It’s summer in Washington. The weather is in the gorgeous low 30s in the day and high teens at night. There’s a spring in everyone’s step and Capitol Pride is next week.
And there are lots of convertibles on the road. From Jags to VWs, they all have their tops down, and I expected to see Valley Girls on their phones and brokers and their trophy wives, but 9 out of 10 of them have silver hair flying in the wind. As Don, our host here in Washington, explained, they’re great retirement gifts to yourself.
In fact Washington, a bit like Miami, seems to have been earmarked as a nice spot to retire, and if you walk down some of the nicer streets, with cafés serving seared tuna and exotic little salads, it shows. There are retired couples here having taking full advantage of the cosmopolitan cool of the city.
Not that there’s not spending power in the public service belt here too, but it’s clear that a lot of retirees are out to enjoy the rewards of their years of hard work, and they have the cards in their pocket to let them do it.
I think that’s fabulous, but looking at the advertising here I notice it’s not much different to anywhere else. The photography is full of 30-somethings thrilled by their handphones or 20-somethings draped in cloth with too many logos. Racial diversity seems to be embraced and represented, but regardless of race, once you hit 50 you become invisible to advertisers. Unless they’re selling medical products or retirement villages of course.
I saw an ad this morning for a varicose vein treatment, using a model who wasn’t a day over 30 and pretty obviously wasn’t having too many problems in the beauty or health departments.
It seems to me, if you were a smart businessman, a good investment of time would be to pull your head out of your computer for 10 minutes and look out the window. Pay attention to the people outside soaking up the sun in a holiday mood, whizzing past in their convertibles on their way to do a little shopping for something nice or to enjoy lunch together somewhere where the tableclothes are crisp and the water comes in plain or sparkling.
And check the colour of their hair! Is your advertising talking to the people you really want to talk to?
pic by creativespark
