The Elder Storytelling Place: A Gold Mine of Insights into the Older Mind

A friend and former creative director at Young and Rubicam, now working independently and specializing in second half markets, called me the other day to get my thoughts on a campaign he's working on for a nonprofit org that has a large second half constituency in the older age ranges.

During the course of our conversation it came to me that there is a really good source of insights into the worldviews, values and behavior of people in their 60s and beyond that I have nevet thought to mention in this space. Shame on me.

Ronni Bennett, a former television producer who worked on Barbara Walters specials among other shows has blog As Time Goes On.   It deals with a wide range of topics associated with aging and aging issues. However, speaking as a marketer its greatest value to me is affiliated blog called The Elder Storytelling Place.

Ronni set up The Elder Storytelling Place to give readers of the mother blog a place to tell stories about themselves. I find richer insights in these stories than any gathered through traditional market research. Certainly, far more illuminating insights than can be gathered through surveys, but also more teling than focus groups.

For example, read Holly's story. Or Sue's story. And Colleen's story.

While creative directors pore over research results and reduce their gleanings to one-page briefs that will guide creatives, the stories told by people who want to to share their perspectives on life provide more certain guidance.

As a marketer, surely the most important tool you can have in hand is a profound awareness if not full understanding of the customer's mind. Taken together, over time, you will get that awareness in terms of older cusotmers' minds from Ronni Bennett's The Elder Storytelling Place.

When you visit The Elder Storytelling Place be sure to look ijn the lower right hand column for a listing of additional storytelling sites.

Next posting - The second world-changing idea: The Co-creation Phenomenon

Comments

[Ronni Bennett]

Thanks for this story on The Elder Storytelling Place, David.

I've been blogging about aging at Time Goes By for nearly five years and "ESP" is almost a year old now too, but only a couple of weeks ago did it hit me that elderblogs - those written by people mostly age 60 and older - are the ONLY source for information about what it's REALLY like to get old.

Yes, as you point out, there are focus groups, surveys and academic studies, but they don't tell us about the everyday, ordinary experience of aging.

And because of deeply-held, cultural ageist beliefs, there has been no curiosity among academics (and marketers, with the exception of you) to find out much about old people except what goes WRONG as we age, not what goes RIGHT.

And so what we get from advertisers are exhortations to buy products to "fix" us - that is, to make us more like young people instead of addressing the needs and desires common to our time in life - which are different from those of the 30-year-olds who, apparently, populate advertising agencies.

A commenter on my blog recently left this spot-on note:

"The women in the public eye have their wrinkles removed; there's no gray hair, slumping shoulders, or sagging breasts. The ads make it seem like mountain climbing and wind-surfing are common activities for the over 70 crowd. I wonder what's wrong with me that I don't want to do those things, and I'm not even 60 yet.

“I appreciate elderblogs for their honesty, optimism and experience. I learn so much from the comments here, as well as on the blogs I've found from this site. They make me feel normal.”

I started Time Goes By because after several years of research into aging, 95 percent of what I found was about decline, debility and disease, and I just knew that couldn't be all there is to it.

Five years later, that view of aging still holds in all media - except on elderblogs. Most do not, as I do, write specifically about aging. They write about as many different things in their lives as young people do and they are a goldmine of information and insight about the second half of life that can be found nowhere else.

[David Wolfe]

Ronni,

I know that gathering and organizing the stories on The Elder Storytelling Place is challenging and at times even frustrating, but you are providing such a valuable service. I still think you ought to draw on the motherlode of insights revealed by the stories posted at ESP and develop a book. If you ever want to pursue that idea I'd be happy to share with you my thoughts on how such a book might be developed.

DBW

[joared]

Glad to see you writing about TGB and the more recent Storytelling Place addition.

Between your blog posts and information at TGB and STP, the advertising community has an untapped gold mine of information. They can only benefit from awakening to truly meaningful valuable source information on how to advertise their products, or even what sort of products appeal to elders (many do have money to spend which should be some incentive.)I am just one of many older bloggers from whom they could gauge a wide range of interests prevail.

BTW I found this blog, David, from a link at TGB well over a year ago and have found what you write here very thoughtful and informative.

FWIW I enjoyed the story you recently shared -- very poignant.