The Stock Market Crash and the Quest for Inner Peace

Talk about unlucky timing. On Oct. 7, SWL Retirement, Inc., of Ashland, Ohio, launched a “hilarious” new board game, “The Baby Boomer Retirement Game,” which combines “nostalgia, life experiences and fun as players compete to be the first to reach ‘inner peace.’”

By Oct. 10 -- three days later -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average had fallen 15 percent. Millions of Baby Boomers watched in horror as hundreds of billions of dollars of retirement nest eggs disappeared into the ether.

Not many of us feel like laughing at the moment.

If we had $30 to shell out for "fun" right now -- which we don't -- some of us would head down to the liquor store and spend it on a quart of Jack Black.

Market timing aside, the premise of the game was amusing. The idea “started over cocktails,” according to the game website. (Cocktails? Actually, that’s kind of reassuring. At least they weren’t passing around a joint.) Each player starts with a “severance package” (pretty clever), moves tokens on a board shaped like a peace symbol, and collects life experiences, health and assets in the quest for inner peace.

Now that the thundering herd has trampled their life savings into the mud, real-world Boomers by the millions are reappraising their retirement plans, news accounts tell us. Come to think of it, “The Baby Boomer Retirement Game” may be just the therapy we need. With the meltdown of housing markets and stock prices, achieving “inner peace” may be the only retirement option we can afford.

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.