12:49 am | 1 recommendation | 2 comments

Work/Life: "If this is a Senior moment, put me down now."

Spotted downunder during "Seniors Week".

This billboard

What's the first thought that enters your head?

Compare it with the reaction from three of my customers, all in their 60's and 70's:

1. "Shoot me please."

2. "That is so uninspiring."

3. "If that's a Senior Moment, just put me down now."

Now none of us, least of all me, have anything against the heroine in the photo, Helen Grantley, nor oversized polo shots, polyester pants or large vinyl totes, though we'd probably prefer to see something more like this

But we agree on one thing – we're frustrated by yet another example of lazy advertising hard at work. There was ample opportunity to think beyond the obvious and resonate below the surface. This campaign is just slavish and uninspired stereotyping, leading to a continuing marginalization of seniors by a society that "worships a youth we all lose".

I'm not advocating political correctness here, which is just a poor excuse for counter stereotyping and just as unmotivating. I just don't quite understand what a poster campaign like this is trying to achieve, other than bury people while they're still blinking.

As with all lazy advertising hard at work, the poster reveals the following mentaiity by whoever put it together:

Underthinking – It's seniors week … quick, let's raid Best & Less for threads and a schlumpfy vinyl bag because that's what seniors look like.

Patronizing – They can't afford to look stylish or impressive on their pension. And if we depart too much from our beloved stereotype of a senior the poor old fogies won't get it. Oh yes, and we better not be funny either because they might not get it. The last movie they saw was "Gone With the Wind" and "Grumpy Old Men".

Lazy – let's use trite and hollow phrases like "What keeps me fabulous" even though most seniors facing normal issues of aging would probably describe their feelings with more nuance, if you'd only give them the time of day

Fearful – we better not put someone who looks genuinely "fabulous" because it might not be politically correct.

It gets worse. I switched on the teev here downunder and surfed across an elderly couple featured as a regular item on a daytime talk show. Their slot, "Grey Nomad Adventures" showed them getting up to all kinds of mischief including being taught to DJ at a night club.

The youthful and airbrushed hosts made all the usual patronizing jokes about the couple's music selection being Englebert Humperdink, about the danger (not) of groupies whisking away her old hubby, about whether they were able to "get the beat" or did they keep lapsing into the Viennese Waltz breakbeat and so forth. The nice enough couple were obliged to play right along for the benefit of the cliché. Frankly, the hosts made themselves look the bigger, duller, drearier cliché.

I've always wondered … where are the nightclubs for older people? Does Tina Turner or Mick Jagger sit about with their feet in a heated bootie watching Days of Our Lives just because they've been on the planet slightly longer than their fans?

My 70-year old mother loves my obscure acid trance and techno collection, along with jazz, blues, old movies, French movies, Cirque du Soleil, poledancing, the $7.50 seniors buffet at the local Vet's club, Isamu Noguchi sofas, wry humor, and remembers dancing for 8 hours straight with a half hour break in the chill out room at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras not so long ago. She once sent me a note once, saying "if it's too loud, you're too old."

As she heads over the rise marked 70, her tastes just get wider and more diverse. Why shouldn't they? We continue to grow because that’s what cells do, even if they start making mistakes. If seniors become forgetful, they're just forgetting stuff that just doesn't matter anymore and making room for new experiences, if we'd all just hold off toe-tagging them before they're good and ready.

So before you overthink or underthink your next interaction with a senior, be it an ad campaign, interaction at a bus stop or marketing your next reverse mortgage package (which, incidentally you should be marketing to single, childless adventurous misfits like me), put yourself in those white lace up sneakers and imagine how YOU would like your world to treat you when you're 64, 74, 84.

Start now. Resist clichés, you can always fall back on them, they're dime a dozen. There's no escaping your senior years – they'll be shaped by how you regard your living forebears already.


The Galfromdownunder admits to having a twisted view of seniors having been surrounded by adventurettes like 70-something  Margaret Day, who rode across Australia's Nullabor Desert on her Bike Friday. Yup, here's how she'd probably like to be depicted in that poster.