• Adweek, Tuesday, July 28, 2009 10:37 AM

On the other side of the spectrum, the venerable Mark Dolliver rounds up reports and experts and provides a clear picture of perhaps the murkiest demographic in marketing: the 65-plus consumer. To start, a recent Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey confirms what anyone who plays in a senior softball league knows anecdotally: 60% of respondents age 65-plus say they feel younger than their actual age -- "in many cases much younger."

People in the Silent Generation (including those born from 1925 to 1942) are pioneering a change in what this life stage means, Ann Fishman, president of Generational Targeted Marketing, tells Dolliver. "They're having a second middle age before becoming elderly," she says. "And they're making it up as they go along, because it's never been done before."

So you want to use images of people who are actually younger than your target by a few years, or practice "ageless marketing," or combine the two. Or just make sure that the models are "vibrant." Or "authentic." Actually, there's lots of advice, from copy length to appealing to his cohort's desire for connectedness that make this longer-than-usual piece well worth the read.

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