| Page 3: Advertising To Seniors |
| When you're making print advertising for members of the reading generation, there are some pretty solid guidelines. Seniors learned to read in books, magazines, and newspapers. If you want to fit in with their reading habits, follow the lead of the print media. For example: those wary Over-50s find reverse type (white type on a black background), almost impossible to read. You don't see many newspapers printed in white on black. As David Ogilvy once said, "If reverse type were easy to read, the New York Times would be printed that way." The editor of an Australian magazine conducted readership research in 1990 that showed black type on white paper had the highest comprehension level and that white type on a black background had a comprehension level of ZERO. In recent issues of several national magazines, I counted 25 out of 80 ads with white type on black backgrounds. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising with zero comprehension. Sans serif type is difficult for mature readers to struggle through. The Australian research showed that sans serif body copy cut the comprehension level to 12%. Of course, we all know that a person's eyesight starts to go when they're over 50. That tells you to use easy-to-read type, 40 characters to the line, at least 10 point. If you want to picture that, think of Macleans magazine or Canadian Geographic. Don't get silly and make your type 20 point or all capital letters. That's guaranteed to reduce readership with Seniors. Those well-read, literal-minded people over 50 prefer a photograph to a drawing as the illustration in an advertisement. They're not crazy about cartoons. They like the real thing. They like pictures of people -- preferably not more than two. They like to see them using the product. Or just a picture of the product. Do you know that the product being advertised is the single most important influence on the attention the advertisement gets? |
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