Old at 65 - is there life after 64?

Yesterday’s Observer had an interesting and amusing article about the trauma/delight of reaching 65.

Once you had got over the much-used example of Mick reaching 65 and onto 'ordinary people', some you might have heard of, most who will be a mystery, it became very amusing. There is the full mix of emotions of what it is like reaching retirement age (in the UK).

I was struck by the total mismatch between the way these people feel and the stereotypes of 65 year olds that still litter the world of marketing.

When you have a spare 5 mins have a look.

People you might have heard about on reaching 65
Jonathan Aitken “I actually feel a slight relief that I'm not 25 anymore... I've found peace”
Rose Tremain “I suppose 65 is considered retirement age, but writers don't retire”
Des Lynam “Age definitely matters; you can't roll the clock back”
John Eliot Gardiner “I feel happier now and more on course than I did at 45”

People you probably haven’t heard about
Anne Jones “I would dispute the idea that 65 is elderly”
Margaret Ellison “people of my age have had a wonderful period of history to live through”
Ramesh Verma “It makes me angry when people ask when I'm going to retire. Why should I?”
Dave McManus “I thought I'd be retired by 60”

Dick Stroud

Google Ad Planner and the 50-plus

This week Goggle announced Google Ad Planner, a research and media planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers. All you do (so it says) is to enter demographics and sites associated with your target audience, and the tool will return information about sites (both on and off the Google content network) that your audience is likely to visit. You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you've added to your media plan.

Has Xmas come early?? What I would give to get my hands on this tool. Just think of the information I could gather about the viewing habits of the 50-plus.

Unfortunately it is invitation only, whatever that means. If any kind souls working for Google read this blog and want to ‘invite’ me then please do. Dick Stroud

iPhone for oldies

You don’t learn much (anything) from the company’s holding page other than it is aimed at ‘older people and their families’ and set to launch on the 4th July.
There is a big Age Concern logo on the page, which I guess indicates that the charity has been involved or endorses the outfit. Let’s hope for Finerday’s sake that they haven’t inherited any of the wizz kids that burnt through the charity’s dosh in the Heyday nightmare.

You can see a brief and not very informative flash video showing a preview of the site. From first looks it gets a thumbs-up from me. Clearly the iconography is based on the Apple iPhone. I applaud anybody who copies successful ideas.

The devil will be in the detail of this site. It looks to be positioning itself as a gateway to enable a tech-averse older person to communicate with their tech-savvy kids and grandchildren. If it delivers on the promise ,I suspect Finderday will be astonished at the age of their users – much lower than they expect. Let’s wait and see what emerges.

I wish the guys at the company the very best of luck – and advise them to stay well clear of anything that has a Heyday sticker. Dick Stroud