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Bad Ads

Posted by kmancer on April 15th, 2010

I have a few favorite ads I like to point to as bad examples of marketing to the older senior crowd (75+). One shows a 60 something very buff man in a bathing suit standing beside his surf board. The project in question is not an active adult golf community on the west coast of Vancouver Island where the picture might just be barely plausible (although the buff man would have to be wearing a wetsuit to withstand the cold water) — it is a supportive housing project where people get two meals a day, weekly laundry, housekeeping, and an emergency response system. No one remotely resembling this man lives in the project, or will ever live in the project. Another of my favorites pictures is of a youngish couple (65-70 I’d guess) in full Mexican regalia, clearly ready to party. Those ads won’t appeal to the real target market (generally 80 year old widows), and if by chance a surfer should show up at the door he will know instantly that he is in the wrong place.  Active, independent seniors do not generally want to live in places where many residents are frailer than they are. Confusing or misleading ads serve no useful purpose whatsoever.

Sometimes ads feature the wrong people with the best of intentions. For example, a non-profit project I know included pictures of visible minorities in their ads for a while, trying to convey the message that they were an inclusive and welcoming project. Obviously that is a laudable goal, but the fact that there were almost no visible minorities in that particular community meant running the risk of not appealing to the true target market.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Marketing, Senior Housing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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