Oct. 2, 2009 at 4:28pm

What does a senior look like?

Posted by Kathleen Deakins in Advertising
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©iStockphoto.com/monkeybusinessimages
 

I just came back from a Sunday brunch at IHOP with my family. There were four seniors in our party of seven. By looking at us, I’m not sure you could tell who the seniors were. Being a senior depends on your definition of senior. And at least one of our senior diners is denying he is one. You see, IHOP considers you to be a senior at 55 years old.

The visual language of aging is even trickier than the vocabulary. One senior executive targeting prospects age 55+ refused to allow any gray hair in his ads or Web site. (My argument that I found the first gray hair on my head at age 21 was unpersuasive.)

A search for appropriate photos is confusing. Search for “middle age” on iStock and you’ll see lots of gray hair—and lots of the same photos that show up when you search for “senior.”

Is 40 really the new 30, and 55 the new 40? Maybe. What a senior looks like through your eyes may not match how your target customers think of themselves. You can test this quite easily but be prepared. You’re likely to hear angry comments about the silly or insulting stereotypes seen in advertising.

If you use photos of seniors in your ads, narrow your target to a 10 to 15-year age segment, show people at the young end of your range, and strive for realism and relevance. And banish stereotypes.

If I see another staged photo of a happy “senior” on a bicycle, I think I’ll scream. And I’m not a senior—not yet.

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