Mercedes thank for this wonderful ad

In one fell swoop, Mercedes has produced an ad that satisfies both of my rants about creative not recognising the recession and not appealing to an older consumer.

The copy, the imagery, the concept and the music – in my book – are terrific.

The ad starts by establishing the pressure and hassle of today’s world and then gives three beautiful word sketches from Danny Glover, Philip Glenister and Christian Slater of a time past when life was just right.

As an old friend, who has a real insight into the power of words said: “real class.” Dick Stroud

Not another beach photo

Maybe I am becoming obsessed with the obsession of newspaper photo editors to always select shots of oldies on beaches.

Here is another one from the Daily Mail that heads an article about the changing holiday habits of the 50-plus.

A nice quote from a TUI spokeswoman about the importance of the 50-plus to the travel industry: "They have steady disposable income and are somewhat recession-proof.” Yep, no doubt about that. Dick Stroud

Michelle says turning 50 means she is getting more interesting film roles

At the world premiere of her film "Cheri" at the Berlin Film festival the lovely Ms Pfeiffer said that mature actresses pairing up with younger men is a healthy development for the film industry. She went on to say that putting older women with young men is better than Hollywood putting them out to pasture.

"It seems my leading men keep getting younger the older I get," Pfeiffer said. "It seems people have an aversion about casting me with men my age. Lucky for me; I don't really mind."

This is an interesting take on things. Instead of those dreadful advertising photos of the ageing couple gazing out to sea, or skipping along the beach, perhaps we should have older lady gazing into the eyes of sexy young man.

Whatever the rationale - the more films with Michelle Pfeiffer the better as far as I am concerned. Dick Stroud

Advertising photography and the older consumer

Creating Results, a US company, has published what looks to be an interesting survey about advertising photography and the older consumer.

The results are based on a sample of 414 Americans over 40 years old.

I have to be honest, I have only had a quick glance through the results. From what I have seen it appears an interesting study.

My fear with this type of research is that it can come to simplistic conclusions (i.e. everybody in the age range XX-XX prefers a particular type of creative). It looks like the research also takes account of the wealth and education of the individual. I hope so.

The other big caveat about “reported responses” is how the respondent answers a questionnaire can be very different from how they act behave.

When I get the time I will read and comment. Dick Stroud

The thinning of Haggar

JWT Boom, as the name suggests, is the part of JWT - the Boom indicates it focuses on the older market. Without doubt, it publishes the most professional looking newsletter (Livewire) about 40+ (yep, 40+ not 50+) marketing. I was looking back over some of the old editions and found an article about Haggar Clothing.

The marketing campaigns of Stephen Croncota (the head of marketing) helped turn the company around. One aspect of this was his advertising campaign that showed a couple of real life Boomers dealing with the day-to-day problems that Boomers face. See the above example of what you do when the service man is 5 hours late arriving.

As you can see both of the guys in the ad are a little wide around the hips!

I was amazed to see the photo used by JWT to accompany the article. They guy looks to be on the road to anorexia!

I suppose this is a good example of using imagery that reflects our desires rather than reality? Dick Stroud

Veer – a good source of oldie photos

This is their selection of boomer photos. OK, some of it is a bit ‘cheesy’ but there is some good stuff. I also like the very simple search mechanism for finding photos of older people. I wonder when they will provide an option for the over-70s? Dick Stroud

Boomercapsule – a lot of hard work

The guys at Boomercapsule have put in an incredible amount of work amassing a large collection of images that define various decades of the Boomer generation.

The site is created in the US for the US but even as a Brit I recognise many of the images that defined my childhood and teenage years.

One hell of a lot of work. Well done. Dick Stroud

Don’t you just love Google?

Who on the planet didn’t see Google’s Valentine Day logo? For those who didn’t here it is. Nice to see Google thinks of the oldies. Dick Stroud

The Boomer Time Line.

This and the previous blog post are about the same thing – an insight into the past.

Austerity Britain does it with few pictures and 700 pages of text; The Boomer Time Line does it with no words and mass of imagery.

The timeline’s creator realized that the Boomers are the first generation to be shaped by a barrage of images. In an e-mail to me he said

Most generations of humanity were shaped by the events around them. News was the gathering of persons from the points on a compass. Opinions and thoughts on life were shaped by the written word or verbal recitations of events. Most of humanity was shaped in a time of no film, or TV, and marketing was limited to trading. The Boomer generation caught the first onslaught of images from mature mixed media.

That onslaught of images has shaped us all. Thus the Boomer time line of images is born.

The idea is that visitors can define what the pictures mean to them, Wikipedia style.

I can see a lot of applications for this project. I know its creators would like to hear from people with their ideas.

Forget the web site’s design (it is very much a beta site) and just focus on the amazing wealth of imagery that has been collected. Send your e-mails to MaltaInc@aol.com Dick Stroud