Is That You on TV, Grandpa?

By Janice Castro

Only once every decade or so, a new cast of characters sweeps into TV commercials and gives the viewing public a more telling picture of the U.S. population as a whole. During the baby-booming 1950s, advertising scenes were filled with contented suburban families. By the late '60s and early '70s, those characters gave way to a groovier generation of young people. In the years following that revolution, advertisers have slavishly followed a maxim that dictates YOUTH SELLS. In TV commercials, young people seemed to be the only ones driving cars, taking vacations and buying insurance.

But in the late '80s, the time has again come for a fresh cast of characters. This time their faces show the lines of age and experience because the new motto may well be MATURITY SELLS. In a new Eastern Air Lines ad, the happy vacationers cavorting on the beach are over 60. In the McDonald's commercial, the Lothario with an eye for the female customer is 75 if he's a day. And the lady who takes the Subaru for a joyride to the pulsing music of La Bamba must be pushing 80.

Advertisers are designing commercials to appeal to that vast and fast- growing group of consumers over 50. These citizens have plenty of cash, which few of them need to spend on baby-sitters or mortgages. Americans 50 and older control $130 billion in discretionary spending power, or half the annual U.S. disposable income. Says Hal Margolis, group senior vice president for the Lintas:Campbell-Ewald ad agency's Michigan office: "For a long time, no one in this business was paying any attention at all to people over 49. Then some of us started looking at the demographics. And we realized these people have got all the money!"

To carry the message, the ad agencies are signing up a host of aging TV and movie stars. Among the familiar faces: Wilford Brimley for Quaker Oats, Art Carney for Coca-Cola Classic, Barbara Billingsley and Jane Wyatt for Milk of Magnesia and Buddy Ebsen for McDonald's. Special modeling agencies have sprung up to meet the growing demand for mature actors for commercials. At the Ford agency, a division called Classic Woman offers a group of 30 models over age 40. Senior Class, a New York City agency started last year, books 200 men and women 50 to 80. Among them are a retired fireman, a judge and even a onetime IRS agent.

Until now, older characters were usually confined to commercials for digestive aids, denture creams and other products aimed at elderly consumers. But last year, when researchers at Grey Advertising examined thousands of TV commercials and print ads in a study of the mature market, they concluded that people 50 and up were "the invisible generation." Says Richard Karp, 59, executive vice president of creative services for Grey: "We discovered that a 'Methuselah Syndrome' governed the lives of people in ads. They went straight from the cute 20s to creaky old characters in their late 70s, most wearing wacky clothes. There were very few people in their 40s, and none in their 50s and 60s." Like Karp, senior executives at other agencies realized that their own age group was being left out of the world portrayed in their ads.

Agencies seeking to correct that lapse are being careful about how they portray those generations because research is showing that older consumers have an angry distaste for the traditional advertising images of frail and dotty elders. Says John Ferrell, chief creative officer for the Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos agency: "The way that older people are depicted has changed dramatically. We learned they do not always want to be shown pitching horseshoes, rocking in a chair and watching life go by."

Older people now do the things in ads that they do in real life: work, play tennis, fall in love, buy new cars. "They've rejoined the American family that advertisers show us," says Frankie Cadwell, president of Cadwell Davis Partners, a Manhattan ad agency. The bride in a commercial for New York Telephone, for example, is about 60. All of the discreetly nude models in ads for Lear's, a magazine for older women, are over 40.

Advertisers admit that they woke up just in time. The baby boomers who shook up marketing themes 25 years ago are fast approaching middle age. Says Karp: "We'd better get our act together. In five to seven years, the boomers will begin to join the over-50 crowd." When it comes to portraying energetic oldsters, advertisers have only begun to kick up their heels.