From “Mad Men,” we know a media target is a demographic group who wants and needs the same thing or can be conned into thinking they do. Now, a brief hospital stay conjures up a bizarre new target audience of the old, the maimed and the chronically ill that ad men have in their sights.
The future is grim, if you can believe where advertisers are placing their bets on the bed-bound who watch TV screens all day. For these select viewers, the commercials are specially chosen.
For the more fortunate, there are lovable codgers like former Presidential candidate Fred Thomson and Wilfred Brimley of “Cocoon” to warmly endorse cashing in the value of the home you own, without mentioning the ugly fact that in a number of years, you lose the home and will be looking for other sources to scrounge up money to pay for food. But you’ll still have memories of that Vegas vacation paid for by the reverse mortgage to keep you warm.
You don’t even need a home, if you watch an infomercial that tells you how to buy a foreclosed one cheap and fix it up for a fabulous profit. No details about the money, energy and skills you’ll need to make a huge profit.
But elderly dreams are not all financial. There are commercials featuring models half their age tightening their abs and flirting with silver-haired male models.
Yet if you really want to risk a seizure for the old folks…