Millennials and their parents on the radar screen of marketers

Sometimes you find the most interesting things way down deep in an article. Here's a story from the Boston Globe about 40-something mothers with crushes on teen idols, like Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward Cullen on the Twilight movie series. Why, the story asks, is this happening now?

They come up with several explanations, one of which, surprise, is marketing.

But maybe mom’s not to blame. It turns out she’s being targeted by media firms that know she’ll be watching shows with her daughter. “When you have a Millennial target’’ — someone born between 1980 and 2000 — “you necessarily have a secondary target of her mother,’’ said Jack MacKenzie, president of the Millennial Strategy Program at Frank N. Magid Associates, a consulting firm. “That’s the way it is today. Exploiting that is smart business.’’

So now you know. Millennials are the subject of special targeted campaigns, and their parents are the "secondary target." I doubt that any of those moms swooning over young stars thought there was any directed effort to manipulate their thoughts. Hmmm.