January 25, 2023
Brands are still significantly underrepresenting the large, affluent audience of people over age 60, according to a new analysis from CreativeX.
The creative tech company analyzed more than 126,000 global ads released in 2022, which were supported by $124 million in ad spend.
The study found just 4% of people …
As a daily watch of ads of all kinds, I think it's even worse. Example, medicne ads that the target market should be for Seniors, the actors are played by younger people. I guess one could jokeinggly say that older folks don't get sick.
Yes, but to be fair, what percentage of these ads feature at least one older person? If a commercial shows a crowd of happy mostly younger people---say 10-20 of them and only two old folks, then the latter's percentage will be very low. But the older folks were still represented. Also, what does represent mean? To what extent were the older people shown or given more important roles? How many commercials featured older people in prominant roles? Do we really expect advertisers to go by a quota rule and make 16% of the faces seen to any extent in their ads people who seem to be 60+?
Research also shows that most elderly people don't want to identify as elderly and still have aspirations for youth - so showing grandma rocking an iPhone doesn't necessarily motivate a 30 year old to go out and get one either.
Is there a petition from AARP to have more seniors represented in ads?