Advertisements directed to elderly customers

Advertisements directed to elderly customers

Advertisements are significant to various people in society. They are not only important to the sellers but also the consumers of different products. Advertisement enables people to know about the existence of various products in the market as well as their prices. This provides them with the ability and opportunity to choose from the multiple brands of products that are available in the market to satisfy their wants. It, therefore, provides vital and essential information to the customers concerning the existence of the products in the market. Manufacturers, too, get the advantage of popularizing their products and services, thus increasing sales. Various advertisements are done to reach multiple target groups, mainly based on the age of the customers due to the different contents they carry. Ads targeting older people in society give adult content that is not supposed to reach underage in the community. Advertisers, therefore, should always look for the best ways in which to advertise various products to appeal to the elders too in the society. Appropriate languages should be used when passing the old advertisements to avoid any form of discomfort or stereotypes among the target audience.

Considering an excellent example of an advertisement that targets the elderly in society, drug prescription adverts best fit this scenario (Shapiro, 2018). With the improvements and technological advancements in medical facilities such as pharmaceutical research and nutritional fields, several advertisements that aim at promoting the new drugs in the market mainly target the older people in the societies. This is mostly because more aged people in the community always seek to maintain good health and to reacquire their youthful health. Examples of such adverts still cover explain the importance of the application of certain drugs that are mainly used by the older adults such as the erectile dysfunction medications and the testosterone replacement therapy (Green, Aronson & Haddad, 2018). Such an advertisement is beneficial to the elderly than the young generation. Therefore, advertisements should be in a more appropriate manner and channels that are not insecure to the elderly.

Another good advertisement for the elderly concerns those that focus on the appropriate hobbies and activities that the elderly can engage in. According to Shapiro (2018), this method is necessary because most of the older people have a lot of free time to enjoy their favorite hobbies or even other activities. The product promoters of the companies providing the equipment and supplies for these hobbies should, therefore, effectively focus their efforts on these older people. Access to such information is useful to older people in society since their needs are met appropriately as per their demands.

Misplaced advertisements are good examples of bad advertisements that are always passed to older people. An example of such an ad is the use of certain products that are used to brighten the skin of older people. According to Naom (2018), this type of advertisement is always not appropriate to these people because older people are still comfortable with their natural skin. They are therefore not pleased by the use of the fashioned heath methods of acquiring new looks as well as the modern modeling techniques. Such adverts always lower their motivations towards the products that are advertised. The older people still tend to be comfortable with excellent health and amazing advertisements that appreciate their age and provide relevant measures that can help promote their conditions (Pornpattananngkul, Chowdhury, Feng & Yu, 2019).

Another suitable type of lousy advertisement for the older adults in the society is the use of misplaced adverts whereby various ads that are targeting the young people are used where the targeted audience is elderly.  For example, an advert that states that thirty products for young people. Such examples of advertisements always discourage older people from purchasing such kinds of goods, which will not only hinder them from accessing their required products but will also cut the sales of the producers ( Seet, Zhang & Liu, 2016).

These old advertisements, in most cases, always depict both positive and negative stereotypes to various older people in several ways. The negative stereotypes greatly offend the consumers of these promotions as well as contributing to ageism. The elderly are regularly portrayed in many ads. Many television advertisements do consider older people to be old fashioned. Most of the advertisers always advise the younger generations to make various changes alone without engaging older adults. These advertisements mainly show that older people are still less healthy as compared to the young generation. Therefore, they are always in need of certain retarding products that natch with their age ( Osgood, Miller, Messier, Gonzalez & Silverberg, 2017).

There are various ways in which the elderly ads can get improved to avoid such problems that cause stereotypes to older people. Firstly, the advertisers need to use a relatable language by using appropriate words that are pleasant to the people ( Valle, Abad & Barroso, 2017). The advertisers also need to understand that the criteria of the elderly are always different from the younger generations. The promoters should, therefore, avoid diminishing the elderly from buying certain products that may be considered useful to the younger generations only. The product promoters should also target the older people in their adverts by using various methods that are familiar to them. It is because most of the older people grew up receiving certain advertisements as well as physical catalogs in their mail. The advertisers, therefore, need to convey their ads through such channels so that the elderly can be reached effectively.  The advertisers can also improve on how the elderly advertisements are conducted. This can be achieved by personalizing the experience of older people. This is because when people grow up, excellent quality service is always personal and automated. By customizing a person’s involvement means that the advertisers will, for a long time, remember the skills of the elderly, thus being able to incorporate some of the personal efforts of the elderly.

The old advertisements should also be kept specific and straightforward. According to ( Nanayakkara, Margerison & Worsely, 2018), the advertisers should avoid complicating the ads that may hinder the older people from understanding their promotions. They should, therefore, use realistic messages and give relevant and appropriate reasons why the products are efficient to attract the attention of the elderly and make them buy the products. Most of the elderly ads can also get improved in the televisions by airing them on specific channels that are majorly watched by older people. Multiple media outlets should also be used to reach customers. This can be achieved by, for example, sending direct mail that will drive the customers to the promoter’s websites as well as having TV commercials playing on the advertiser’s sites ( Riley & Idris, 2016).

In conclusion, old advertisements are of varying importance to former customers when they are passed on inappropriate means. The advertisers should, therefore, avoid the use of uncomfortable language whenever they are promoting their products through different ads. The market should take a close look at the attitudes of the elderly towards various commercials, as well as the way the elderly portray such advertisements. This will help in making the older people develop positive attitudes towards different adverts, including those that do not concern them directly since they do not feel targeted in negative ways.

References

Green, A. R., Aronson, J. K., & Haddad, P. M. (2018). Examining the ‘psychopharmacology revolution’(1950–1980) through the advertising of psychoactive drugs in the British Medical Journal. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 32(10), 1056-1066.

Nakase, T., Moroi, J., & Ishikawa, T. (2017). The clinical features of very elderly stroke patients with excellent outcomes. Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 381, 630-631.

Nanayakkara, J., Margerison, C., & Worsley, A. (2018). Senior secondary school food literacy education: importance, challenges, and ways of improving. Nutrients, 10(9), 1316.

Noam, E. M. (2018). Marketing of Media and Information. In Managing Media and Digital Organizations (pp. 397-452). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Osgood, D., Miller, M. C., Messier, A. A., Gonzalez, L., & Silverberg, G. D. (2017). Aging alters mRNA expression of amyloid transporter genes at the blood-brain barrier. Neurobiology of Aging, 57, 178-185.

Pornpattananangkul, N., Chowdhury, A., Feng, L., & Yu, R. (2019). Social discounting in the elderly: Senior citizens are good Samaritans to strangers. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 74(1), 52-58.

Shapiro, B. (2018). Promoting wellness or waste? Evidence from antidepressant advertising. Evidence from Antidepressant Advertising (December 29, 2018). Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics Working Paper, (2018-14).

Seet, B. C., Zhang, J., & Liu, Y. (2016, September). In-Home Assisted Living for Elderly Dementia Care. In Proceedings of SAI Intelligent Systems Conference (pp. 799-810). Springer, Cham.

Sánchez-Valle, M., Abad, M. V., & Llorente-Barroso, C. (2017). Empowering the Elderly and Promoting Active Ageing Through the Internet: The Benefit of e-inclusion Programmes. In Safe at Home with Assistive Technology (pp. 95-108). Springer, Cham.

Sudbury-Riley, L., & Idris, I. (2016). The Representation of Older Adults in Malaysian Advertising. THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGING AND SOCIETY.