Even Another Pointless Press Release

I keep getting them. Hundreds a week. Here’s one from a few months ago:

12 December 2017
Another Pointless Press Release
… What’s not mentioned, not even considered, is that 95% of advertising is targeted to Millennials.  Of course they would be influenced.

Today’s pointless press release (no linking to silliness) has something to do with a book about aging in place and technology.

I opened the email because I’d never heard of this person – and I know most of them. The best: Laurie Orlov and Louis Tenenbaum. You could also check out yours truly:

Aging In Place & Universal Design

I clicked the first link in the press release. It sent me to the book’s Amazon.com Kindle page:

This book is currently unavailable because there are significant quality issues with the source file supplied by the publisher.

The publisher has been notified and we will make the book available as soon as we receive a corrected file. As always, we value customer feedback.

Someone probably bought the Kindle book, it was a mess, had technical problems, reported it to Amazon.

If you can’t get it technologically correct, or you hire someone who bollixes the whole thing, do I really want to read what the author has to say about technology?

Just for fun, I clicked on

and the only thing there was the cover of the book.  It should’ve read Look outside …

Do I really want to check out someone who hires a PR firm that is incompetent, one that sends out a press release with a link to something that is an embarrassment to the client?

Deliver us from newfangled flack news.

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More PR shenanigans:

October 2017
The Press Release Parade: Halloween Personality Profiling

02 November 2011
The Press Release Parade Marches On

19 July 2013
Do PR outfits vet press releases anymore?

Helen Mirren

I hate it when I love someone everybody else loves. I feel like I’m just a boring, average, celebrity-obsessed dunderhead.

But I do love Helen Mirren.

Not just lately. I remember her in the 1970s (Oh, Lucky Man!), before long she hid out (from me) doing theatre in England, then popped up again in the 1990s. Ms. Mirren was great in The Madness of King George. 

Since then she’s made a few flicks and TV shows.

And is a spokesperson for L’Oreal:

What she did a few days ago knocked me out:

Helen Mirren Praised For Sharing Makeup-Free Photo Taken Before Oscars Glam Squad Got To Work
“I’m not setting standards for others. All I can do is be who I am. I’ve always loved makeup,” she said, according to The Telegraph.

Did I get suckered into thinking she just ‘did it’ on Instagram – or was this a L’Oreal publicity stunt? 

I don’t care. Love is unconditional.

Automobiles

We still buy them, we still want to know all about them before we buy them.

A few posts ago:

13 December 2017
We’re always sick.
… I googled the car and it’s a pretty good car. But the spot tells me nothing about the car. Of course, why would I want to know anything about the car? All I need to know is that it has healing powers …

I won’t take you on a whirlwind of moldy posts about cars and advertising and the 50+ market.  The first was in 2005, there have been dozens since then, here’s just one:

03 May 2012
67% Of All Sales…
… Those age 50 and older are buying more than three of every five new vehicles sold, or about 62% … For the Detroit Three, boomers now account for 67% of all sales …

Today:

Ford’s Facelifted Van Aimed at Baby Boomers Reliving Glory Days
By Keith Naughton
Ford Motor Co. is looking to revive an aging workhorse with a facelift, technology injection and appeal to baby boomers looking to relive their “magic bus” days …

Somehow I doubt that, Keith. It probably has more to do with grandkids, dogs, short vacations, trips to Costco and Home Depot. Unless they’re offering a model in day-glow colors with a built-in bong in the back seat. 

For many, grandchildren are the glory days.

What about accessories for us? (Do they call accessories accessories anymore? I’m sure there’s a new, cutting-edge techno-term for them, but I don’t know what it is.)

Essential New-Car Features For Baby Boomers
by Jim Gorzelany

1. Push-Button Entry/Start
2. Tilt/Telescoping Steering Wheel
3. Extendable Sun Visors
4. Digital Speedometer
5. Head-Up Display
6. Rear Backup Camera
7. Parking Proximity Alarms
8. Self-Parking System
9. Navigation System
10. Automatic Day/Night Mirrors
11. Adaptive Headlamps
12. Adaptive Cruise Control
13. Blind Spot Warning

No bong? Oh, well.

I’m one of those old fogies who thinks less is more. Give me a big windshield, some strategically-placed mirrors, a comfy seat, and I’m gone like a cool breeze.

An accessory is a cup holder.

Women

Let me get this out of the way…

I love older women:

Going Nutty Over Older Women’s Bodies (Huffpost)
… With younger bodies ... they’re the same from top to bottom. Same shape, same skin, same rubbery feel. Nothing much there. Unfinished, incomplete. Like they were just hatched from pods - smooth and slippery, no essence yet. And only a few curves and barely any crannies. Bland and simple. Uninteresting.
Older bodies are complex, real.

Ten, twelve years ago there were older women. Now there are older women younger than I am. Weird. It’s some strange time/space warp I’m living in.

One of the first advertisements targeting this demo featured in a 2005 blog post by Brent Green:

A Heroine for Our Time 
… Fidelity Investments recently unveiled a 30-second television commercial that presents the biography of a Boomer woman. In this frenetic, flowing montage, augmented by rapid cuts of iconographic images such as the "peace sign," Fidelity has effectively captured powerful elements of the Boomer zeitgeist.

Marketing to these lovelies was written about by Marti Barletta over a decade ago, wisely updated years later:

16 April 2014
Marketing to PrimeTime Women
… Great move by my publishers – releasing an updated paperback edition of Marti Barletta’s Marketing to PrimeTime Women …

And there was BOOM: Marketing to the Ultimate Power Consumer by Mary Brown and Carol Orsborn.

Worthwhile articles by a slew of others followed, including over one hundred posts by yours truly.

Lately, there’s a renewed interest in mature women. In Joseph Coughlin’s The Longevity Economy, a huge section is dedicated their power and influence.

JWT in the UK has put together a fancy-schmancy PDF slide presentation:

The Elastic Generation – Female Edit
Women in their 50s, 60s and early 70s are active, engaged and involved. Pillars of family, community and society, nothing they do is motivated by their age. It’s time for brands to take age out of the equation …

Give JWT a name and email address and you can download it.

I was entertained, enjoyed the over-the-top pics, didn’t enjoy the over-the-top copy (while I love long copy, this was long, long copy).

Click through at a fast pace - and it’s a good show. 

Super Bowl 2018

There are never too many news articles, blog posts, and podcasts about Super Bowl commercials right after the Super Bowl. Except for today. Now there’s one too many.

As everyone will tell you, the Tide (something like Every Super Bowl Ad is a Tide Ad) was clever and I fumbled my dip-dripping Dorrito and the mess spilled all over my sweatshirt while watching it.  And, I imagine, I’ll flash on the commercial the next time I’m stumbling around in the detergent aisle.  What more could an advertiser ask for?

And as everyone will tell you, The MLK/RAM truck spot was tone-deaf embarrassment. Just think: He coulda’ been a crackerjack car salesman instead of wasting his life away in and out of jail and meeting a violent death. Sad.

The bleeping commercial was bleeping too long.

An M&M was funny when it turned into Danny Devito, but after watching him beg to be eaten, then swirling around in a flat vat of chocolate (it looked like a vat of something else), I don’t think I’ll ever put an M&M in my mouth again.

Finally, there was an E-Trade commercial with old people still working when they should be retired. I think that was the takeaway. The problem was that most of the geezers looked like they were having loads and loads of fun and being productive. Of course, having fun and being productive aren’t things we want old people to be doing. 

There’s something unnatural about it.