As baby boomers retire, a market to serve them is about to explode. And Journerdism points out a new site called BoomerGirl.com, which was created by LJWorld.com to answer the emerging trend.
The pluses. Most of the content seems on target. Sections address boomer women’s desire to keep learning and doing with information about joining clubs and traveling. The design challenges the status quo.
The minuses. BoomerGirl doesn’t do much to act as a tool for helping women help the world around them. The Oprah effect is basically ignored.
But the big problem is the name, BoomerGirl.com, which is strained to be fun and instead turns condescending. Women don’t appreciate being called girls. The editors say they knew that and chose the name anyway.
We ran the name by a LOT of women. The majority of them agreed that, in the context of this Web site - where we're clearly equals and "all in this together" — "girl" is a term of endearment and affection, as in a "it's a girl thing" or "night out with the girls."
The problem is that when a person first hears the name, they don’t have any context that might save it. The name is all they know. And they’re immediately insulted. Not a good first impression.
All of the marketing for the site will have to be spent convincing women to disregard the name. Look past the name, they'll say, it's got good content.
Comments (2)
You say, "BoomerGirl doesn’t do much to act as a tool for helping women help the world around them."
On another blog I read that some boomer woman had remarked, "haven't we done enough?"
I think the next decade for boomer women will be one of searching and reclaiming who we are. Oprah has the luxury of "people" and not children. The rest of us have been caring for others (children, mates) for the last 20+ years, perhaps holding a job and perhaps looking forward to caretaking our parents. Sites like BoomerGirl and Booming Women Speak are a chance for us to connect to others in the same situations and to begin to explore what we want to achieve in the next decades.
Posted by Casey Dawes | January 19, 2007 12:26 PM
Posted on January 19, 2007 12:26
How surprising to hear anyone say that women, in general, are sick of helping people. It's just not what I see from Boomers in the news, or from the Boomer-age women I know.
Sure, everyone wants to have fun. And when I can retire, I'll well deserve a break.
But since when is volunteering not an effective way to connect with other people? And what if what you want to achieve in the next decades is to share with others the great blessings of your life? Is charity off-limits because "you've done enough?"
These things aren't mutually exclusive.
Posted by Lucas | January 19, 2007 7:33 PM
Posted on January 19, 2007 19:33