Turns Out it Isn't Funny At All

The news we reported on the other day about Older Consumers not processing jokes the same way as younger consumers has made the Boomer blogosphere light up.

First, we got an email from friend and author, Marti Barletta, pointing us to a quite negative headline treatment of the story from the other side of the pond. Given how difficult it is for British humor to translate into America (remember Benny Hill?), we don't think they really should be that mean to apparently humorless older people.

Then, David Wolfe, of Ageless Marketing, posted his rebuttal to the "scientific study" and declared it bogus. We're going to check with David on things like this in the future, before we post an observation ourselves.

The real point from all of this, in our thinking, is that it is important marketers understand that to one degree or another older consumers process humor differently. Just like they process virtually everything else differently.

That's not a bad thing; it is just a different thing.