Does The Record Industry Ignore Baby Boomers?

/ By Kyle Bylin / in Music Business/ No comment

More specifically, can they afford to? On a national touring level, it’s easy to see that most of the acts out there, making rounds, aren’t targeted towards today’s youth, as much as they are adults. While teens listen to the groups and may go, the legacy acts and their dominance has more to do with the economics of live music and the subsequent failure of the record and tour industries to produce more talent that can draw as heavy of crowds as the older groups than it does lack of interest among youth.

Not surprisingly, if you turn the dial to the area Top 40 radio station, you’d be pressed to find a handful of acts that have any relevance to the older generation. In a period of declining physical music sales, is this an oversight? In a recent nielsonwire post, they argue that by solely focusing their marketing on the youth, “advertisers and consumer goods manufacturers are overlooking a group that has tremendous buying power: the 78 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. today.”

Apparently, the conventional wisdom that Boomers spent little, resist technology, and are slow to adopt new products needs to be reevaluated. The post reports that, contrary to popular belief, “Boomers are an affluent group who adopt technology with enthusiasm.” As well, in the market, they have also shown a willingness to try new brands and products. Is it possible that Baby Boomers would actually be interested in trying out new artists too? There is reason to believe so. After all, parents do share the ride home with their kids and inevitably are overpowered in determining what will be listened to. But, if none of the music has any relevance to them and the quality of the content, arguably, doesn’t meet their "higher" expectations, why would they even consider buying the music?

This is disheartening, in part, because they are the group most likely to want to buy the whole album and own it. Yet, in a market where popular music is only being pandered towards their children, maybe Baby Boomers are turning away. According to the nielsonwire post, the record industry may have their thinking backwards. “Boomers,” they say, “should be as desirable for marketers as Millennials and Gen-Xers…” Why? Because they happen to be “the largest single group of consumers, and a valuable target audience.” While some parents may be open to listening to songs like “Cooler Than Me,” "Billionaire", and “Ridin' Solo,” it’s likely that they won't be running out the buy the albums anytime soon.