• by Larry Dobrow , January 14, 2004

AARP The Magazine's attempt last summer to target younger media buyers and planners featured street stenciling on and around Madison Avenue, aerial advertising over The Hamptons and Fire Island, and promotions in New York City and Hamptons boîtes. This time around, the mag's approach isn't quite as subtle.

In a trade campaign breaking this week, AARP Publications is asking the media community why it has "written off" (the campaign's snappy moniker) the 50-plus audience. The print ads depict healthy-looking 50-year-olds in body bags, outlined by crime-scene chalk markings. Taglines include "these days, doctors don't pronounce you dead - marketers do" and "to most marketers, consumers die the minute they turn 50."

The ads are slated to run in a host of trade publications and on both general interest and marketing industry Web sites. They will be accompanied by a direct mail component, consisting of sympathy cards - "Sorry for your loss... and for missing out on over $400 billion worth of disposable income" - sent to media buyers.

Needless to say, the tone of "Written Off" is distinctly more strident than that of last summer's "Rethink 50+" push. "We're a little frustrated," admits Jim Fishman, AARP Publications' group publisher. "These huge marketers talk endlessly about the 50-plus market or the 'mature market' or whatever they call it, and then they don't do anything about it. This campaign is designed to get their attention."

The target of Fishman's frustration seems mostly to be brand managers in their 20s and 30s, who he believes willfully ignore the size and disposable income of the 50-plus market. "They don't want to be seen marketing to people over 50, because they think that might turn younger people off," he explains. "Sales managers, they don't care who walks into the showroom and buys the car, right? What they care about is that somebody is buying the car."

Many of Fishman's arguments and analogies, in fact, refer to the automotive industry. He notes that 25 years ago, women were buying half of all cars sold in the U.S. and yet car companies didn't market to them. "That's comparable to what we're seeing here," he says. "Close to half the population is over 50, but marketers' attitude is 'they see our ads on TV and in magazines. Why should we target them specially?' The answer is that these people don't know that you're talking to them."

Fishman obviously doesn't expect an immediate turnaround in the attitude of young media managers towards AARP The Magazine, and he concedes that the relatively confrontational approach could annoy a segment of the audience he is hoping to attract. His goals for the campaign, then, are relatively modest. "We'd like it to start conversations at agencies and companies," he says. "If they start asking 'are we one of the companies [ignoring the 50-plus market]?,' that's part of the battle right there."