HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!!

 

Is lousy tech to blame for Boomers retiring?

 

I am not a Luddite.  As I have pointed out to my students, I used computers when they still needed punch cards.  But I am also old enough to remember a time when the stuff you bought actually worked the way it was supposed to, on the first try.

 

Now I am stuck in a Beta world.  Nothing ever works and solutions are crowd-sourced from customers.

 

Millennials don't get it.

 

It shouldn't take an hour and a half to schedule a Covid booster appointment three weeks from now. 

 

A recent story from Joanna Jones founder of InterQ sums the problem up neatly.  "A major social-media company thought it had developed a killer app because people were spending so much time tapping and scrolling around the page.  But it turned out they were spending so much time on the page because they couldn't figure out how to get off of it." (Murphy, 2021)

 

It reminds me of a story from AirBnb.  After the Millennials who founded the site realized that their hosts tended to be Baby Boomers who were struggling to use it, they had a "Bring your mom to work day."  I wish everyone would do that.

 

Meanwhile though 12.2 million Americans have already quit their jobs this fall.  Boomer retirements which were running about 1 million a year, have accelerated in the past two years to 3.5 million.  And, 50.3% of those 55+ are now retired.  (Fry, 2021)

 

Don't count on them coming back.  As the saying goes - "You broke it, you own it."

 

 

Murphy, K. (202, May 23)  Why Companies Shouldn't Give Up on Focus Groups.  wsj.com.  Retrieved December 21, 2021, from  https://www.wsj.com/articles/focus-groups-big-data-companies-11621604085

  

Fry, R. (2021, November 4)  Amid the pandemic, a rising share of older U.S. adults are now retired.  pewresearch.com.  Retrieved December 21, 2021, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/04/amid-the-pandemic-a-rising-share-of-older-u-s-adults-are-now-retired/

I think Michael Che may be on to something.

 

As someone who studies consumer behavior for a living, I have spent the past year trying to understand what's really driving anti-vaxxers.

 

Research tells us that all decisions are emotional.  So when people mention vaccines being made too fast and side effects that are shared on their Facebook feeds they are simply looking for a rational excuse for an emotional reaction.

 

There's no doubt that fear is the underlying factor for anti-vaxxers, although that fear includes everything from fear of needles - which appears to be the case for 30% of Americans, to fear of side effects that rarely happen.

 

But in his "Shame The Devil" Netflix show Michael Che mentioned another possibility.  He offered up the opinion that the problem was that the vaccines were free; and hypothesized that if they were expensive then everyone would be lining up to get them.

 

It's an interesting idea.

 

We have discovered that as the saying goes - "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The item may be free, but not the shipping.  The discount may be real, but so are imploring emails that arrive daily after you use it.  So perhaps offering free vaccines sets off alarm bells among those already skeptical of the government.

 

On the other hand, research also tells us that we want what we can't have.  It's the principle of scarcity and the reason why every email pitch you get these days features a call to action like - "Hurry! Only three left in stock."

 

We can't go back in time and change what has already happened.  But it's worth thinking about as we move forward.  Covid is far from over.  And people will do what people do.

 

 

Does it make you want to buy something?

I was watching tv the other night when a commercial from Diet Coke aired. 

 

You can see it here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4zp00kR-zk

 

When I saw it, I smiled.  But I am a Baby Boomer.  So what I think doesn't really matter since I am not the target for this ad.

 

The target for this ad is most likely Gen Z (currently ages 9-24).  So the only thing that matters is what they think of the commercial and whether it motivates them to buy Diet Coke.

 

As we have discussed in class, the different generations have a different sense of humor, so what a Baby Boomer finds funny a Gen Z might not.

 

So what do you think?  Would a Gen Z find this ad to be funny?  Would it motivate them to buy/drink diet coke?  Does it motivate you?