Not amusing. In fact, there is a huge percentage of seniors who don't need adult diapers and who do have money for mutual funds or travel or a new car.
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560
- Thread starter K108 Sacramento
- Start date
My doctor’s recommendation is going to be way more important than advertising.
Skipping over the investment section (a lot of people are locked in and risk-averse at this stage and a lot are not participating or inclined to), let’s go with travel and leisure. I’ve been to Europe three times in three years. Advertising was not a factor.
We’ve had cellphones for 40 years, personal computers crossed the 50% of homes threshold 25 years ago and are now at 95%, and the iPhone was introduced 18 years ago last month.
How old are these people? They’re not 65. Or 70. Or even 75.
That sounds like the hardest sell to a demo that will need a tremendous amount of education on the benefits.
How about OTC medications, pain patches, muscle relaxers and the like.
For those who have not traveled much before, I think there is a big market.
Even in my own family, I still have to help´in the understanding of program services, the differences in 4k and 8k and all that kind of stuff. Advertising can make this more understandable.
There are all kinds of new services. And relatively new services like Temu, for example.
Not if the right benefit is "sold". Many people in older demos, for example, are now scared of chemical additives and dyes, and will change brand if they see that the "old one" has stuff in it that they don't want.
It only takes a small percentage of people to make an ad campaign effective. I think that using a "senior specific" approach would work. Very tightly targeted market strategies like that have been responsible for brands like Suburu being so entrenched in several market segments.
Don't I hear and see ads for those all the time already?
Okay. What does that look like? Airlines? Travel and visitors' bureaus?
Cruise lines advertise out the wazoo---and that's a huge senior market. It's mostly TV, but I know here in Sacramento they're still doing event cruises with KFBK talent (Kitty O'Neal and Kelly Brothers are taking listeners on a cruise of the Rhine in October).
Maybe. But the number one job of advertising is to make the sale. If you're creating separate senior-targeted advertising to educate people, you're back to the added expense issue.
The main reason I know what Temu is is that for several months this year, they seemed to buy every piece of blank space on the RadioDiscussions home page (today, it's Grainger Supply and Goldman Sachs).
Looking them up---I see they're a Chinese discount e-commerce site. And reading about them, they're the last thing I'd want grandpa (aw, crap, that's me---okay, great-grandpa) rummaging around on:
Is Temu legit? Here's the truth - and whether tariffs will ruin those low prices
Before buying from Temu, you might wonder: Are the items real? Does the site steal your data? Will tariffs ruin your bargain hunting? Let's unpack it all.
www.zdnet.com
You'd think those companies' marketing departments would pursue that demo if there was money in it that justified the outreach.
See, the thing about Subaru is that they don't specifically target seniors. Their ad strategy goes back to the 1990s and laser-focuses on five groups, as explained in this 2016 piece in The Atlantic:
What they've done is hold steady since, and (very smart), work a gray-hair or two into the ads. A ton of today's senior citizen Subaru drivers bought their first one at 45 (it pretty much took the teacher/educator/healthcare professional market away from Volvo and SAAB).
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AARP publishes two magazines. One magazine size and gloss celebrates getting older with articles on place to go and things to do as a senior and movies/books/ records for seniors. and how seniors with active lifestyles are enjoying life. The other is tabloid and tells about medical conditions, scams, insurance, and protesting Stoical Security. Seeniors seem to be in either one category or the other. One size does not fit all.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Wait ... you had a news vehicle that could scream? That's even better than a siren!
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And -- to expand on that in light of the topic now under discussion -- both of those publications carry ads for (to use one example) Consumer Cellular, so there goes the argument that you can't market wireless to seniors.
(Disclaimer: I am both an AARP member and use Consumer Cellular as my wireless provider. And yes, it was the AARP advertising that convinced me to switch when I was looking into doing so.)
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Each of us gets one of each every month. They are so interesting that all four go into the recycling basket even before coming into the house.
I am not an AARP member (long story...) but have been a Consumer Cellular member for a decade, and they are a superior company for anyone who does not need unlimited data at the fastest possible speeds -- which is most of us. CC is cost-effective, and they actually have domestic-based live customer service, which is especially important for older customers who didn't grow up with the technology and need a bit of hand-holding. (It's not that VZ or ATT or TMobile don't know how to provide that service, or can't, but rather that they won't, because helping customers with an inherently confusing technology can be time-consuming and adds expense to their bottom lines.) That's why CC targets seniors in their ads, because they saw a market niche and successfully figured out how to exploit it. (Disclaimer: I'm a customer, but otherwise have no other financial interest in them.)
Okay, but can you market wireless to seniors by advertising to them on the radio? This suggests they find the AARP Magazine a good place to regularly spend money.
Because I'm still active in automotive journalism, do a ton of online research with my mobile and use it for navigation in Europe, I'm sticking with AT&T, but if I didn't have those priorities, I'd give CC a look.
There is a viscous circle here… few senior targeted campaigns use local media because ther are so few strong options that would allow local media to be used. Instead, they buy national such as cable channels and magazines as they are consistent for all markets.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
They also run a lot of television spots. I see them all the time.
From the content of those ads, yeah, I think I could create a successful radio campaign.
Speaking of 560 KZAC The station will be 100 years old on August 1. 100 years old and silent 🥹
This thread had been dormant since June 15, and that was an apology regarding the characterization of retirement for longtime jocks, specifically Broadway Bill Lee. Then @Weiserguy on July 6 (yesterday) at post #480 pointed out (correctly) that there were no openings for translators in the Bay Area. Then someone came along thinking that KFRC-FM was a translator. So we had several corrective posts. The retirement topic then awakened with a @davideduardo post (#490) taking exception to some things said upthread. In the next post, David amended one of my posts by noting that there was a difference between the city of San Francisco and the media market of the same name, which is an entirely correct point. I lightheartedly responded by noting that San Francisco was a combined city and county, and gave an example of San Francisco's having a sheriff's department. Big mistake! Not on the facts of the matter, but because that kicked off a political-science subthread on the forms of municipal governance, eventually getting into law enforcement jurisdictions and press passes. OK, so press passes can be at least a bit more on the mark for radio. That subthread seems to be winding down, but the subthread on ageism has mutated into that classic hit topic of advertising to older audiences and why radio stations tend not to do that. And that, implicitly, brings us back to another perpetual pipe dream of programming older music to older audiences and, in this example, whether that would have been something to keep KZAC (or any other AM station) on the air. Still to come are more lamentations about a signal of KZAC's caliber being off the air, possibly permanently. And, yeah, it's not a good thing. But radio isn't the business that it was; what once was valued may not be valued as much now or even valued at all.
Meanwhile, if I were Roman Catholic, I'd be doing penance for that sheriff's department example but, fortunately, we didn't have penance in the Disciples of Christ denomination. Perhaps to compensate, I can suggest returning KZAC to the air as "K-Zach", all emo all the time. As long as that signal will reach Piedmont Avenue....
Back to the topic. I can understand graveyard AMs and daytimers giving it up. But 560 was the at least one of the top 5 best AM signals in the market. i can't believe there have been no offers for it.
Yeah, but "one of the five best AM signals" doesn't mean much when only three (680, 740 and 810) cover the entire metro.
It was the highest-rated stand-alone AM (no FM simulcast) in the market and it was usually 20th.
Why would you spend money on that, knowing that AM's not coming back and it will only depreciate going forward?
Wanting to buy an AM radio station in San Francisco in 2025 is kinda like wanting to start a chain of VHS rental stores today.
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We don't know if there have been offers. We know none have been accepted. We also don't know the cost for the tower lease. That might have a lot to do with it.
How do you know there hasn't been an offer? Cumulus might be getting offers that it doesn't want to take, either because they're lowball offers or because Cumulus has other things in mind. All we know is that no TC has been filed, and a one-year clock continues to tick for KZAC either to return to the air or to be deleted.
Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch!