Generation Ageless: How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Live Today...and They're Just Getting Started

By Ann Clurman and J. Walker Smith

Generation Ageless--an authoritative and eye-opening look at the past, present, and future of Baby Boomers Think Baby Boomers are all alike? Think again. This dynamic generation is nearing the traditional age of retirement, but is in no mood to slow down. Learn how to market, sell to, do business with, or just understand this remarkable generation, from Yankelovich, Inc., the organization that knows them better than anyone else. Yankelovich actually coined the term "Baby Boomer" back in the late 1960s, when they first started collecting data on this influential generation. Now, more than thirty years later, they have the most complete information on Boomers ever assembled. And they have put it all together in this groundbreaking look at America's largest and most powerful generation. In Generation Ageless , Yankelovich president J. Walker Smith, Ph.D., and senior partner Ann Clurman, Boomers themselves, dig deep into what makes this generation tick. With fresh, original data and a wide-ranging look at everything about Boomers, they dissect Boomers into six major segments--Straight Arrows, Due Diligents, Maximizers, Sideliners, Diss/Contenteds, and Re-Activists--to provide new insights into the world's most talked-about generation. The results show key imperatives invaluable to anyone selling a product, service, or idea to this 78-million strong group. Boomers are the dominant generation in America. Their values and aspirations set the tone for everyone. Advances in medicine and health mean that this youth-obsessed generation is now focused on an everlasting prime of life. They are literally middle age-less: holding onto their position at the top of the pyramid for as long as possible, and not fading away to their golden years. Today's fifty- and sixty-year-old Boomers are not eagerly anticipating lives of disengaged retirement. Instead, middle age-less Boomers expect another twenty or thirty years of impact and influence--albeit in a variety of ways reflective of a surfeit of agendas and ambitions they have yet to fulfill.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061128988
• ISBN13: 9780061128981
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Harper Business
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Every bit as good as hearing J. Walker Smith speak on the subject

J. Walker Smith truly knows his subject. After hearing him speak, I just had to purchase the book. It's packed full of information for those seeking to understand the Boomers and what makes them tick.

Get the skinny on boomers

The April issue of Writer's Digest arrived in my mailbox on Saturday and I've been in a snit ever since. "Publish Your First Book after 50," said the headline, but here's the real kicker -- "Who says publishing is a young person's game? Here are an agent's tips to writing and publishing well into your golden years." Golden Years? Excuse me, but the writer must have been addressing his article to my 80-year-old parents. It'll be another quarter century before I reach MY golden years, thank you very much. WD editors clearly haven't read Generation Ageless: How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Live Today ... And They're Just Getting Started. "It is pretty well recognized that Boomers should not be addressed as 'old people' or 'seniors.' This language does not resonate with Boomers and usually alients them," say authors J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, of Yankelovich, Inc., a leading consumer research company that has helped marketers understand consumer values and behavior since 1958. "On the other hand, they are responsive to marketing that uses an active, lively, youthful tone." Ours is a generation that not only can't afford to retire, we don't want to. We are constantly reinventing ourselves, breaking all the rules and looking for ways to make a difference in a changing world. And still, we are not satisfied, which opens a window for marketers who can make a convincing pitch. Baby Boomers are not all alike, and the authors slice and dice the data so thin you can slip it into a dozen different pair of skinny jeans without even holding your breath. Given that Yankelovich actually coined the term "Baby Boomers" back in the late 1960s when they first started collecting data on my self-absorbed generation, and they've studied our dreams, buying patterns, health habits, and values every decade since, they ought to know what they're talking about. The book, though bogged down with buzzwords and text-book tedious at times, is a must-read for anyone who has a product, service or idea to sell to this influential group of 78 million consumers. Now where are my reading glasses ...

Baby Boomers - the Ageless Generation!

Generation Ageless By J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman Generation Ageless: How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Live Today...And They're Just Getting Started, by J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, is a book you must read. Why? Because people will be talking about it! And those in the know know to read this book! Baby Boomers--you may have heard the phrase, this catchword many times; but did you know there are 78 million of them? After reading this book, I believe there are even more-for surely there are those, like me, who were born on the "cusp--9 months before 1946!" and see themselves more like boomers than any other group! Yankelovich, Inc. began studying consumer values and lifestyles in 1958. As I started reading Generation Ageless, I did not realize how the activities by a company, about which I knew nothing, could be writing about--me! It was at first exhilarating--then it got downright eerie! Yankelovich chose to begin studying Americans through the gathering and analysis of data by generations. Certainly, they could not have projected at that time that the generation born during the years 1946 to 1964 would become the largest group of any during the last century! Due to the number of individuals, it is also perhaps one of the most influential groups of people in the past and for the foreseeable future. Generation Ageless is extensive and covers many issues. In some ways, it is like reading a biography of 78 million people, in one book! In another way, it is pure demographics about Baby Boomers. At the same time, every marketing agent should be studying this as a textbook! Put all together, it is one of the most interesting and informative books I have ever read! It is an interesting read with both narrative and charts; however, with excellent writing, the authors have made what could be very dry into something that comes across in a personal fashion and includes information for anybody of any age. Before reading this book, some of us may have begun thinking about planning for retirement or considering what we might want to do "with the rest of our lives." Even if we didn't feel like our lives were over, we might have felt that society was seeing us that way. Well, after reading Generation Ageless, we will find that we are all thinking the same thing--we are too young to retire...we want to continue doing the things we are now doing and we want to continue them for as long as we want to! So, we now have the key words to explain that! We are not going to ever get old; we are merely middle age-less! "How cool is that?" as one commercial declares. Baby Boomers want to matter; they want to have a presence and an influence. "Or to put it in the way that best reflects the edge they give to it, it's a matter of immortality and morality." (p. xiv). The book uses the terminology that has been coined in the past: the Matures, Baby Boomers, Xers, and Echo Boomers. I found it especially heartening that the Baby Boomers group has express