We talk about diversity and inclusion but there is one group
that still feels left out of the conversation. That would be older adults who,
while constituting over 46% of the U.S. population are often at zero percent
representation in certain advertising categories. Happily,
A+E’s
Marcela Tabares, Senior Vice President Strategic & Cultural Insights, Ad
Sales Research, and Tara Lantieri, Senior Director, Primary Research, Ad Sales
Strategic Insights, are on a mission to change that.
A+E has embarked on a series of research studies to better
understand the themes and attitudes around aging and to dispel the myths about
older adults. Being a woman of a certain age, I am especially curious about the
takeaways and how we as a society can pivot to a more productive representation.
“I became acutely aware of my own ages beliefs
about my life and others because I'm human and conditioned by this society,”
confessed Tabares who added, “Believing messages that have bombarded us for
decades makes it hard to not be affected,”
The
Next Phase of Total Audience Research
A+E
has done considerable work on the value of total audience. “Last year we talked about bringing to life the
power of the adult 50 plus consumer. We talked about the scale and spending
power conducting proprietary studies that were based on actual purchase
behavior and receptivity,” explained Tabares.
This latest phase is in creative messaging which is still
partially in the field but has already produced a wealth of attitudinal
information. “It has been all about understanding the lived experience of being
an older adult,” Tabares stated, “We told marketers that this is a really
important consumer segment, yet they feel overlooked and undervalued. Let's
have a closer look so that we can come up with some insights that will help
navigate and provide insights around the creative, about how to connect with
them and reach them.”
Crafting The Methodology
Ageism probably started early in our history when we moved from an
agrarian to an industrial society. “We
use to value our elders or older people because they were the purveyors of
knowledge. With industrialization and post modernism, society started to shift
toward seeing older people more as a burden on society and the economy,”
Tabares said.
The way this
plays out in advertising messaging today is with representation that leans on unflattering
stereotypical identities of aging. “We tested ads that leaned on tropes whether
it's making fun of the older person as the butt of the joke or one that's
vulnerable, dependent, weak and frail,” she explained. But, “there are also
positive stereotypes such as the happy, loving, doting grandmother grandfather
and a person who's retiring, very active and wealthy. So there are positive and
negative stereotypes. We're testing that full spectrum.”
The challenge is that the older cohort
is treated as one large segment devoid of nuance. In fact there are many
sub-segments. According to Tabares, “We have been taught to conceptualize older
people as this homogenous group.” In order to craft a more nuanced look
at the older cohort, the methodology included an ethnography of 60 participants
which then went into field to form a quantitative survey. “Then we did an ad audit with Marketcast
using AI technology to evaluate about 20,000 ads to see what is the
representation and who are we seeing in these ads. There is also an ad test in
field using survey based data testing 28 different ads that we had identified
as representative of some of the consistent themes in terms of the rules or the
storylines are the attributes,” she noted.
Highlights of the Creative Study So Far
The
results of the ethnography not only reveled how older adults view society’s
perceptions of them but also how they themselves feel about aging.
Feeling
of Unworthiness - Society, the respondents felt, viewed them
as, “passive, feeble, out of touch,
undesirable, unsexy and irrelevant,” Tabares shared, “What this brought up was
a sense of unworthiness. In the eyes of society, we're just not as worthy. Why
can't they see who I really am and that I am worthy.” One 44 year old female
respondent expressed a common theme; “I feel like the older, I get the less
significant my opinion is and society as a whole is starting to look through me
rather than at me.”
Gender Differences on Aging - According to Lantieri, “Women are
(negatively) impacted by ageless- beauty ideals. They also feel less permission
to age and then they're harder about it on themselves when they do. They're
more likely to say they must keep the signs of aging at bay compared to men.”
Essentially, women have less permission to age than men and, “they're less
likely than men to agree that wrinkles and age spots and gray and white hair
are normal things accumulated over time. It's not surprising that women 50+ are
less confident compared to men.”
Chronological
Age Has No Meaning - “Chronological
age is constantly being redefined and shifting,” noted Tabares, who added, “Most
people in the qualitative research, on average, perceived themselves as 15
years younger. Chronological numbers are a very homogenized narrow view and not
very helpful. We tend to feel our age psychologically, cognitively and socially.”
Ethnic Differences – Lantieri did a deep dive by ethnicity and
found that, “Black adults 50+ are more positive about aging than other groups.
They feel more comfortable, more confident, more optimistic, more likely to
agree that their life has meaning and have a lot to look forward to. They're
forward looking and not saying that their best days are behind them.” Their
positivity includes a recognition of the gains they have in getting older such
as, “wisdom, gratitude, increased faith and spirituality. They're also more
likely to agree there's no shame in getting older, that aging is normal and it
should be normalized. They don't let age related changes hold them back.”
Among the Asian population, “They're
more likely to feel confident about how they're doing in terms of their health
and their finances, more likely to say that they're thriving financially and
they're less likely to report experiencing mental can medical conditions and
needing help with mobility and things like that,” stated Lantieri. Overall they
report feeling more confident about their health more so than the other groups.
However, “The white adult population
50+ is having a harder time,” she added, “They are more likely to say that
aging is scary, less likely to feel that they can lean on their families for
help if they need it and least likely to
say that they don't let those age related changes hold them back. They also
feel more negative about their appearance versus all the other groups are most
likely to say they're less attractive compared to when they were younger.”
Dispelling the Myths of Age
What can we do to dispel the myths of
aging? For one thing, older adults want representations that are relatable. “It's
all about creating more realistic portrayals,” Tabares recommended, “We are not
a homogenous group. Don't hide us. People don't disappear with age. Include more
of them in more varied roles.” According to Lantieri, “Contrary to popular
opinion, people 50+ are over five times more likely to say they want to see
realistic depictions than to see someone who looks younger than them in ads. That
was a key finding for us because we hear over and over that everyone wants to
see younger. But that's not what the data is saying.”
Advertisers should take heed. Adults
50+ consume a range of goods and services but they are not always properly
represented in certain ad categories. “The advertising industry and marketers
have already decided like what categories suit older adults and that is a
fairly limited set of categories like financial services, health and medicine,”
noted Tabares. The gaps are startling. “On average, 5% of the faces in
automotive are people 50+ but, they account for like 40% of the dollar spent in
the category. How do we justify this? How can anybody look at this data and say
this is correct?” Cosmetics is even worse with zero percent representation of
regular, non-celebrity spokespeople in cosmetics ads. According to Lantieri,
“The AI driven audit classified nearly 90% of faces in national TV ads as under
50, and so it isn't surprising that only 5% of adults 50+ say they always see
people like them and media.”
Conclusion
Changing ingrained perceptions can be
frustrating. In regard to the ongoing conversation about diversity and
inclusion, “Not a lot of people are talking about inclusion among about the
biggest consumer segment out there; the population that holds the most powerful
economic strength,” stated Tabares, “There's a massive opportunity here. We
have to change their understanding about aging and not be afraid of it. As
media companies, as purveyors of ideas, we influence culture. We help people
understand and make sense of life. It is a moral and social responsibility to
start articulating a different narrative, accepting, embracing and knowing that
that journey is different than the one that we've been depicting for decades. That's
my little soapbox. We're going to get there,” she concluded, optimistically.
This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com
Artwork by Charlene Weisler
