Boomers Buying Brain Exercise

Data is in that the "brain fitness" software category is a $225 million industry, doubling the last two years, according to this article by the Associated Press.

By 2010, we think the entire "brain fitness" category, from software, books, gyms and who know what else, will be many, many times larger. Those same Baby Boomers who invented the physical fitness boom in the 1970's as young adults are going to spend billions on mental fitness as older adults.

Example: SF-based vibrantBrains -- which seems to have a good idea, but not an award-winning tagline:

A Health Club for Your Brain
Where the Sweat is Figurative,
but the Results are Real

Maybe their copywriter needs to use the brain gym a little more and try again...

This is a Post About Boomers and....uh...oh yeah, Memory

One area we have been predicting will be big for marketers and smart businesspeople is helping Boomers exercise their brains (we wrote about it last year, for example). This article from The New York Times earlier this week sheds new light on the opportunity.

Boomers were the generation that created and embraced the fitness craze in the 1970's and 80's. They made it acceptable for adults, grown-ups that is, to keep wearing sneakers and gym clothes, long past their last official recess or gym class. As David Brooks pointed put in his 2001 book Bobos in Paradise, Boomers turned what was once called "playing" into "working out." That's right, we made play into work. Our Puritan forefathers must be laughing at us from above.

Mental gymnastics will prove to be a big business as Boomers see their parents living well into their 80's and 90's, with the body parts holding up while mental acuity falters. For those of you looking for inexpensive ways to exercise your brains, try this book, Keep Your Brain Alive, and master neurobics.

Or do some jumping jacks.

The Boomer Brain

Brilliant piece by David Brooks in today's New York Times about how he's "outsourced" his brain. The point, in a nutshell, is that he no longer has to use brain cells to remember stuff like directions, phone numbers, even how to do things, because he's got a GPS system, a Blackberry and Wikipedia.

While insightful on its own merits, it also raise two issues for marketers and for Boomers.

First, with all the technology and tools we Boomers are using so we don't have to use our own memories to retain information, what exactly will we be using our brains for as we grow older?

These days, with modern medicine, the body and most of its parts can be kept in working order longer and longer. But the brain seems to lose steam and ability, no matter how many Red Bulls we drink. Knowing that future, how will using our brains less and less now, during Middle Age, do to hurt our brain functionality? Or will it actually help us?

In our work, we've identified Mental Vitality as a key driver of Boomer behavior going forward. Boomers want to make sure their brains stay fully functioning until their last breath, and will invest time, money and effort into making that the case.

So Brooks' observation could create opportunities for marketers that can tap into that extra capacity. There is a business here, we think.

The second issue comes from this in Brook's piece:

"I read in a piece by Clive Thompson in Wired that a third of the people under 30 can’t remember their own phone number. Their smartphones are smart, so they don’t need to be. Today’s young people are forgoing memory before they even have a chance to lose it."

How indeed will today's young people use the "Free Space" now available in their brain due to outsourced tasks?

Initially, we got all giddy thinking about the potential advancement of mankind. Then we realized what will probably happen is what happens when we get new computers or devices with double the gigabytes of storage. Before we know it, the extra gigabytes are gone, used up by who-knows-what we've stored.

Still, though, this could create opportunities for marketers and businesses to figure out how to leverage this brain power now available.

Or, we'll discover years from now that it provided no major advancement for mankind. Just a place for different information to be put into long-term storage.