Boomers like to buy brand names

The Hallmark Channel and The Nielsen Company have teamed up to examine the spending power and brand loyalty of American baby boomers. Here’s what they found:

• Baby boomers account for nearly $230 billion in sales for consumer packaged goods products, representing 55 percent of total sales. Baby boomer households share of sales is five points higher than their share of population.
• There are more than 6,500 brands measured in Homescan data, which tracks product purchases across consumer packaged goods, health and beauty aids and other key product categories, that have more than 1 percent U.S. penetration. Of those brands, baby boomers account for more than half of sales for 72 percent of those brands.
• For 30 percent of brands, brand loyalty is lower among baby boomers than it is among younger households (with the head of house age 18 to 43). For another 48 percent of brands, there was no difference in brand loyalty.