As American business wakes up to the reality that our nation is becoming more senior than junior for the first time in history, they are beginning to search for answers about how to serve the needs of aging consumers. Unfortunately, they often seek answers from public and nonprofit agencies that have been serving older adults for decades, which would seem to make sense on its surface. I have long stated that while the “aging service providers” have done a respectable job caring for frail and at risk elders; and creating social, recreational and nutrition programs; but they know very little about older adults.
On several occasions I have administered an “aging perception quiz” on the myths and realities of aging to “aging professionals” and they scored as bad as or worse than the public at large. In fact, these public and nonprofit agencies and organizations both help perpetuate and are victims of aging stereotypes. When your funding is tied to “the problems of aging”, it would seem you tend to focus on the problems rather than the solutions – on the negative rather than the positive; on decline rather than personal growth and enrichment. If I wanted to know about marketing to older people or the shared values of an aging population, the last place I would look would be the State Aging Offices or the Administration on Aging.
For over two decades, we have had two images of an aging population put forth: 1) The decline and dependency image put forth by the nonprofit service provider and health care industry; and 2) The California age wave “Baby Boomers will be teenagers forever” image. Both are grounded in myth and misconception rather than reality.
Yesterday, I was reviewing two documents. The first was the “Future Directions for Aging Policy: a Human Service Model” published by the U.S. House Select Committee on Aging in 1980 in preparation for the 1981 White House Conference on Aging. It is amazing to me how visionary the Report was and how little of it has been accomplished in the quarter of a century.
The other document was the "Wealth with Wisdom: Serving the Needs of Aging Consumers" from Deloitte. If American business is looking to Deloitte for answers, I share a warning from Robbie the Robot in the Lost in Space television series, "be afraid Will Robinson; be very afraid." The Deloitte report does a good job of framing the demographic shift and the need to rethink the way companies do business; but the recommendations could have been written in the early 1980's when the "decline theory of aging" was the popular paradigm. It is clear that the authors of the "research report" spent a good deal of time looking at aging issues and very little time learning about current trends in developmental aging.
If those specializing in the field “Still Don’t Get It”; we shouldn’t be too surprised with the private sector that seems to just be discovering the fact that people are living longer more active lives and the Baby Boom has matured. Rather than investing hundreds of thousands of dollars with big accounting and consulting firms, I recommend investing about $50 and read David Wolfe's Ageless Marketing and Dr. Gene Cohen's The Mature Mind. If the "experts" you are considering are not conversant with principles and values put forth in both, "be afraid; be very afraid" about you chances of success serving an increasingly ageless market.
Any way I could take this Aging Perception Quiz? I would like to know if I am also believing the myths.
Posted by: Boomer Myth Student | September 21, 2006 at 05:21 PM