Stop the Name Calling When Marketing to Older Adults
A few years ago, I received my first mailing from AARP. It was a bit shocking, because I was a decade away from being eligible for AARP. I was also a solid 25 years away from being Medicare-eligible. That mailer irritated me and I didn’t know why. Then it hit me. I realized that in the not-so-distant future, I will be generalized. I will be labeled. For some marketers, I’ll no longer be an individual, but part of the senior-adult demographic. Marketers, or worse, non-marketers who have influence over a company’s marketing department, often fall into a trap of creating false generalizations; even offensive stereotypes about target audiences. This is most prevalent in healthcare marketing to seniors—a segment that will account for 45 percent of the U.S. population by the end of 2015. Sadly, there aren’t many 65-year-olds in corporate marketing departments. And in the digital age, even Gen Xers are “old school” to some Millennials. This generation gap between marketer and ...