You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a group of people with trillions of dollars in disposable income would be a prime target for advertisers.
But you’d be wrong.
In the United States (and in much of the rest of the developed world) one third of the population is over the age of 50. But when the AARP, and American advocacy group for older people, looked at a random sample of media images, people over 50 only appeared in about 15% OF THEM
And most of the time, they appeared in domestic situations, or with a medical professional. They rarely appeared to do anything more energetic than reaching for the TV remote. The AARP says older people are shunned or caricatured in media images, and rarely shown in workplace images.
As part of my job at the Australian broadcaster SBS I have to find images to illustrate some of our online news stories. Recently we were looking in the giant Getty photo library for an older person in a workplace. Out of hundreds of thousands of images we found… one.
Less than 5 percent of the images analysed by AARP showed older people handling technology, even though the other research has determined that 69 percent of people between 55 and 73 own a smartphone.
Martha Boudreau, AARP’s chief communications and marketing officer told the New York Times “Recent ads have described being 50 years old as ‘basically dead'”.
Why does this happen? Because hardly anyone over 40 works in advertising. In Britain, the average age of advertising employees is not quite 34. Workers in the industry say few employees last long enough to have a retirement party.
AARP says advertising agencies and their clients need to update their portrayals of older people to show them leading full, active lives because otherwise it perpetuates unrealistic stereotypes and contributes to age discrimination. Getty have taken the hint. This week, they have introduced a collection of 1,400 images that show older people running businesses, playing basketball and hanging out with younger generations.
It’s a start.
But there’s a long way to go.