The Power and Pitfalls of Images When Marketing to Older Adults
Images of “people who look like me” are crucial when reframing the perception of marginalized groups. Older adults, however, may not be seeing what you assume.
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes.
The question is, which words? When using visuals to communicate with and about older adults, are you sharing your intended message? You may be surprised.
It’s not up for debate that how older people are portrayed visually is important. The strategic use of images can help shape positive attitudes about aging. Unfortunately, as with language, visual portrayals of older people in media and marketing have also perpetuated ageist stereotypes.
Then there’s the issue of the conspicuous absence of older people in media, marketing, and advertising. According to AARP, more than a third of the US population is older than 50, but this group shows up in only 15 percent of media images.
A shift to a more positive depiction of older adults has a host of tangible benefits, many of which we explored in the previous issue of Longevity Gains. These effects increase positive attitudes about aging, which leads to longer lives and extended healthspans – the true catalyst for the longevity economy.
Beyond encouraging the development of a society filled with vibrant older adults that harmoniously mix with other generations, marketers need to make strong connections with individual older consumers. That brings us into the realm of identity, which is where things can get really tricky with images.
How to Effectively Reframe Aging with Images
As we saw last time, the negative impacts of ageism are well documented, despite being so ingrained in our culture as to make the ageist elements largely invisible. Outcomes such as poor health and earlier deaths, fewer employment prospects, and general disrespect from younger people could lead to a nightmarish societal situation as the general population trends much older.
From a business standpoint, companies of all sizes simply cannot afford to alienate older consumers, who spend 56 cents of every dollar in the United States. And it’s our thesis here at Longevity Gains that this economic incentive will be the ultimate catalyst for positive change in attitudes about older adults.
So what works when it comes to visual representations of older people? In 2021, the FrameWorks Institute and AARP engaged in a yearlong, multi-method research study to better understand the effects of images on public perceptions of aging and older people.
Here is a quick summary of their findings and recommendations:
When depicting older people with limited mobility, use images in which they are participating in activities or engaging with others.
When showing older people using technology, use images that signal comfort and competence.
In most cases, avoid images of “super seniors” doing extreme activities, as it reinforces negative stereotypes.
Use images of older people in workplace settings to help people see them as active contributors to their communities.
Use images that depict older people in positive settings and engaged in positive activities.
When possible, select images based on your target audience.
You can download the full report here. We’ll dive into two of these findings a bit deeper below, along with highlighting a problem that may reduce the effectiveness of images in general when marketing to older adults.
In the context of business and the longevity economy, the image criteria above combine nicely with the right language as a potent form of empowerment marketing. This is in contrast to inadequacy marketing, which has been the preferred approach to selling to older people by treating aging as a variety of terrible problems to be solved.
A prime example of inadequacy marketing in the realm of aging is the infamous “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” catchphrase that is mocked as advertising while concurrently used to taunt older people. It’s the copy that became part of the culture, but it was the image of poor Mrs. Fletcher on the bathroom floor that was designed to strike fear into the hearts of older people.
This type of fear-based messaging and imagery is exceptionally shortsighted once you truly understand the economic power of a thriving older population. That said, is it possible to have the best intentions with certain imagery that has the opposite effect instead?
The “Super Senior” Photo Fail
If you pay attention to content about retirement or other issues related to older people, you’ve probably seen those stock photos in articles. There’s the 70-something surfer, the shredded senior bodybuilder with the white ZZ Top beard, and the “nutty” grandma doing a daredevil stunt, like skydiving.
What could be more empowering than seeing older people doing exceptional, even extreme, activities? According to the FrameWorks/AARP research, these images actually fail to convey empowerment and instead have the opposite effect.
In our survey experiment, the “super senior” category increased explicit agreement with negative stereotypes about older people’s ability to live a full life when compared to both the control condition and the active category. In addition, when compared to the active category, “super senior” images increased explicit agreement with negative stereotypes about older people’s social and community engagement.
Why the disconnect? It goes back to the “radical” proposition that older people are people too. And most people are not habitual surfers, ripped bodybuilders, or extreme sports practitioners. So portraying older adults engaging in these activities is neither relatable nor believable.
Worse, by recalling the stereotypical belief that older people are not generally capable of these activities, the images actually reinforce existing assumptions about older people’s limitations instead of expanding the idea of what’s possible. It makes sense once you think about it, but as with casual ageist comments, we generally don’t think about it this way.
So what works instead of “super senior” images? What best counteracts stereotypes about frail and helpless older people?
The answer is portraying older people as capable, active people – exactly what most older people are. Remember, only 2.5% of Americans over 65 reside in a nursing home, and three-quarters of people 85+ live their lives without personal assistance. This is what your prospects need to understand and aspire to rather than outlier activities that most people had no interest in performing even as younger people.
You may find this a bit counterintuitive but easy enough to adapt to. Now let’s talk about the bigger issue with using images to spark a sense of identification in prospects.
The Paradox of Subjective Age
Identity is at the heart of why we buy things. We choose one brand over another based on who we are and aspire to be, even if it’s not at a conscious level.
For example, Apple’s advertising during the Steve Jobs era was all about appealing to personal identity in line with the company values of creativity and rejection of the corporate status quo. This strategy came to its most literal expression with the “Get a Mac” campaign that ran from 2006 to 2009. This award-winning series of commercials essentially asked prospective swing buyers of personal computers to choose who they were more like – a nerdy PC guy or a hip Mac user.
Identity provides the foundation for the social psychology motivators of belonging and unity. The shift from “I’m the type of person who buys a Mac” to “People like me buy a Mac” is incredibly powerful.
Images are the foundation of identity marketing. Seeing someone who looks like you associated with a product or service is an initial step to sparking a voluntary self-association.
In the broader sense, seeing “people who look like me” is also crucial when reframing the perception of underrepresented and marginalized groups. We’ve seen efforts in recent years to increase visibility for various groups based on race, gender, and sexual orientation, so it makes sense that the same effort is now being made when it comes to older adults.
But what happens when older people don’t “see someone who looks like them” based on their perception of themselves, even if that person is as old as they are? This is how subjective age works, which, as you know, means that most people tend to perceive themselves as younger than their chronological age.
Jennifer Senior writing for The Atlantic on the topic of subjective age gives the telling example of attending a high school reunion in your later years. You “look around at your lined and thickened classmates, wondering how they could have so violently capitulated to age; then you see photographs of yourself from that same event and realize: Oh.”
As I mentioned previously when discussing subjective age, we don’t really know why the phenomenon happens. I hypothesized that perhaps it’s because we’ve been socialized to dread aging to such an extent that once we reach a certain chronological age, we don’t think of ourselves as if we’re that old because it’s nowhere near as bad as that age is “supposed” to be.
I came across a related explanation from social gerontologist Jeanette Leardi about why older people make ageist jokes. It’s “them” that are old, not ourselves:
I explain that we see aging as nothing but deterioration and decline and therefore fear and dread it so much that we use humor to distance our "us" selves (no matter our age) from the old "them" people. That's how insidious ageism is. Of course, the reality is that all of "us" (if we're lucky) eventually become "them."
Regardless of the exact psychological mechanism that results in the experience of subjective age, you’re definitely dealing with prospects who often don’t identify with people their own age, especially visually. This makes the use of images in your marketing less clear-cut than it may be with other historically marginalized groups.
Shifting to purely anecdotal evidence, I see the effects of subjective age firsthand not only with people I know, but with myself. Watching advertisements aimed at people “our age” usually sparks a highly ineffective response: “This advertisement obviously isn’t aimed at me,” even when it clearly is. We are the exception; other people are getting old.
This gives content marketing a decided edge over traditional brand advertising in this realm. We need to take 50+ people on a narrative journey of empowerment in ways that 30-second commercials filled with smiling seniors can never accomplish.
Reframing The Future Self at Midlife
One of the most interesting findings of the FrameWorks Institute and AARP research is the power of positive images of older people to change the attitudes of those at middle age. In this stage of life, people start becoming more receptive to positive attitudes about aging, perhaps since they’re at a transition point that’s on the way to joining the group.
Of all ages tested, middle-aged people are most likely to change their attitudes on aging after being exposed to more authentic depictions of aging and older people, signaling that people of this age group may be an ideal target for shifting attitudes about aging in a more positive direction.
This echoes our own intuitive strategy over at Further. With an audience of people in their 40s and 50s, we can instill positive attitudes about aging when they are most receptive to them, and healthy aging practices can be adopted. This shifts the emphasis away from current identity to an aspirational future self that is strong, independent, and actively living a full life.
There are a lot of benefits to courting an audience at midlife and building long-term relationships with them as they grow older. Generation X may be a much smaller cohort than the Baby Boomers, but they are the canary in the coal mine for extended healthspans, later retirement dates, and the possible recipients of revolutionary age-reversal therapies currently in development.
I’m not implying that people in their 60s, 70s, and beyond are not worth your time and attention. Baby Boomers are leading the charge into the longevity economy, and their vast economic resources are impossible to ignore. In fact, this is where the majority of the current longevity economy opportunity resides.
Just keep in mind that when it comes to imagery, identity, and attitudes toward aging, your initial instincts may not be correct. As the longevity economy continues to develop and expand, mistakes will be made by companies that operate on outdated and unintentionally ageist assumptions. The key to avoiding those mistakes is to first educate yourself to effectively create empowering marketing content and copy for older prospects.
I wonder if Unsplash might take this on. It's challenging to find pictures that aren't at one extreme or the other. Maybe a photo journey to Europe is in order!
The depiction of older people is problematic even when using an AI tool like MidJourney. I tried to use it to create an image of the protagonist in the book I'm writing and its idea of a "newly retired senior woman" was my idea of a 90-year old with a deeply lined face.