By MEREDITH CARROLL
I WOKE UP WITH A START THE OTHER night, panicked after realizing that in less than a year, I’ll be aged out of the demographic most prized by advertisers — the all-important and beloved 18-34 group.
Media conglomerates, advertisers and marketing groups spend endless time and resources thinking up clever new ways to woo me and my peeps because of the broad range of life changes we’re likely to experience — and the money we’re expected to spend — after we graduate from high school and before we hit our mid-30s. Between college, settling into careers, marriage and parenthood, the general consensus is we’re just busting with all kinds of consumer needs.
Frankly, I enjoy being courted, and I’m not looking forward to being consolidated into the less attractive, albeit still somewhat highly coveted, 18-49 set. My conclusively informal research shows my life requirements and desires are not especially similar to most others in the broader age group bracket into which I’m about to be involuntarily lumped.
In some ways, my mom is more suited to my demographic than me. (Lord knows her checkbook is capable of much more than mine, although a soaking wet Nicole Richie carries more weight than my savings account.) Cosmopolitans are my mom’s cocktail of choice, while I opt for boring red wine (glass after glass) night after night (after night). She’s been stoked about her new Palm Treo Smartphone, while I’ve been bragging about my new Cerama Bryte Cooktop Cleaner. Sure, my mom can e-mail, surf the Web, text message, talk, take pictures and organize her life from the convenience of a single, sleek wireless device, but I can practically see my reflection in my stovetop!
Yet, I think my mom would be none-too-pleased to be associated with today’s younger demographic since “Murder, She Wrote” and “Masterpiece Theatre” remain tied as her favorite TV shows ever, and the top-rated cable programs among viewers aged 18-49 perennially include wrestling and MTV’s please-God-put-it-out-of-its-misery-already “Real World” series.
By the way — wrestling? Memo to the demo: It’s fake! If you’re positively burning to see men in tights fighting for oxygen, book your trip for next year’s Gay Ski Week in Aspen — there’s always a Downhill Costume Parade.
Maybe if Nielsen would start monitoring how many people are out there, like me, whose television viewing habits are pretty much limited to “Sex and the City” reruns and “Entourage” on-demand through their cable providers, then I’ll start to feel as if I’m not alone in a consumer group full of overgrown adolescents who can’t seem to decide if they relate more to Bart Simpson, Jessica Simpson or O.J. Simpson.
If I were acting like the majority of my soon-to-be sole demographic, I suppose I would crave a shiny new (hybrid) SUV or something Italian, sporty and flashy, instead of being perfectly content with my 3-year-old Subaru station wagon. I should probably want the newest iPod, since mine is 3 years old. But with all the kids in the world that Sheryl Crow and Angelina Jolie have yet to adopt, it seems so wasteful to own more than one (iPod). Especially since mine can hold like 10,000 songs. Besides, I still don’t really know how to use it.
I’m pretty optimistic that with a little hard work and some marketing of my own, I might be able to sway some of the others in the 18- 49 group into seeing the vendee world through my eyes so the full court consumer press comes after us with a vengeance, despite the fact we have more collective wrinkles than the 18-34 group. It’s just going to take a little figurative elbow grease in the next year for me to make the others see my perspective through their laser surgeried-eyes, which are forever hiding, along with their Botoxed-foreheads, behind those oversized designer sunglasses.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 14, 2007. Read the original PDF.