The way advertisements have changed over the years is fascinating. We look at advertisements that came out in the 50s and cringe at the corniness of them and wonder Who made that!? The way products are marketed has taken many forms: from cheesy dialogue to slap-stick humor, from tear-jerking moments to hilarious one-liners. Advertisers have taken drastic creative liberty to get their audiences to remember and, most importantly, buy their products.
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Senior citizens in needs of companionship and support
implying the idea that they are not independent |
But with how advertising has evolved, it still amazes me how the tactics used on a certain demographic have remain virtually unchanged, and that is how they advertise to the senior citizens. To put it plainly straight from the horse's mouth,
"Instead, my age led marketers to assume that I must be desperate for companionship, struggling with health decline, and ruminating on my own death. Meanwhile, I’ve seen virtually no marketing for the kinds of things I’m interested in such as great hotels in Rome or beautiful places to hike in upstate New York." Source.
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| Advertisements focused on health decline and loneliness |
Once you hit your 50's or 60's, marketers start marketing to you in a different way. They no longer care about your search history, amazon history, or all the other data they have collected about you based on where you been, what you've said, or what you have purchased. There is only one way to market to the elderly and it is based on all the stereotypes that old people are boring, lonely, and waiting to die.
It astounds me that this is the case because from a marketing standpoint, this is a substantial wasted opportunity. When looking at the demographics of it, the amount of money and potential buyers wasted because the primeval notion that old people will not be interested in anything other than prune juice and denture cream is as archaic as it is foolish.
First and foremost, elderly are not only the largest, but one of the fastest growing of the demographics. (You can thank the baby boomer and modern medicine increasing life expectancy). With the life expectancy increasing a whole percentage point, 78.8%-79.4% within this decade alone and the safe prediction that will only increase with the modern times, that is a large group of people to ignore advertising to. (Source: That statistic came from the book Marketing to the Aging Consumer by Dick Stroud and Kim Walker published in 2013).
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| Statistics for United States population broken down based on age and gender. Source for Image |
Ironically enough, not only do they hold the highest numbers in population density, but they also hold all the money. The real money that one would think marketers would love to get their hands on. People over the age of 50 "are responsible for more than half of consumer spending in the United States." Source. Half of the population, 50% of the money flow, and the only thing people can think to advertise to them is medication for erectile dysfunction. To put in perspective the amount of money being withheld,
"Baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, shell out the most each year — more than half a trillion dollars, according to a study by Epsilon. Generation X (which includes some people over 50) was a distant second, followed by millennials, the Silent Generation and Gen Z. Yet to many businesses, people over 50 might as well be invisible. Only an estimated 5 to 10% of marketing budgets are devoted to winning them over." Source
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The people are always shown with declining health and
in need of assistance. Not lively and active until after they
have taken the medication advertised |
Half a trillion dollars and only 5-10% of the advertisements are aimed to them? I cannot help but feel that is idiotic. The only reason for this being that its believed that the elderly are 1. uninterested in anything new there is to offer, and the only things they care about are living comfortably until they die. And 2. too stupid to understand latest trends and technology, and it would be a waste of time to advertise to them. Because how could the elderly care about smartphones and new cars even though they are the ones with the cash to afford the latest luxuries and all the time in the world to enjoy them.
This blatant disrespectful idea that the older generation is incapable to learning new things is glaringly obvious in the commercials featuring them. Take Jitterbug's latest 2019 advertisement about their new Jitterbug smartphone.
Not once during this advertisement did the man give his opinion on the phone. The voice over was assumed to be his daughter "taking care" of her father by giving him a phone he could "understand." It perpetuates this idea that the elderly are incapable anymore of making decisions for themselves, and they need simple products that are easy for them to understand. Even the man towards the end of the ad, the representative for the Jitterbug company, was speaking in this demeaning way where he was talking over the target audience's heads (the older people who would be interested in the phone) and to the children who are forced to take care of their poor senile parents.
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| My mamaw and I and this was taken on her new iPhone 11 |
I laugh at this absurd notion. In my previous blog, I discussed the latest iPhone 11. I talked about a personal review of this product because I saw it in action, and the person who had purchased and was using this phone was none other than my grandmother. My 70 year old grandmother who does not have white hair that looks like a beehive on her head, who does not even remotely look a day of 58, who is is great health and takes absolutely no medication whatsoever, who not only has the latest iPhone, purchased a touch screen HP laptop and uses that very purple laptop to still keep the books, tax records, documents, and all the number crunching (that I don't even understand) for my grandfather's company as well as her son's company on the latest updated software application for this... I could go on but I dare say the point is clear. She is more than capable of understanding what's new and trending in the world. In fact when asked, she said she laughs at the ads she sees on TV. She feels they are so skewed and far off that it is comical. And yet she and many others in the baby boomer generation are treated as if she are ignorant buffoons who are reminiscing on the old days waiting to pass on to a better place. Those marketers are losing an audience because that very audience is laughing in their face at how far off in left field they are.
To me, it is obvious it is a lost marketing opportunity, and companies are eating their losses because of it in one way or another. They are hell bent on getting the younger generation's pinching of earnings (we haven't been in the working world long enough to accumulate that excess wealth for luxury spending) while the largest group in the country is looking for ways to spend their dollars because now they have the time to enjoy. They aren't near as picky or looking to save a buck because they are past the financial struggles of youth when first striking out on your own. And yet people think they are stupid and don't want to "waste their time" dealing with "old people."
I do find irony in the whole situation because in a way I feel the older demographic is getting the last laugh. They are sitting on piles of money accumulated over the years of hard work and retirement with benefits, and now with all the free time in the world to spend it. A lifetime to enjoy the fruits of their labor and yet, they are not even on advertiser's radars to market to because of preconceived notions that there are no new, fun products the elderly would want. No vacations, no new cars, not RV's for traveling because all our grandparents do is sit at home and watch FOX with all the ads for latest medications for back pain and blood pressure.
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