Influencers have a baby boomer problem

Baby boomers, like this baby right here, often find influencers … annoying.

Debrocke/ClassicStock/Getty Images A version of this post appears in CMO Insider.

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Influencer marketing to baby boomers hits different — and not in the way brands intended.

Research from Morning Consult , conducted exclusively for Business Insider, reveals a stark generational divide in attitudes toward influencers.

Boomers — people born between 1946 and 1964 — are distrustful of influencers, skeptical of their recommendations, and more likely to find their content "annoying." In the survey of roughly 2,000 US adults conducted in September, 31% of boomers said they trust influencer recommendations at least somewhat, compared with 62% of Gen Z and 64% of millennials.

Two in five (40%) boomers surveyed said they trust influencers less than they did a few years ago.

Sure, plenty of adults become set in their ways and harder to persuade as they age.

But advertising pros said there's another factor that could help explain boomers' wariness of influencer marketing : brands themselves continue to overlook the older generation.

"Brands are terrified of taking any dollars away from speaking to young people," said Jennifer Meehan, an EVP at the communications agency Edelman.

That fear also extends into the creators they look to partner with.

Florian Dost, a marketing professor at Brandenburg University of Technology in Germany, interviewed influencer agencies and talent managers as part of a recent study .

Some of the managers his team interviewed found that older influencers often drove higher campaign conversion rates, but brands rejected them.

"Agencies may know that," Dost said.