October 9 is Ageism Awareness Day, initiated by EveryAGE Counts and now marked in many countries around the world. This year there is a special focus on ageism in advertising.
EveryAGE Counts is Australia’s national coalition of organisations and individuals committed to end ageism in Australia. Ageism is stereotyping, discrimination and mistreatment of older people based solely on their age and will impact on all Australians as they age.
Ageism disempowers and damages many older people as they age and the World Health Organisation has stated that ageism may reduce life span by 7 years.
The latest research shows that:
- 68 per cent of all over-50s agree ‘ageism against older people is a serious problem in Australia’ (73 per cent of those aged 60-69).
- 74 per cent of all over-50s believe Australia is ‘not doing enough to raise awareness of ageism and fight against it’.
Ageism in advertising
This theme of this year’s Ageism Awareness Day is ‘End Ageism in Advertising’.
The way older people are portrayed in marketing has a very real effect on how society sees them and behaves towards them. Anything that has reached mainstream advertising is, by definition, mainstream, and feels normal and accepted.
EveryAGE Counts says that while advertisers and their agencies have made progress in how groups such as women, people of different cultural backgrounds and LGBTQI+ communities, are represented in ads (remember how ‘housewives’ used to be portrayed and how same sex couples were nowhere to be seen?), very little has changed in the portrayal of older people in advertising.
Unless it’s for cruises, funeral insurance or arthritis relief, older people are usually either excluded (which sends one message) or stereotyped as kindly old folks in the corner of Christmas ads or the butt of jokes as doddery, forgetful caricatures who lose their keys and can’t use technology.
Clumsy stereotypes
‘There are so many blatantly ageist ads out there but most of them go either unnoticed or tolerated,’ said Jane Caro, author, anti-ageism activist, former agency creative and Gruen panellist.
‘Ageism really is our last accepted prejudice. If advertisers and their agencies excluded or clumsily stereotyped any other group the way they do older people, the community backlash would break the internet.’
EveryAGE Counts suggests ageism in advertising is just one aspect of a much bigger ageism issue; a pervasive prejudice that is all around us, all the time – in employment, healthcare, retail, entertainment, news media and casual conversation.
Ageism is the one prejudice that will affect us all one day – if we’re lucky enough to grow older.
At a recent National Press Club event on ageism, Age Discrimination Commissioner, Robert Fitzgerald AM said, ‘When it comes to society’s treatment of older people, too often we do not attribute to them the same rights many of us take for granted.
‘These attitudes are underpinned by ageism, be it conscious or unconscious, and we often just accept this as okay. It isn’t.’
Diminishing lives
Ageism diminishes the lives of millions of older Australians in big and small ways. It makes them feel invisible, excluded and their lives of lesser value.
Anti-ageism advocates highlight how marketers have no qualms about generating fear to make the natural process of ageing feel like a disease you need to buy products to cure: ‘Remove ugly wrinkles’, ‘Look ten years younger’.
EveryAGE Counts says that in marketing, the inclusion of older people in mainstream campaigns hasn’t even reached tokenistic levels, never mind normal and natural levels.
Ageism robs Australia of the full participation of older people with a wealth of knowledge and experience that most would willingly contribute to our society, to the social and economic benefit of all.
‘Today we call on all Australians to be the “eyes and ears” of ageism in advertising. We call on advertisers and their agencies to raise their game, not only for the social good and because it’s the right thing to do, but because advertisers are currently alienating and irritating millions of potential and valuable customers,’ said Robert Tickner AO, Chair of EveryAGE Counts.
This Ageism Awareness Day, author, EveryAGE Counts advocate and former agency creative, Jane Caro AM, will join Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald AM and US author and anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite in a one-hour webinar to highlight ageism in advertising and what can and should be done about it.
Advertisers and their agencies are encouraged to be part of the conversation and
can register at https://aag.asn.au/
Jane Caro also talks about the problem of ageism in advertising in this short film:
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
