The Informational Feature From USA Today’s Lesson Plan “The Facts with a Twist’ 1 Some feature stories can exhibit a “newsy” slan

							                                    The Informational Feature
                      (From USA Today’s Lesson Plan: “The Facts with a Twist’)


   1. Some feature stories can exhibit a “newsy” slant. Newsy features are also known as “informative
       feature articles.” These articles tend to include lots of details and facts, many names, quotes,
       little known but interesting facts, intriguing incidents, an appealing form, and vivid writing

   2. They still contain some narrative techniques and human interest elements, but they also focus
       more on the basic elements of a news story—the 5 Ws and an H (who, what, when, where, why,
       how).

   3. An example of an Informational Feature follows. As you read keep the following questions in
      mind :
           What news hook is at the heart of this story? (5 Ws and an H) What question draws the
             reader in?
           What emotions are raised in this story?
           What writing devices are used in this article? Cite specific places.
           Is there a beginning, middle, and end of the article?
           Are any little known, unusual facts or tidbits used in this story? How about intriguing
             incidents?
           Can this topic be considered original or unusual based on the types of issues covered in
             other news you read or view? Why?


Forever young
Marketers are searching for sly ways to sell to 50-something boomers who
refuse to grow old
By Marci McDonald

Linda Leavene dropped her subscription to Cosmopolitan because all it seemed to feature were
star-struck 20-somethings. On TV, she finds the few commercials that appear aimed at her
equally alien. "They show people with gray hair playing golf," she says. At 51, the blond-haired
Leavene spends weekends riding Arizona's byways with her husband, Mike, 52, a construction
investigator, on the back of his '98 Harley Ultra Classic. "In the ads, either everybody is really
young or really old," Leavene says. "There's nobody you can identify with."

That lament is increasingly common among America's 76 million baby boomers. As it turns out,
their estrangement from marketers is mutual. This year, with the first wave of boomers turning
55, consumer strategists are discovering that they can't talk to this group as they did to the 55-
year-olds of generations past. At the very moment companies are launching a barrage of new
products to cash in on boomers' changing physiques, many are wising up to the fact that they'd
better not even hint that their target audience is, well, getting on. "It's very hard to address them
by telling them they're older," says Cheryl Russell, the editor of New Strategist Publications in
Ithaca, N.Y. "Any businesses that do that are just going to turn them off." Allen Adamson of
branding consultants Landor Associates agrees: "Boomers are kicking and screaming their way
into this new life stage. They're much more sensitive to any suggestions they might not be who
they once were."
The most recent testimonial to that sensitivity now sits on newsstands. Last month, AARP, better
known in its former incarnation as the American Association of Retired Persons, launched a
magazine aimed at 45-to-55-year-olds called, wistfully, My Generation. The glossy new monthly
was, in fact, born out of an institutional crisis. Five years ago, just as more Americans began
turning 50 than ever before–about one every eight seconds–AARP braced for a deluge of new
boomer members. Instead, its sign-up rate stalled. Why? In focus groups, 50-year-olds confessed
they dreaded getting Modern Maturity, AARP's free membership magazine, which reminded
them of seniors' waning powers. "Baby boomers don't want to consider themselves seniors," says
editorial director Hugh Delehanty. "Forget that word."

Stealth sell.
Across the country, companies are heeding his advice as they resort to variations of stealth
marketing. Some consultants are scrambling to come up with upbeat euphemisms for an age
once considered synonymous with early retirement. California gerontologist Ken Dychtwald
calls it "middlescence." And Del Webb Corp., the largest builder of U.S. retirement
communities, has trademarked the term "Zoomers" for those 55-year-olds who have snubbed
shuffleboard courts in favor of climbing walls at its "active adult" developments. As companies
grapple with how to address that vast slice of the population born between 1946 and 1964, the
demand for "mature market" experts has soared. Candace Corlett, president of the 50-plus
practice at WSL Strategic Retail, reports business is up 300 percent over last year.

In fact, despite being virtually written off by the TV networks, 35-to-54-year-olds remain the
nation's biggest spenders. "Retailing had become youth obsessed," says Corlett. "But companies
are realizing this is too large a segment of the population to ignore anymore." From 1990 to last
year, they accounted for 50.3 percent of all household purchases, or a whopping $2 trillion. They
have even driven the one sector that gave them the coldest shoulder: online shopping. Last year,
according to a study by Online Insight and Accenture, more than half of those who made the
majority of Internet purchases were over 35. "So many of the messages were targeted to the
belly-ring-and-scooter set," says Stephen Dull, an Accenture partner. "But most of the people
doing the purchasing were the baby boomers."

Corlett blames that disconnect on the fact that the average age of today's brand managers is 29.
"In our sensitivity training sessions, when we ask them to draw someone in their 50s or 60s," she
says, "often what they come up with is a picture of someone in their 90s."

Dychtwald faults a decades-old marketing theory that warned brand builders to imprint teens
before their tastes were cemented for life. Anyone over 50 they dismissed as a brand-stodgy
bore. But at 50, with an 11-year-old son, Dychtwald argues, "I'm trying more new things than I
ever did in my 20s." Recent research, in fact, classes boomers as lifelong "experimenters" who
may be the most fickle consumers yet. "They grew up using brands to define who they are,"
Adamson says, "so they're more likely to switch if their brand pegs them as over the hill."
That wary relationship with the calendar has made pitching to the oldest boomers a marketing
minefield. All Americans over 35 tend to see themselves as younger than they are. But for this
year's 55-year-olds, says George Moschis, director of the Center for Mature Consumer Studies at
Georgia State University, the reality gap can be 15 years or more. Woe then to products that
feature photos of actual 50-somethings or lump boomers in with their parents. "Baby boomers
don't want to identify themselves with other old people," Moschis says.

A decade ago, companies could mass-market to everyone over 55. "There was more of a herd
mentality," says Paul Bessler, vice president of research at Del Webb. Now the former Me
generation is demanding more customized products and attention. Ann Fishman, president of
Generational-Targeted Marketing Corp. in New Orleans, advises appealing to boomers' values
and longings, not their physical constraints. Russell suggests talking to them "as if they're
adolescents just rediscovering the world. A lot of them have been shut up in the house with
young children for years, and now they're beginning to discover their freedom."

Still, it's one thing to wax lyrical selling adventure travel packages; it's quite another when it
comes to products catering to creaky joints. Recently, some companies have chosen not to beat
around the chronological bush. Last August, when Sears invaded the $369 million boomer
cosmetic market with its M Balance line, it trumpeted the fact that M stood for that long-taboo
term, menopause. "Ten years ago, it was very hush-hush," explains Carl Schmitt, senior director
of marketing for Sears Circle of Beauty. But with 4,800 women a day now entering menopause,
focus groups demanded a "more open, honest approach."

Still, most consumer strategists warn against such candor. In January, when Essilor launched a
campaign touting its continuous-wear Varilux lenses for presbyopia–the condition that obliges
boomers to hold menus at arm's length–it leavened its message with nostalgia and self-mockery.
In a nod to the 1968 protesters known as the Chicago Seven, its TV spots feature the Presbyopic
Six, who land in jail after demonstrating for better sight. "If you say it with humor, you can get
away with it," says Ruth Parr, brand-planning director at DDB Worldwide. "But to tell them
straight on they're middle-aged? No way."

For the retirement industry, however, boomers pose the greatest challenge. "For 15 years, we've
been kind of licking our chops because we knew this big wave was coming our way," says Gary
Newman, vice president for marketing at Del Webb. But labor statistics show that more
Americans over 65, faced with dwindling pensions, are putting off the gold watch. "My fear is
that, instead of this big wave coming our way," Newman says, "we could actually find ourselves
challenged."

Get to work.
Already, Del Webb has begun touting its Sun Cities as havens for starting a second career. And
Newman is pondering repositioning some as pools of qualified labor available to be tapped by
the knowledge industry. He hopes that ploy might prod older boomers to resign sooner from
thankless jobs and move south. "We think if they knew they could work 20 to 25 hours a week,"
he says, "they might make that move earlier."

The fact that baby boomers are shaking up conventional marketing wisdom should come as no
surprise. After all, they have redefined every era they've passed through, and as they put a new
spin on life over 55, they are likely to bring new images and insights to the process of aging
itself. But as researchers prepare to study their purchasing habits further, AARP's teams have
already unearthed one marketing tip: They hate being called boomers.