Older people are ignored and invisible to society

The advertising industry’s lack of interest in old people reflects a societal failing, says John Hearne.

People aged over 55 ignore adverts, because adverts ignore them, according to research by a Dublin media company, Mediavest.

It’s a conclusion that’s difficult to contradict. Sit through any television ad break, or flick through any newspaper, and the faces that you’ll see smiling out from the ads are not wrinkled. Unless the ad is for hair dye, there are no grey hairs. You’ll rarely see someone over 55 in a car ad, while, unless you’re Kate Moss or Naomi Campbell, fashion tends to pension off its models long before they hit 30.

Bill Kinlay, CEO of Dublin-based advertising agency Mindshare says that while it’s not his point of view, the industry certainly tends to target younger age groups to the exclusion of older ones.

"A lot of products are trying to build a brand for the future, so they’re building a relationship with a younger or a middle-age group on the basis of they’re going to be around for a while. It sounds a bit mercenary, but they don’t tend to go after the older age groups because there’s a limited lifespan there."

Kinlay at least is telling it like it is. Why sell to a market that’s going to die soon?

The other implicit assumption of this strategy is that older people tend to be loyal to the brands they know. Why advertise to a demographic that not only is on its way out, but is also so stuck in its ways, it will be impervious to our efforts?

Interestingly, however, one of the Mediavest discoveries is that older consumers aren’t actually that loyal at all. It turns out only 14% of those questioned in the survey described themselves as brand-loyal.

"The assumption seems to be that older people switch off their brains," says Eamon Timmins of charity Age Action. "Whereas what’s really driving purchasing decisions is value for money and austerity."

It’s not as if the aisles of Aldi and Lidl are old-person-free. Far from it. Older people are shopping around with the rest of us.

"I think the big thing that struck me in that research is the absence of older people in advertising. If you do see older people in advertising, it’s either in a negative way or it’s a product which is solely for older people," says Timmins.

Sean Oliver is a 76-year-old college lecturer. He says you’ll find advertising aimed at older people if you know where to look. Check out Sky TV or ITV or Alibi during the day. Find any channel showing back-to-back Hercule Poirot, or Murder, She Wrote and the ad breaks will be packed with ads for older people. "But they’re all going to be about planning for your death or extreme old age or illness," says Oliver.

He points out that this morbid targeting isn’t the only evidence of media’s polarising view of ageing. Oliver has a particular beef with RTÉ. "If there’s something on the news about, say, nursing homes, you’ll always see an old lady on a stick walking along Sandymount Strand. They’ll never show older people reasonably fit. They’re always totally in bits, very decrepit and next stop the funeral parlour."

On the face of it, the advertising industry’s lack of interest in older people is hard to understand. In ads, we see twenty-somethings zipping around town in a brand-new car, but the reality is that most twenty-somethings can’t afford brand new cars. According to US figures, over 55s buy three times as many new cars as the 25 to 34 age group.

Here at home, 80% of over-65s own their own home, and of those, 88% are mortgage free. No one’s claiming that older people are rolling in it, but nor is it the case that every cent that comes in is going on prescriptions and hearing-aid batteries.

Moreover, the ranks of the elderly are swelling all the time. Ireland currently has one of the lowest proportions of people aged over 65 in the EU, but this figure is rising fast. It’s anticipated that by 2020, 750,000 Irish people will be aged over 65, and by 2030, that figure will have broken the one million mark. When ad companies do take on ageing, they more often than not get it wrong. At one end of the spectrum, you get extreme incongruity; images of old women got up as bikers or addicted to extreme sports. On the other, you have the ‘senior moment’ cliché of the doddery old dear who keeps the socks in the fridge.

One of the most catastrophic advertising fails in history was General Motors’ Oldsmobile campaign. In a bid to rejig its staid and conservative image, they ran a campaign around the tagline ‘Not your father’s Oldsmobile’. It backfired completely, alienating the company’s long-standing market, and failing to ignite a younger one to replace it. The marque folded not long after the campaign was wound up.

Though ad companies are squeamish about talking on this subject, it has been pointed out that marketing to older people isn’t easy. For one thing, they are not a homogenous group. There’s a world of difference between 55 and 85, and for every 70-year-old with serious health and mobility issues, there’s another with none.

The other issue is the aspirational nature of advertising. We don’t want to be reminded about something unpleasant such as ageing. For good or ill, we do not look at older people and think, "that’s what I want to be". The psychology underlining the twenty-something zipping around in the shiny new car is that if I buy it, I will become that guy, even if I’m 68.

"Do people need to see people like them or some aspirational vision of what they might be, if they wore this jumper, if they wore those runners, if they ate this bread? I don’t know, but the lack of older people in advertising certainly has a negative impact on them," says Timmins.

The whole debate does hint at something darker and more profound. Beth Nunan, from Blackrock, Co Dublin, is 81 years old.

"There’s a real sadness about the whole thing," she says. "When the grey hair sets off, nobody looks at you twice. You’re immediately dumped. You walk along the street and people say ‘I didn’t see you’. And you shrink as well, which is no help. Old age is quite traumatic, because where you were valuable before, you’re not valued, you’re treated now as outliving your use."

This of course is the crux of it. We don’t see older people in ads because we don’t see older people. Timmins says one of the things people bring up again and again is the way you become invisible when you get old.

"What advertising companies fail to recognise is that older people have the same wishes and aspirations and dreams as people in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. You don’t stop dreaming, you don’t stop wishing, you don’t stop living, just because you’re old."