ITH ads that show older consumers who have been body-bagged or toe-tagged while still living, breathing and trying to shop, AARP today began its latest attempt to convince marketers not to write off consumers over 50 years old. "These days, doctors don't pronounce you dead," one ad says. "Marketers do."
The campaign is the latest effort to attract new advertisers to the pages of AARP Magazine, which is mailed to 22 million households, and other AARP publications. While it is not the first bid to sweeten Madison Avenue on people it considers seniors - Reader's Digest magazine and CBS have long pointed out that their many older readers and viewers have higher incomes and spend more than younger consumers - it may be the most confrontational.
The AARP campaign argues that focused, attentive marketing to older Americans is more important than before. Four million Americans turn 50 each year, while last year consumers over 50 spent nearly $400 billion, said Jim Fishman, group publisher at AARP Publications in New York, the division behind the new campaign. "The time is right," he said.
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Ken Dychtwald, president at Age Wave in San Francisco, said, "If that notion were real, I would be sitting here in Thom McCann shoes, have a Chevy Impala parked in my garage, be wearing a Timex watch, have brushed my teeth with Crest and, for a little arthritis in my shoulder, I would have taken St. Joseph aspirin." "All of which is ridiculous," Mr. Dychtwald said, noting that he drives an Aston Martin and wears a Cartier watch. "There's not one product that I use today that I was using in my late teens."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/business/media/12adco.1.htmlThat last paragraph was a gem. Soooo.... the AARP is very concerned about marketing to seniors who can afford to buy Aston Martins and Cartier watches. Well, we already knew that. Wonder if they should really be using pictures of body bags after supporting the medicare prescription drug bill?