Marketers cater to cravings and remorse

0 Comments | USA TODAY, May, 2006 | by Bruce Horovitz

There's a dirty-little-secret that only the savviest marketers know. Their most desirable consumers love to indulge -- then repent.

First the chocolate. Then the organic salad bar.

First the banana split. Then the cardio class.

Party into the wee hours -- then wake up and do yoga.

Increasingly, it is the yin and yang consumer pushing the shopping cart. And flicking the plastic.

For smart marketers and retailers -- from Whole Foods to Ben & Jerry's to Crunch Fitness -- the trick is to offer products that appeal to both sides of this contradictory consumer.

Perhaps nowhere is this mild form of consumer split personality more pronounced than among the nation's 79 million baby boomers.

"This was a generation raised on indulgence,"...