Demographic revenge

I read something in a book I received for Christmas which I did not whole heartedly agree with. With 90% of all Christmas gifts comprise of either CD's/DVD's/books or tickets there was a fairly high chance that I would receive one of the above. And the book it was.

Chris Anderson (the Editor-In-Chief of Wired magazine) has developed a great economic theory (and accompanying book) which he calls "The Long Tail". The basic premise of this is that with the advent of digital technologies etc etc things that were once considered "misses" are now proving to be a rather profitable and therefore important part of the business model. Case studies for this theory include the itunes music store and Amazon.com (can sell many millions more songs/books than a physical store ever could).

Now I have nothing against the theory. Upon reading it, all seems to be in order and in makes practical and financial sense. What I do take note on however is his remark on page 166 that the 18-34 demographic is highly coveted by advertisers. Now, all target demographics are highly coveted by advertisers because they select their target based on numerous things (most importantly swayed by what they are selling and who is buying it!). If you wish to look at the population as a whole in terms of how attractive they are to advertisers then you cannot go past the Baby Boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) who have a lot more disposable income than any other segment of the population and are more willing to part with it too.

Now, this assumption is not isolated to this one book, it just happened to be the catalyst for my frustration which has also given me the impetus to start this, my very first blog. I guss you can say I am just late on the early adopter curve. Whenever TV ratings and channel shares are up for discussion in the press (and we know that the inked cousins of moving pictures like to have a go at their competitor of the advertising dollar) there is always an "expert" who announces to the world that the most desirable portion of the audience for advertisers is this younger age group. Yes it makes sense if you have a product that has an edge to it, and will be utilised by members of this audience but what about every other product or service in the market!

Enough of a rant from me, but it is one of those things that is talked about everywhere and the consequences are never really considered. By the way, it is a good book and a good read.