Last week, encouraged by my birthday, I looked at generations, trying to understand the various groups and their supposed identities. Being a Baby Boomer myself, this week I want to look at this important grouping of people – how they are defined, how they spend and of course what their attitude is towards wine.
The Baby Boomers are usually seen as the generation that was born following World War II, generally from 1946 up to 1964, a time that was marked by an increase in birth rates. It is however difficult to give a precise definition of a group of people born over almost twenty years and living across the world. The term referring to this wide group of people does however have popular appeal as it seems that there are broad similarities with regard to lifestyle and impact on the history and economy of the world.
In general Baby Boomers are seen to have the following characteristics:
- Questioning traditional values
- Being privileged – due to them growing up in a time of post-war subsidies and increasing wealth
- Wealthy
- Active
- Physically fit – more so than the previous generations
- Consumers
- Positive attitude – believing that they can make a difference in the world
Being a generation of significant numbers, the Boomers would be an important generation, even if it was on size alone, but size was not the only reason they had an impact on their world. Neither is the fact that they are regarded as the generation for which rock and roll became an expression of their identity.
Spending habits of Baby Boomers
More than the generations before them, Baby Boomers focused on education and pursuing personal success. They were typical workaholics earning a good dispensable income and had more excessive spending habits than the generations before them. They were also more image conscious.
According to lexisnexis.co.za, in the USA, Boomers are the most prosperous generation to date. They control over 77% of the assets in the US and command some two trillion dollars of annual income. And according to wikipedia, “they (Boomers in the USA) buy 77% of all prescription drugs, 61% of over-the-counter drugs, and 80% of all leisure travel. In 2004, the UK baby boomers held 80% of the UK’s wealth and bought 80% of all top of the range cars, 80% of cruises and 50% of skincare products.”
So are the Baby Boomers big spenders or is it due to the size of the group that they hold such overwhelming percentages of wealth and assets? I think it is a combination of both.
Sure when in their prime, the big numbers of Baby Boomers would have caused them to be the major force in the economy, but paired with their education and motivation for success, their impact on the world economy could only have been positive.
Boomer generation is now approaching if not already inside their retirement phase. It is quite obvious that when a large, prosperous generation stops earning and starts drawing from the state, there might be a few issues, so while their retirement might have an influence on both their own and the global economy, my interest is on the impact this dynamic and influential generation had on the economy of wine.
Baby Boomers and Wine
Although Steve Heimoff’s article on how “Baby Boomers invented wine” focusses on America, much of it might also be true for Baby Booming wine drinkers all over the (Western) World.
According to him, wine appreciation in the USA exploded with the coming of age of Baby Boomers due to the following reasons:
- Their disposable income.
- “The rise of the boutique winery movement in California – the availability of better quality wine.
- Typical to the Boomer generation, they were willing to try new things.
- An eagerness to explore the world of food and with that the culture of food and wine.
- Wine writers started to publish guides and of course as per Robert Joseph’s comment on Steve’s article, Parker’s point system introduced in 1975 also reassured the consumer when they were buying a “good” wine.
So if all of this is true and Baby Boomers had a definite positive impact on wine consumption, are they still important to the wine trade today?
WineX Magazine explains that between “1968 and 1986, an anomaly in per capita wine consumption occurred, not only here in the United States, but globally. During these 18 years, per capita wine consumption increased to a growth rate of about seven percent per year – seven-times the average.” According to this article, it was the experimental genes of Baby Boomers that urged them to drink something different to their parents and so wine became the flavour of the day.
“So, we have a generation adopting a product and drinking it on a daily basis. That’s important. But the more important and significant factor here is that Baby Boomers were drinking wine on a regular basis when they were in their 20s.”
Writer Daryl Roberts explains that people form their consumption habits (and most brand loyalties) for life in their mid- to late-20s and that is why he sees Baby Boomers as the major consumers of wine today. “They established their consumption habits drinking wine on a regular basis while they were in their 20s. And, that’s the reason we saw a big shift (almost 40%) of wine consumers moving from under 35 years old to over 35 years old between 1985 and 1996. It was simply the Baby Boomers aging.”
If all of this is true, it seems to me that from a wine marketing perspective, we should be focusing our efforts on the 20-somethings, while not forgetting the buying power of the Baby Boomers – whether retired or not, they have been and might just continue to be the wine industry’s valued supporters.
