Comments

The Wrinkly Ambassador — 20 Comments

  1. Many and varied scams go on as I’m sure you know.
     
    I think that a lot of “scammers” target the over 50’s because they believe they are not in full control of the old grey matter.

  2. That’s true but neither is targeted at the old elderly aged senior mature.  They just use a scatter-gun approach and haven’t a clue about the demographic of their victims.

    Really what I am on about is the deliberate marketing towards the 50 plus generation, presumably on the basis that we are all loaded.

  3. Well there was a program on the Beeb last week about burglar alarm salesmen (same applies to double glazing and the like) using pressure tactics on older people to deliberately over price their products.
     
    Not the advertising you refer to but in the same genre – if you’ll excuse the comparison.
     
    Young sales persons in particular think the older generation are easily duped so perhaps this advertising is all dreamt up by the smart young advertising bods and not mature folk. Just a thought. 

  4. “little glass ones with no keyboard and a couple of brilliant little programmes on it”
    I have one of those, great fun but if I forget to take my reading glasses with me I can’t actually use it. Bit frustrating really.

  5. Ah!  Salesmen!  Nothing like ’em.  The last time I bought a laptop the sales bloke spent about twenty minutes explaining [in words of one syllable] why I had to buy Norton Anti-virus to trap all those nasty little things called viruses which populate the Interweb.  I let him waffle as he obviously thought he was doing his bit to educate.  Then I told him I didn’t want Norton as I was going to wipe the system and put in Linux instead.  It literally left him open-mouthed. 

    I confess I am prone to putting on a blank face for young salesmen, and blokes who call around telling me that my roof needs fixing or whatever.  I gotta have something to amuse me in my dotage?

  6. Woodsy – Did the salesman not try to push a whacking great magnifying glass with it?  He missed a trick there.

  7. At 56, it seems to me that NO advertising is aimed at me at all. Nobody wants what’s left of my money because they have nothing I need. I don’t want to sign an eighteen month contract in return for a (so-called) free phone, I don’t want a fast car with the penalty points and speed limits in place and I don’t want to eat my food out of buckets either. I cannot be sold a lifestyle because I already have one I’m content with, and I do not want any kind of new image because I don’t want to appear as something I am not and don’t want to be other than I am. The ad-man is fucked when it comes to this lump of mature Irish male. And it gets worse for snake oil salesman because I pretty much have everything I need and have done almost all I ever wanted to, except have sex with two women at the same time and they don’t advertise that locally and I am unwilling to travel for the experience, and I may not be up to it anyway.

  8. John – A totally contented person, huh?  Fair play.  Incidentally, with regard to the “and I may not be up to it anyway” bit, I have a few email addresses that may help in that department if you’re interested?

  9. Apparently statistically we Over-50’s (in my case considerably ‘over’) are an affluent crowd.  We have paid off our mortgages and have plenty of disposable income.  Don’t know where WE went wrong!!!
    We’re trying to scrape together enough to buy a woodburner to save on the central heating oil.  The cost has tripled since we came out here 4 years ago and we just can’t afford to run the boiler any more.
     

  10. Meltemian – “an affluent crowd” So our gubmint keeps telling me [and I keep telling them they are an effluent crowd].  I don’t know where these ideas come from.  I have been putting off firing up the heating as long as possible as it would be cheaper to fuel the boiler with liquid gold.  I suppose as we have no bosses, we have no one to complain to about crap income, so they all assume we are happy and loaded?

  11. “have done almost all I ever wanted to, except have sex with two women at the same time and they don’t advertise that locally and I am unwilling to travel for the experience”. 

    What a floozy!

    “Am I missing something?   
    What’s your opinion?”

    You seem to still have all your marbles GD.    🙂

    I don’t think you’re any wrinkly ambassador.. you probably know more about technological stuff than me, with your fancy phone and Linux OS and whatnot.
    I wouldn’t pay any heed to the sterotypes.

  12. Anne – I’m quite happy to be a Wrinkly Ambassador, provided they don’t want me to be polite to heads of gubmint or any of that protocol shit.  I’m also very happy to knock a few holes in the stereotype image, when and where I can.

    Peacock – With all due respect to the man [and I sincerely wish him luck as the RNLI is an excellent cause] but does he realise that the Irish Sea is one of the roughest in the world?  The Bay of Biscay is in the ha’penny place in comparison.  I cannot see that craft lasting very long so I hope he has an excellent support crew?

  13. I crossed from Cork to Swansea on one occasion when the sea was like a millpond.  The numerous other times – be it the Southern Crossings or further North have been choppy at best, horrendous at worst.  The guy’s nuts to attempt it in a treadmill.
     
    As for advertisers – they do seem to think we’re loaded!  Our age group got shafted by the banks, etc with mortgages and packages to cover their payment (“And there’ll be a tidy amount left over for you to enjoy when it matures”, smirk, smirk) Ballocks there is – we’re probably in quite a size-able group of pensioners who still pay their mortgage dilligently each month and watch the crooked bankers stick two fingers up at us when they receive their millions in bonuses.

  14. Dan – I don’t think I have seen that one.  It’s probably not shown on the porn Discovery channels?

    Cardi – Again, I don’t remember seeing any advertisements from the banks or lending houses.  Maybe I have just developed a complete blind spot for all that rubbish?

    I asked Herself last night if she knew of any ads directed at “The Older Generation” and the only ones she could come up with were the hair colourings for men and another for denture fixative.  I had forgotten about those.

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