Marketing to Senior Citizens

   According to my AARP magazine, employees simulate being older. They place hard little pebbles or kernels in their shoes to see what it’s like to walk with aches and pains. They plug up their ears to simulate hearing loss. Nice touch. But they’ve got a long way to go.

     Guess what? Baby boomers and senior citizens are an important target group in the marketing world. As a Baby Boomer, I am considered as a widespread (no pun intended) part of most marketing strategies.

    Well-known companies are now requiring employees to doctor themselves up to feel like old people.  If they can experience life from the point of view of the elderly or almost-elderly consumer, this insight will  create much more old person friendly products and services.

   Car manufacturers produce aging suits for workers to wear to stuff themselves into compact cars as paunchy senior citizens. These stuffed employees are also asked to read road maps with vision impairing glasses. Again, a nice start.

   To me, these attempts just graze the surface of sensitivity. Yes, employees can use canes and wheelchairs at work, and so on but there are other issues I would like to see addressed…

    How about some Urination-Triggers so that men/women are urinating at a frequency of about 10 times their normal rate? And switches that causes them to pee when they laugh, cough and sneeze?

     How about practicing passing excessive gas? Experiment with trying to hold the gas in, and then blasting it out as loudly as you can. Practice looking unconcerned and uninvolved as gas emissions erupt.

     Simulate bald spots, sagging breasts, and expanded midsections. All of these factors influence what you buy and why you buy it. For example, sagging breasts cause women, or men, to tire easily when shopping. Products need to be placed in conspicuous, easy to reach areas.

     It’s easy enough to simulate the feeling of sagging breasts. Attach a couple of rice-filled feedbags at the neck. Allowing them to droop to the waist could garner the everyday sensation of sagging breasts. Think of how this could affect choices in clothing or underwear.

     Wear a doughnut shaped life preserver around the waist to experience the difficulties caused by an expanded midsection. Problems with zippers, and getting into restaurant booths will be made much more obvious to the employees.

   It’s great that they are attempting to think like seniors, but I feel that these companies have a lot more work to do. These were nice tries but why didn’t they just hire a senior citizen to tell them what they want to know?

     I am almost a senior citizen. I would have been glad to grunt my way into the back of a car seat and be extricated with the Jaws of Life. I am perfect for that part.

     And who needs vision impairing glasses? I already have impaired vision.

     It’s a crazy world we live in, manufacturing fake senior citizens. Think about it. Just go outside and wave down one of those oversize non-economy cars driven by a senior citizen who is shorter than the height of the dashboard.

     It seems that now we have people trying to look younger all the time and people who are trying to see what it is like to be older. If everyone goes back to being their own age, we will be much better off.

My Bucket Runneth Over

The Limited Bucket List of Jeanne Kraus

1. Dave Barry

        2. Ellen DeGeneres

     My Limited Bucket list. There are really only two things on my Bucket List. One, to meet Dave Barry and have lunch with him. O.K., I met him and got his autograph. We did not technically have lunch together but we were both at a reception where food was being served. I’m counting that. It was good enough for me. Plus he signed his books, writing "Dear Jeanne. You are a goddess!" Wow!If you notice, in this picture he is holding MY pen in his hand. Unfortunately, I am so overwhelmed that I have a dying cow look on my face. Dave, on the other hand, looks great, considering that he just was held responsible for one half of my Bucket List. 


My other item on my Bucket List is to be on the Ellen Show.  I have made some efforts to contact Ellen, but I am definitely going to have to do more work than I did to locate Dave Barry.  First of all, I have some really good reasons for wanting to meet her.

          Ellen DeGeneres is awesome. What I like about her is that despite her enormous popularity, she hasn’t become  a typical Hollywood fake personality. She appears to be the genuine thing. I mean, I think she is who she appears to be. And I like that about her.

         She’s an animal lover, as am I. I love her animal videos and posts. She loves children, which she also showcases a great deal on her show and on the internet. Her sense of humor allows her to think on her feet and see the funny side everywhere. No wonder I am her biggest fan. She gets the absurdity of everyday life. Not everyone can do that.

         Unfortunately, one thing is  lacking. On the Ellen show, she has a parade of young talented kids on her show, singers, musicians, dancers, scores of very young children who are already making a difference in the world. I love it; I am a veteran elementary education teacher and bringing out the best in kids is an ongoing and wonderful part of my job.

         However, Ellen has under-represented the Baby Boomer segment of society, specifically me.  I have written a totally hilarious book designed for Baby Boomer Women, (Wrinkles, Waistlines and Wet Pants) which is also illustrated by my Baby Boomer sister. I sent her the book and several letters, and she has not invited me to be a part of her show. 

     I do understand she probably didn't get the letters. I mean, there are probably millions of staff members sorting through her fan mail. But Ellen is missing a really good chance to stand up for Baby Boomers everywhere. 

     And I am the obvious choice for an honor of this magnitude.
First, there is the Bucket List issue. No one messes with someone else's Bucket List. Dave Barry is resting easy now that I have achieved meeting him. Ellen deserves the same.

     Secondly, many of her new talents are young children. They have  whole lifetimes to make it to the Ellen Show. I am 60. The children have  headstarts on me by decades. It’s really not my fault that I was a late-bloomer.

DO THE MATH, ELLEN!

How long will Jeanne Kraus be around?

Captive Audience Unplugged

The birth of a blog...cause for celebration. A new place for me to unload my views on life as a Baby Boomer. A place to share issues with my perceptions on Low Maintenance Lifestyle and what it has meant to me. A forum for those of us who, instead of being out jogging, exercising and purchasing organic food and supplements, are laughing our asses off at stories on the computer about people just like us.
There are a lot of us, from what I can tell. Boomers with humor. Boomers with leaky bladders, and midlife bulges, and aversion to exercise. Boomers who know the location of every restroom in every mall within a 25 mile radius from home. People who lived before Technology World came to haunt our every function, from turning on the TV to just answering the phone. Boomers who still think "hardware" is something you buy at an Ace Hardware Store and are waiting for pay phones to come back on the side of the road. I am working on my second women's humor book right now, as yet unnamed, and the topic that I am researching is currently the fact that parents have switched over from naming their kids normal kid-like names. Instead of naming them after relatives, or naming them current popular names, they are looking for names that challenge the best of spellers. Every school teacher of that child from kindergarten through 12th grade and beyond will struggle with pronunciation and disbelief. How about a girl named "Mergetroid" or a boy named "Biomunit"? And it doesn't end there. There are very creative founding fathers of towns and cities all over the globe. (Many of them seem to be in Australia).
How'd you like to live in Toad Suck, Arkansas or Broad Bottom, Kentucky?
As I continue my research, I will also be checking on unusual holidays.
Holidays for tomorrow include Lasagna Day and National Chili Dog Day. Better hang onto those antacids.