‘Over-the-hill’ age is 50 for product pushers

Brad Adgate turned 50 recently and, just like that, he became irrelevant to the TV industry.

You might think marketers would want to court Adgate. The New York advertising executive makes a six-figure salary, and he and his wife enjoy spending it. Last year, they spent $35,000 remodeling their kitchen with all new appliances. They splurge at the supermarket — he likes microbrew beers — and at the sporting-goods store. Recent purchases include new bikes for the whole family ($1,300) and a new pair of running shoes for Adgate ($115).

“I don’t run as fast as I used to, but I don’t feel old,” said Adgate, an avid jogger. “And I don’t act old.”

Such subtleties, however, are lost on most advertisers. Madison Avenue has focused for decades on reaching the demographic group that Adgate just grew out of: the 18- to 49-year-old consumer. The result: TV networks are fixated on the under-50 “demo” as well.

Catering almost exclusively to the young might seem counterproductive. More than half the nation’s wealth is in the hands of people over 50, who spend an estimated $2 trillion a year on products and services.

But advertising experts say that when they aim commercials at young people they also get older folks — while the opposite is rarely the case. Over-50s watch more TV and thus are easier for the networks to reach. The younger demo, busy with work and family and tempted by myriad entertainment choices, is more difficult to corral.

“If you target young, you’re going to get younger viewers and keep your older ones,” said Jon Nesvig, Fox Broadcasting’s advertising president. “But if you target old, that’s what you’re going to get — older viewers.”

It’s a classic case of supply and demand, which means networks can charge a premium for capturing 18- to 49-year-old eyeballs. Last season, for example, an average 30-second spot on NBC’s younger-skewing “Las Vegas” went for $185,000. A comparable spot on CBS’s “JAG,” whose viewers’ median age was 58, went for $130,000. The show was recently canceled.

With that kind of money hanging in the balance, “there’s been no incentive to change the equation,” said David Poltrack, CBS’s head of research.

How does that make over-50 people feel? To paraphrase the famous line from the movie “Network,” they’re mad as hell and they wish they didn’t have to take it anymore.

Last year, AARP tried to draw attention to the issue in an ad campaign built around a photo of a morgue, showing toe-tagged cadavers. The slogan: “When you turn 50, doctors don’t pronounce you dead — marketers do.”

Jim Fishman, group publisher of AARP’s magazines, said advertisers are terrified of seeming too friendly to the gray-haired set.

“They don’t want to do anything to alienate their younger audience,” Fishman said.

Some warn that unless advertisers change their tune, they eventually will face the wrath of a group that knows how to make its voice heard. After all, it was these same baby boomers who came of age protesting the Vietnam War.

“That activism will come alive again,” predicted Brent Green, a former ad executive who wrote the book “Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers.” “Advertisers that ignore or make fun of aging people will do so at their own peril.”

Ironically, the very 18-to-49 equation that is now excluding much of the baby boom generation was initially developed to embrace it.

By 1950, the A.C. Nielsen company had begun tabulating television ratings by estimating the number of households tuning into a particular program. Most families had one TV set, and shows with broad-based appeal were most popular. CBS had “I Love Lucy” and “The Beverly Hillbillies”; NBC had “Bonanza.”

“Advertisers were finding their way, they really didn’t know what segments of the audience they reached,” TV historian Tim Brooks said.

Nielsen began providing more detailed information about viewers, including age and gender, by the early 1960s. The ratings company even created a category called “Lady of the House,” Brooks said, to identify which shows housewives were watching. That group was of particular interest to packaged-good companies seeking to influence the one who did all of the shopping.

Executives at third-placed ABC saw demographic details as a way to get into the game. For the 1969 season, ABC had two shows in the Top 20: “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “The Johnny Cash Show.” With the post-World War II babies coming of age, ABC executives aggressively lobbied advertisers to adopt 18- to 49-year-olds as the new ratings yardstick. They developed shows with this audience in mind.

At the time, 18 to 49 made sense. It represented a broad swath of the adult population, and the first members of the bulging baby boom population (those born from 1946 through 1964) were in their 20s. This was the first generation to grow up with television, and they were free spending, not having lived through the Depression or World War II. Advertisers saw a seemingly endless supply of boomers to sell products to.

“At that time, 18-year-olds were marrying and starting families,” Brooks said. “The 18-to-49 category roughly matched the age-span of consumers of family-oriented products.”

Advertisers have long clung to the notion that brand loyalty can be instilled in the very young. Just get them into the habit of buying Cheerios, Crest and Chevrolets, the theory goes, and you’ll have them for the rest of their lives. A recent Roper study, however, found that people over 50 were just as likely as younger consumers to switch brands for such things as banks, airlines, computers, even bath soap. The 2002 report, commissioned by the AARP, found that when it came to some products — including athletic shoes, home entertainment equipment and cell phones — older buyers were even more open than younger ones to change.

Just ask Steve Mosko. At 49, the television executive knows firsthand how dramatically buying patterns have changed.

“When my dad was 50, he drove a Chevy, he bought Gulf gas and wore the same kind of wingtips year after year. He was a creature of habit,” Mosko said. “Our generation is completely different. I buy the same clothes that my son buys, and he’s a sophomore at (the University of Southern California). We get new cell phones every six months, and buy different cars. People in my age group are desperate to try something new.”

To Matt Thornhill, president of the Boomer Project, a marketing research and consulting firm, Mosko proves one thing: “The whole notion of brand preference is a myth. If baby boomers were brand loyal, they would still be buying Thom McAn shoes and shopping in Woolworth stores.”