American Society on Aging
71 Stevenson St., Suite 1450
San Francisco, CA 94105-2938
www.asaging.org
info@asa.asaging.org
Signs of Change: Retirement Ads Look Beyond the 'Golden Years'
Anyone looking for affirmation that later life is being transformed or that significant opportunities will accompany the aging of America need look no further than the commercial sector. Already there is a profusion of products being peddled by entrepreneurs aiming to ease the transition into the later years and lighten the wallets of the new wave of third-agers.
Within this broader trend, advertising by financial services providers and retirement community builders offers some of the most revealing glimpses of how things are changing and what the future might hold. These are the two chief industries that started selling idealized notions of a leisured retirement in the 1950s (it was the Del Webb Company, developers of Sun City, who gave us the phrase "the golden years").
CHANGING AD MESSAGES
For nearly a half century, the pitch from the pension purveyors has been essentially the same. A classic illustration can be found in the middle of Peter G. Peterson's May 1996 Atlantic Monthly cover story, "Will America Grow Up Before it Grows Old?" The article, drawn from his book of the same title published later that year, lambasted the older population as a bunch of shiftless freeloaders. Among its pages was a glossy full-page ad from ITT/Hartford depicting a smartly dressed, vigorous older couple dancing on the deck of a boat, kicking up their heels and laughing like joyous teenagers.
Accompanying the idyllic scene is this message: "One day you'll get to act like a kid again, but for now, let's discuss your allowance." Leaving little to the imagination, the advertisement continues: "In one respect, retirement is a lot like childhood. You have all the free time in the world. The only problem is that 'free' time is anything but free."After hawking Hartford's retirement services, the advertisement concludes, "So if you're interested in one day acting like a ten-year-old again, talk to a company that's nearly 200 years old."
Four years later, however, a new and dramatically different message is beginning to emanate from the pension industry. I first noticed this shift in an American Express ad placed in Newsweek featuring an alluring photograph of three attractive sixtysomethings, two women and a man, arm in arm, clad in hardhats, jeans and construction gear. One of the women is sporting her hardhat backwards, home-boy style. The trio creates an image of engagement and discovery, with barely concealed joy on their faces. Signs make it clear that they are at a Habitat for Humanity project.
The message accompanying the American Express ad is not the familiar injunction, "Buy our pension so that you can indulge in a prolonged adolescence." It is, essentially, "Buy our pension so you can do something important with this new phase of life." For readers who "see retirement as a chance to volunteer [their] time," the ad poses this question: "How do you know you've saved enough" to be able to make this choice. The ad's tag line is American Express's motto, "Do More."
LABOR OF LOVE
Soon afterwards, I noticed a Paine Webber two-page appeal featuring an attractive father and son. Referring to the older half of the duo, the message reads, "You're psyched about the future. You're full of new ideas. You're the guy on the left." Below is a message explaining that while Paine Webber's competitors think retirement is the end of the contributing years, "We say plan well--so that you can redefine retirement any time and any way you want," whether that be for "a second career, a new business, or a true labor of love."
A few days after I saw this advertisement, I was waiting in my hotel room to interview a 70-year-old former management consultant about his newfound "labor of love," an environmental education program he'd created in the public schools in Portland, Ore. I found myself watching a T. Rowe Price television commercial that featured a couple in their early 60s expressing gratitude for the help they'd received from the investment company. As a result of their T. Rowe Price no-load pension, the couple explained, they were finally able to pursue their dream. The next scene showed the vigorous pair on a Sierra hilltop, surrounded by children of varied ethnic backgrounds, the entire group wearing "Friends of the Wilderness" T-shirts.
By now, my collection of such ads has grown thick. I doubt the pile results from a sudden outburst of altruism on the part of the financial services sector or from a newfound commitment to ridding American society of outdated ageist stereotypes. These ads are proliferating because the companies, as always, are doing their homework, conducting hundreds of surveys and focus groups with the coming generation of retirees and altering their message in accordance with what they are hearing. And they are hearing that people want a new beginning when they retire, that they want to continue contributing, and that many of them want to do so in ways that involve giving back to society.
SUN CITY WEBSITE
The financial services industry is hardly alone in this shift. A visit to the Sun City website at www.suncity.com run by Del Webb company--which conducts focus groups and surveys with 30,000 older Americans each year--reveals recent press releases labeled "Redefining Retirement," "Retire Without Really Retiring" and "Shattering the Myth of Retirement." These are joined by such proclamations from the developer as this one: "The myth of retirement--of no longer being an active, contributing member of society--is being shattered by millions of productive mature adults around the country."
As these examples help illustrate, potent interests are already positioning themselves to cash in on the new aging in America, including those same industries that helped give us the ideals of retirement as leisure and disengagement that have prevailed for nearly a half century. It is striking that now, as before, they are poised to take advantage of new circumstances, having retooled their message and products in ways that promise to capture the coming wave of older Americans eager to trade in a leisured lifestyle for lives that still matter.
Isn't it time our communities also began cashing in on this transformation, insuring that civil society got its fair share of the "vast autumn harvest of experience"--in columnist Jonathan Alter's apt characterization--contained in America's aging population? The promise is nothing less than a social windfall of unprecedented proportions. *
Marc Freedman is president of Civic Ventures and cofounder of The Experience Corps. This article is adapted from his new book, Prime Time: How Baby Boomers Will Revolutionize Retirement and Transform America (New York City: Perseus Books/Public Affairs, 2000).
American Society on Aging
71 Stevenson St., Suite 1450
San Francisco, CA 94105-2938
www.asaging.org
info@asa.asaging.org