Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel pissed off with advertising to the 50+

139 replies

Oliversmumsarmy · 15/07/2018 11:17

I might be being overly sensitive but since I turned 50 I started to receive mail advertising the nearest care home, assisted living apartments, funeral plans.

On TV all I see is the plan your own funeral, how to glue in your teeth adverts or the now you are 50 you can go cruising or stay in a hotel where there are no kids with a lot of other people who being 50+ means your kids have magically disappeared.

At 50 I had 2 children in primary school, like a lot of my 50+ friends. At 50 a couple of them still had kids in nursery and one was pregnant.

I peaked looking on AIRBNB this morning at things to do in the local area of a holiday destination I was interested in.

Saw something i thought we could do as a family. But the photographs were of young people in their 20s.30s
In fact all the advertising for anything I looked at was aimed at the 20-30 year old market.

AIBU that as more and more women are giving birth in their mid to late 30s and older. Their Dps/dhs are usually similar age or older.
Men and women aren't all suddenly turning into old fogies who want to run out and plan their funeral on our 50th birthday.

One particular advert always got to me and it might seem ridiculous but the kitchen used in the advert supposedly what some advertising geek thinks is typical of a family whose parents are in their 50s was something out of the 1970s.

Don't advertisers realise most of us at this age have moved and redecorated since 1977.
Advertising adults only holidays to those as young as 50 is directed at grandparents. Unless you had children under the age of 24 and the same with your children I don't see how you can have multiple GC at 50.
Not saying you can't but I think I am right in thinking the average age to give birth is late 20s not late teens.

Aibu to be pissed. I know I could book stuff or buy what I like but the expectation that once you hit 50 advertisers think all you are fit for is to plans your own funeral or shut yourself away in some care home or hotel with others of the same age is really offensive.

Advertisers are missing out on a huge market. After all according to some we are the BB generation and have the most disposable cash

OP posts:
Original poster
Oliversmumsarmy · 16/07/2018 10:48

I am not worried by the adverts I just see them as irrelevant.

However at some point I would like to see a nod in the direction that just because I am 50+ I am not past it. I am not going to be planning my funeral ever. I have all my own teeth, funnily enough the only people I know who that advert would be relevant to are both under 30.
Nor am I going to go into a retirement home.

What I would like to see is some adverts to include a few people my age who are realistic and not this caricature of what a middle-aged woman looks like.

OP posts:
ToadOfSadness · 15/07/2018 14:37

I don't worry about the TV ads any more than I do the Tena ones or the Pampers ones or those annoying squealy holiday park ones, I just don't look at them. No more irritating than the noisy and ridiculous car ads, those I actually turn off, would much rather see denture glue and people going to funerals because they are quieter.

I found that because I changed my age on social media to 109 in order to not become a magnet for stuff I didn't want to see, I did get more funeral plans and the like. I use adsense when there is an option and block as many of the companies I am not interested in as possible.

Much as I like a garden centre, browsing the plants in the fresh air, coffee and cake outside, I wouldn't bother browsing the clothing options they have, sometimes in vast quantities, because I might be old and knackered but I am not going to dress like it.

Original poster
Oliversmumsarmy · 15/07/2018 14:36

As for SAGA insurance. Do they think we are dopey and are not going to compare prices. I have always found them to be very expensive

OP posts:
Original poster
Oliversmumsarmy · 15/07/2018 14:29

Quick chat about the funeral plans with friends of my age and we couldn't give a stuff about our funeral. We will be dead. We won't care.

OP posts:
Original poster
Oliversmumsarmy · 15/07/2018 14:26

All of my children will be adults before i'm 50. My youngest child was born when I was nearly 31 so it hardly means having kids in your teens for this to be the case

I was talking about being 50 and being a gran. Which is the inference some of the adverts give.

I think it depends where you live etc. Youngest in my antenatal class was a young 22 year old who did have an arranged marriage and was from India. Her second was born at 35

The next youngest was 30. Most were between 34-36 and I was certainly not the oldest.

I forgot about the Tena lady advert.

It is quite depressing really

OP posts:
HRTpatch · 15/07/2018 11:46

I'm late 50s, still going to gigs and wearing Top Shop jeans. And enjoying retirement which does mot involve garden centres or 2 for 1 lunches in crap pubs.
I have planned my funeral as wellGrin

TheVanguardSix · 15/07/2018 11:44

I'm 46 and I'm just dreading the 'now that you're 50 and have one foot in the grave..." bollocks.
You get to 100 in this country, you get a letter from the queen.
You hit 50 in this country, you get Tena Lady and funeral planning shoved in your face.
I've got the Tena Lady covered already, thanks!

And THIS!!!
My generation started the rave culture. We're not making the transition to beige slacks and potting shed yet. Where's the 'fuck yeah' emoji? Smile
There's a gap in the market! Make mine a rave funeral.

squashyhat · 15/07/2018 11:42

Yes! I am mid 50s and never had kids so no grandchildren, am certainly not planning my funeral yet, don't have dentures or leak wee and went to my first music festival a few weeks ago (apart from a shitty experience at V in the 90s).

lidoshuffle · 15/07/2018 11:36

Clothes are a really bugbear. At 50 there's still nearly 20 years of working life so we need fashionable, but age appropriate, clothing for work, let alone socialising. Elasticated polyester dirdnls can do one!

FatSally · 15/07/2018 11:36

am right in thinking the average age to give birth is late 20s not late teens

I don't really understand some of your post.

All of my children will be adults before i'm 50. My youngest child was born when I was nearly 31 so it hardly means having kids in your teens for this to be the case!

Tbh I think all of your dc being adults, or nearly adults, by 50 is much more common than having young dc or being pregnant at this age...so advertisers are doing what they always to, marketing to the masses.

beepbeeprichie · 15/07/2018 11:33

YANBU OP. Similarly I’m finding very few clothes in the shops that aren’t Edinburgh Woollen Mill old fogey or Top Shop young. It’s almost as if you’re supposed to just give up and stock pile the fixodent.

Mrsharrison · 15/07/2018 11:33

Yes I can't relate to the actors representing me.
I don't look like them and I don't need tena lady either.
And I've got my own teeth which are still in good shape.
My generation started the rave culture. We're not making the transition to beige slacks and potting shed yet.

lidoshuffle · 15/07/2018 11:29

I totally agree, although the gluey-in-teeth and funeral adverts on the telly are probably aimed at 70+, but they use actors/models in their gorgeous 50s prime Grin

Gardai · 15/07/2018 11:26

Yep, I get sun life ‘plan your funeral’ mail now with it’s jolly bright & cheerful envelope and a free voucher if I sign up - or a pen !!! Wowsers.

I am a youthful geriatric and do not relate to the glued in dentures currently (I don’t need glue in my plate). I don’t piss myself when I laugh or dance (yet). My kid is still young, I can run faster than her and I agree, there’s a missing demographic re advertisers.