Dear Advertiser,
Seniors are pretty much invisible to advertisers in America. We get weary of watching a TV world where you seldom see anyone over 50. And when you do, they're most often ding-a-lings, duffers or bores.
Consumers 18 - to 49-years-old are whom most advertisers want to reach. So that's who we see on TV.
Except news shows. Seems that no one under 55 watches the news anymore. With just us geezers watching, TV news brings with it reminders of our false teeth, arthritis, and incontinence problems. It's a senior world from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every evening.
Then it becomes prime time when the only seniors you'll ever see are fools and idiots.
Watch "Frasier's" Martin Crane, permanently planted in his Barcalounger squatting in front of a television with his jumping dog, Eddie, by his side. On "Everybody Loves Raymond," Marie Barone is overbearing and meddling; husband Frank is long-suffering. Both are clichés older than I am. As series star Doris Roberts, 71, says of the entertainment industry during testimony at a September 2002 Senate Committee, "They frequently show seniors in insulting and degrading ways, either mean or incompetent."
It's not that advertisers and TV producers want to insult us. They live in a world in which no one lives beyond 49.
Turn 50 and — Poof! — you're a goner. While we as a nation see more gray every day — a boomer turns 50 every eight seconds, with 77 million approaching retirement age — advertisers believe the viewing world is forever young. Mention the senior market and even veteran admen and women conjure Mr. Whipple squeezing Charmin while Clara chortles "Where's the beef?"
The result? Older viewers are fleeing the networks in droves. Since 1990, one third of viewers 55 and older have deserted broadcast TV's top 20.
And advertisers still don't get it. Especially the part where we geezers are rich. And spending like crazy. According to J. Walter Thompson Specialized Communications, Mature Market Group, today's 50-plus market holds more than $1.6 trillion in buying power, yet less than 10 percent of today's advertising focuses on people over the age of fifty.
MMG finds that seniors control 75 percent of the nation's financial assets, control 70 percent of our country's net worth, and over half of its discretionary spending.
Advertisers haven't a clue
When it comes to seniors, advertisers still buy time on programs that casts our age group as drooling dumbbells. It's traditional!
Specifically, it's the advertising agency's 20-something media buyers who are at fault. They know not, and actually think it's humorous to stereotype a senior as a know-nothing goof.
Here's the real picture. Americans 50 and over...
- Own more homes than any other age group.
- Purchase 41 percent of all new cars.
- Spend 74 percent more on a typical vacation than 18- to 49-year-olds.
- Enjoy more than $900 billion in income.
- Sixteen million of us exercise at least three times a week.
According to a Baruch College-Harris Poll commissioned by Business Week Magazine, the 50 plus age group is most likely to buy online, 42% of those 65 and over have purchased something online, followed closely by the 50-to-64-year-olds, 39% of whom have made an on-line purchase.
Even when they actually want to reach us, advertisers biggest blunder is thinking that old people are old.
I'm sure by now you understand perfectly what I'm saying here.
Here's another surprise. The same concepts that are important to you are important to us: respect, connectedness, independence, personal growth and revitalization.
We all want affirmation of personal worth. If advertisers want to capture our attention on the tube, older characters must embrace some of these aspects.
Above all, don't talk down to us. We're not dumb. Don't consider us that way. Remember the "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercial for an emergency communication device? That spot almost killed that entire product category. Elders, even those who could have benefited from such a product, stayed away in droves.
Never base your sale on fear. Better to talk about maintaining independence.
I trust you guys and gals will learn all this soon -- before you go on wasting millions of advertising dollars. Because until you and your clients catch on, I and my millions of peers and their dollars will continue to get geezer mail that never gets opened and stereotypical TV that never gets watched.
Frank Kaiser
SuddenlySenior.com
Please visit suddenlysenior.com for more of Frank Kaiser's articles.
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Senior Living is expanding with a television series called "Senior Living On Location", which aims to showcase and document the active lives of local inspiring seniors. Watch our trailer HERE! If you would like more information about advertising opportunities, please call Senior Living Sales Manager, Barry Risto or email sales@seniorlivingmag.com.
Berwick Retirement Communities has made a very clear statement about how this small, family-owned BC company intended to elevate the quality of life for its residents..jpg)
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