I read a series of articles and opinion pieces about developing young leaders and the importance of doing so in light of the retirement statistics of Baby Boomers.
According to Harvard Business Review, 10,000 Boomers will retire every day over the next decade. This is great for young people, who will have the opportunity, and have to be ready, to assume some of the roles made vacant; plus in many cases they will be fast-tracked by their companies into these positions to address skills gaps.
So with that companies are targeting millennials with the majority of their advertising, after all by 2030 the millennials will make up almost 3 out of 4 members of the workforce.
But pause for thought – are we ignoring some people? We know that the silver surfers have all the money and they know how to spend it (largely on leisure). In addition, as Tom Peters tells us in his inspiring way, women make most of the key decisions, so why does advertising continue to ignore them? I think we may be missing a trick here and not just for allocation of advertising spend. Sure millennials will be an important audience in 10 years, but why wait? Target the most important groups today, because they are ready to spend.
It seems to me the silvers are worth more than gold futures, at least for now.