans! Boomers are getting into blogging and Twittering too, becoming the fastest-growing user group in social networking playgrounds (see page 6) – year-on-year, 59 per cent more of us are using social networking sites; interest levels which are rising more than 30 times faster than our children’s.

Last month, the message from the array of top-level experts gathered at the highly-successful iDi Forum (review, page 22) was clear – marketers simply must get up to date. If not, I fear it will be this recession – not our amazing technological prowess – which ends up defining the Baby Boomer generation.