AGE IS NO BARRIER

By John Greenwald

Have you noticed something funny going on around the country? Everybody is growing older, but nobody seems to be aging.

Stephani Cook, who follows social and marketing trends for a New York City advertising agency, has seen it--and felt it. "People 50 to 75 don't think of themselves as old," says Cook, who is an executive vice president of Lowe & Partners/SMS. "I'll be 53 next month. My daughter just turned 29, and we have a lot more in common than not. We wear the same things and eat the same things, and I'm in better shape than when I was 30. The notion that there is some sort of break at 50 is meaningless."

Thomas Wyatt couldn't agree more. Wyatt, 73, a retired Army colonel who lives in Clinton, Miss., has been writing a novel, counseling rape victims and studying to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church. That's when he isn't cooking and cleaning house or taking care of his 12-year-old daughter Nicole while his second wife teaches nursing at a nearby medical school. "I always had things that had to be done, and I just kept doing them," says Wyatt, whose career includes decorated service in World War II, Korea and Southeast Asia, plus a doctorate in sociology. "The weeks and years and months went by, and I never thought of myself as changing."

Wyatt and Cook belong to different generations, but they share attitudes that are on the rise today--across the U.S. and across its generations. To be sure, a century of medical progress has enabled Americans to live longer on average and enjoy greater health and prosperity. But even more significant, the traditional demarcation points between youth and age are starting to blur. Amid images of George Bush parachuting out of a plane at 72 and baby boomers blowing out the candles on their 50th-birthday cakes, a growing number of citizens (call them seniors at your own risk) are radically redefining what it means to be old.

The widening gap between the chronological age of Americans and their psychological, physiological and cultural age is upending traditional notions of work and family. That in turn is affecting the marketplace. By the year 2000, according to a White House-sponsored conference on aging, Americans 55 or older will have twice the discretionary income of those between 18 and 34, and the leaders of some large corporations are starting to pay heed. "It's very important for us to go where the purchasing power is," says Michael H. Jordan, chairman and CEO of Westinghouse/CBS, whose CBS unit airs hits like Touched by an Angel (featuring a helpful celestial spirit) that have made it the top network with viewers 55 or older. "We ought to call this the Willie Sutton strategy," says Jordan, referring to the legendary safecracker who said he robbed banks because that's where the money was.

Several major currents have been rushing together to turn the aging of America into a demographic and marketing tidal wave. A child born today can expect to live to age 76 on average--up from just 47 in 1900. And people who are now 65 have the prospect, on average, of 17 more years ahead of them. No age group has been growing faster than men and women 85 or older, whose numbers have nearly tripled to 4 million since 1960.

But that's demographic child's play when you consider that the boomers--all 79 million of them--are crossing the Big Five-O threshold at the rate of about one every eight seconds. That means that by 2020, more than a third of all Americans will be 50 or older. And by 2050, those 65 or older could outnumber kids 14 or younger for the first time in U.S. history. "The aging of the population is changing American society in fundamental ways," observes Richard Suzman, chief demographer for the National Institute on Aging. "It's the equivalent of the waves of immigrants who came to this country, or of the urbanization and industrialization that changed the U.S. landscape in this century."

This gift of longer life means more time to travel, learn, try out new careers and give something back to the community. And while it also challenges individuals to prepare themselves physically, emotionally and financially for an extended span of years, some recent trends have been encouraging. The proportion of chronically disabled older Americans has fallen steadily in the past decade, a trend Suzman calls "one of the most important findings in health demography that I've seen in years." Advances in fitness, he says, can help ease the burden on the generations that will have to foot the coming Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid bills.

This Methuselahan march up the demographic ladder also poses a challenge to the youth worshippers in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue who have grown accustomed to targeting audiences between the ages of 18 and 49. "We have the entire marketplace in a ridiculous state of denial, and it's costing companies, advertisers and marketers billions of dollars," says gerontologist Ken Dychtwald, founder of the California company Age Wave and a Pied Piper of marketing to those older than 50.

The biggest puzzle has been how to reach the aging boomers, who, for all their vast numbers, are already starting to fall through the marketing cracks. While the generation that once trusted no one over 30 is growing too old to fit conventional youth categories, it remains too turbulent and diverse to pin down. This worries both advertisers and organizations such as the American Association of Retired Persons, the powerful Washington lobby group for the elderly. Its membership has dropped from 33 million in 1995 to 32 million today, despite A.A.R.P.'s uncannily prompt mailing of applications to boomers as they reach the half-century mark. "Boomers tend not to be quite the joiners that previous generations might have been," concedes A.A.R.P. spokesman Tom Otwell, who says he expects the vast postwar cohort to start signing up in droves once its members advance farther into their 50s.

But marketing experts see few signs yet that boomers are prepared to accept advancing age. "They're still trying to find themselves, and there's no reason to assume they will give that up even when they're 72," says Ann Clurman, a partner at Yankelovich Partners, a research and marketing firm with headquarters in Connecticut. Adds Yankelovich managing partner J. Walker Smith: "A.A.R.P. is deadly scared of trying to deal with boomers' denial and not wanting to be members of the same organization that their parents are. Boomers are still struggling with just being grownups."

The '60s generation also still loves a good crisis, which is a trait that shrewd marketers have begun to tap. John Ferrell, the president of FerrellCalvillo Communications, notes that traditional feel-good campaigns for financial services have failed to nudge boomers into saving for retirement. So his New York City agency created humorous shock-tactic spots for the Alliance Capital Management group, a giant investment firm with nearly $200 billion under management. In one, a husband tells his startled wife they can't retire because they haven't saved any money and advises her to earn some by mowing neighborhood lawns. The voice-over warning: "Don't let this happen to you!" With the help of such ads, Alliance says, its share of the market for new sales of mutual funds to individuals has jumped 25% this year.

The success of the gallows-humor approach is only one indication that the counterculture is alive and thriving on Madison Avenue. Advertisers have been using nostalgia to hawk everything from GTE phone service to the Coopers & Lybrand accounting firm to music by such '60s icons as the Beatles and Bob Dylan. In a current Chevrolet ad, a pair of '60s-style flower children morph into the proud Establishment-type owners of a Chevy Venture van. "The bad pun we use is that baby boomers will retread, not retire," says Yankelovich's Smith.

The graying of America also challenges traditional notions of retirement that once made a worker's 65th birthday a career ender. That milestone--decreed by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in the 1880s when the average life expectancy was just 45--typically came with a party and a pension, plus plenty of time for golf and the grandkids. But many seniors today are moving on to new careers, not only because they can use the money but also because they can and want to keep working.

Take Mary Andes, 69, a former schoolteacher in Virginia, Maryland and Guam with a lifelong love of flying, who earned her pilot's license in 1981. Today Andes hops around the Mariana Islands in the Pacific at the controls of a Cherokee-6 commuter plane for Guam-based Freedom Air. Then there is June Bond, 72, a retired music teacher and an experienced bookkeeper who puts in 40-hour weeks in the accounting department of the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, Calif. "I want to be part of the world and not part of some pity party," Bond says.

Many senior career switchers are out to change the world as well. Merlin Petzold, 63, a retired General Motors engineer in Cascade Township, Mich., builds user-friendly telephones for people with disabilities. Inspired by his wife Nadine, a multiple-sclerosis patient, Petzold fitted out a standard phone with straws and tubes that allow users to puff for a dial tone and sip in order to dial a preset number, such as 911. Petzold's nonprofit company, Envirotrol, builds as many as 70 such phones a year for customers in the U.S. and as far away as Peru and Saudi Arabia.

Others do it for nothing. "I think retirement is synonymous with death," says Arthur Goodfriend, 90, a former Army lieutenant colonel and a resident of Honolulu who recently completed a second tour as a VISTA volunteer. Goodfriend became the oldest person ever to serve in the Peace Corps when he taught English in Hungary from 1991 to 1994. At the John Knox Village senior community outside Kansas City, Mo., Tom Sherman, 81, shares Goodfriend's appetite for helping others. Sherman, a retired steel salesman, rises at 4:30 a.m. five days a week and walks a mile for exercise before driving into town to coordinate 1,000 volunteers at the Kansas City headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "My philosophy is that you live life to the fullest," he says, "as long as it's possible for you to do that."

One of the material effects of this desire to stay active longer can be found in the way retirement-living facilities are being built and marketed. At Del Webb Corp., developers of the Sun City Meccas for seniors, vice president Dave Schreiner says a new crop of buyers is looking for more than endless weekends. "Five years ago, we were in the last quarter of a market that was reward-oriented," Schreiner says. "Now we're finding a different audience that is perhaps still working. They may want to learn, volunteer or try an experience that may not be related to recreation."

In response, Del Webb has been wiring its latest developments with high-speed Internet-access lines that can be used in setting up home offices. And since many buyers (with home prices ranging from $100,000 to $300,000) want to remain near their families, friends and business associates, the company that is known best for its desert sites is planning Sun City communities in northern climes like Chicago as well.

The newest trend in senior living is a migration back to areas near colleges and universities--and not just to existing homes but to entire new communities. "Many people in their 50s and 60s remember the best years of their lives as their university days," says New York City architect Douglas King, an expert on senior housing. The project closest to construction is the Arizona Senior Academy, a $70 million development with 204 single-family homes (price range: $195,000 to $310,000) and 50 to 60 town houses ($150,000 to $185,000) for which U.S. Retirement Communities of Media, Pa., will break ground next March near the University of Arizona in Tucson. Designed as a retirement community, academic institution and volunteer organization rolled into one, the academy will offer classes to residents and call on them to tutor local grade school and college students.

The fastest-growing senior developments are so-called assisted-living facilities for people in their 70s, 80s or 90s who are too vigorous for nursing homes but in need of a helping hand when they bathe or get dressed. Of the 435 major housing developments for seniors that were under construction in the U.S. as of June, fully 67% were assisted-living projects. (Room and board in such residences can run from about $1,600 to about $4,000 a month.) Karen Wayne, president and CEO of the Assisted Living Federation of America, says the $12.2 billion industry expects to more than double in size by 2000.

Few entrepreneurs have focused more sharply on the needs of older Americans than Alexis Abramson, president of Mature Mart in Atlanta, Ga. Abramson, who holds a master's degree in gerontology, offers 20,000 products, from elastic shoelaces that stay tied to easy-clasp cutlery, and markets the lines through outlets that include the company's Website (www. maturemart.com) Abramson has also been branching into consulting ventures that advise such clients as hotels and insurance companies on how to market to seniors. Says she: "The mature market has high discretionary income, experience and wisdom in purchasing and doesn't want to be taken advantage of or put out to pasture."

Even cosmetics companies, long notorious for neglecting older consumers, have begun to target a broader range of age groups. When women in their 40s complained that traditional makeup bases tended to accentuate the wrinkles in their faces, Revlon developed a new foundation and branded it "Age Defying." Smart move. Within 12 months of its launch in 1994, Age Defying became the best-selling makeup base in the mass market.

For men of a certain age, "empowerment" has become the buzz word on Madison Avenue. That helps explain those muscular pickup trucks parked in suburban driveways. Fully a third of all pickups are bought by people 50 and older, with men making up 60% of those buyers, despite the fact that many may have nothing more taxing to haul than groceries or the family dog. "The age market has finally arrived," says Frankie Cadwell, president of the Cadwell Davis Partners ad agency. "The numbers are just too compelling."

That prospect thrills college administrators, who are delighted to welcome back older students and the tuition they bring. Men and women 40 and older are already the fastest-growing age group on campus. Retirees and seasoned students can be like kids in an intellectual candy shop, studying music or poetry for the fun of it, or learning Windows 95 and Lotus 1-2-3 to help launch new careers. Computer programs are what attracted Lanny Newman, 53, to multimedia-communications courses at George Washington University this year. Newman, who switched from public relations to real estate 15 years ago, says the training in multimedia will help him get back into p.r.

If colleges, builders, retailers, car companies and marketers of all stripes have begun to cater to older consumers, can Hollywood be far behind? Actually, yes, Grumpy Old Men notwithstanding. "I rarely pitch to anyone over 40," says independent producer Sarah Pillsbury of her experience peddling projects for studio backing. That's because young studio honchos today lust mainly for action films, like The Lost World, this summer's sequel to Jurassic Park, that can pack in global audiences with special effects and thrills.

Then there is Miramax Films, an independently run studio owned by the Walt Disney Co. that has begun to expose the myopia of much of what passes for conventional wisdom in Hollywood. "We make elegant movies for the older audience, and most of our films make a profit," says Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax. Case in point: The English Patient, a Miramax film depicting characters caught up in World War II. It won nine Oscars this year, including Best Picture. "Older people are more cultured," Weinstein says. "They have life experience."

Like Miramax, CBS has been tuning in to this mature audience. The success of such programs as Touched by an Angel and the CBS Sunday Movie recently helped the network persuade six major sponsors, including Coca-Cola, General Motors and Upjohn, to shift $100 million of fall prime-time advertising to shows that target older audiences. Among them: 60 Minutes, Cosby and the hospital drama Chicago Hope. In so doing, CBS has begun laying the groundwork for increased advertiser support for programs for aging boomers.

Such viewers are already helping turn senior golf and tennis tournaments into one of the hottest trends in sports. The allure of such veteran par busters as Lee Trevino, 57, Jack Nicklaus, 57, and Arnold Palmer, 68, is bringing the Senior PGA Tour to TV for a total of 221 hours this year, mostly on the sports network ESPN. The tour has grown from 35 tournaments with a total purse of $8.7 million a decade ago to 43 events with $41.65 million in prize money today. The future of senior tennis looks just as bright, with crowd pleasers such as Jimmy Connors, 45, and Bjorn Borg, 41, attracting fans to the Nuveen Tour for players 35 or over, and globe-trotting grand masters like Rod Laver, 59, and Ken Rosewall, 62, continuing to dazzle with their skills.

Today's seniors can be world travelers too. At Boston-based Elderhostel, a global network of educational and cultural institutions that offer 10,000 travel programs to voyagers 55 and older, participation has soared from 220 travelers in 1975 to more than 300,000 today. Spokesman Michael Frilling says clients are as old as 100, and the total number of participants could easily triple by 2020. In Chevy Chase, Md., travel agent Helena Koenig, 67, packages "Grandtravel" tours that bring together adventurous grandparents and their grandkids for trips to destinations as exotic as Kenya. "It's the most exciting travel market out there," Koenig says.

Even seniors who can't get out much are finding ways to keep active. At the Fairhaven retirement community in Sykesville, Md., Elise Fitzpatrick, 83, works out daily in a state-of-the-art fitness center that gleams with treadmills, strength machines and stationary bikes. An Olympic-size swimming pool is just down the hall. Fitzpatrick, a retired professor of nursing, is strengthening her arms and upper body while awaiting an operation to replace her left knee, which she injured in a fall. "Exercising keeps you in the best possible physical and mental condition," Fitzpatrick says.

Not so very long ago, people admonished one another to act their age. But what can that mean today, when octogenarians serve in the Peace Corps, centenarians travel and septuagenarian former Presidents jump out of planes? Or when men and women in their 50s and 60s launch new careers and rightly feel that youth--like the Star Wars Force--is still with them? "In the long run," economist John Maynard Keynes once wrote, "we are all dead." But that long run is growing longer all the time. Thomas Wyatt offers a better motto for Americans as he writes his novel and raises his daughter in Mississippi. "I don't believe in aging," Wyatt says. "I just think there are multitudes of people who don't stop." Welcome aboard.

--Reported by Susan Agrest and Emily Mitchell, with bureau reports

With reporting by SUSAN AGREST AND EMILY MITCHELL, WITH BUREAU REPORTS