Dive Brief:

• Marketers may covet millennials, but the AARP is betting on Baby Boomers with its new ad firm, Influent50, targeting an audience of 50 and older.
• Influent50’s managing director points out that Boomers control the majority of disposable income, but just 10% of marketing dollars are spent targeting that audience.
• The agency already signed up more than a dozen clients.

Dive Insight:

Baby Boomers include around 75 million people per Census Bureau numbers, and control the majority of disposable income in the U.S. But according to Dave Austin, managing director of Influent50, only 10% of marketing budgets are geared toward targeting that audience. AARP is betting on Boomers with Influent50, its new ad firm created to target that segment -- which flies in the face of most marketing that seeks to reach the 18 to 34 year old millennial crowd. (The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are 83.1 million millennials in America currently.)

Influent50 might find value in specializing in the Boomer audience after research it conducted found 80% of people 50-and-up said marketers “are making mistakes” when trying to appeal to them. Forty percent said marketers don’t understand what’s important to them, and 47% added that Boomer stereotypes are inaccurate. One of those stereotypes is Boomers are already brand loyal, but Influent50’s research belied that idea with 82% of surveyed Boomers reporting being open to new brands.

Echoing the research findings, Peter Hubbell, founder of ad firm BoomAgers, told WSJ, “Changing and trying new brands helps Boomers feel like they are staying current." While millennials might "seen as the sexier audience" to market to, as Influent50 Chief Creative Director Scott Collin put it, the Boomer market is still listening.