When it comes to prejudice, ageism is the most stupid

In the ’90s, when I was still working in advertising, my art director and I wrote a series of laundry detergent commercials that won awards all over the world, including one for the best ad made anywhere in our multinational client’s global network. Winning so many awards was very nice, and the campaign certainly set up our careers, but the nicest accolade I can remember was a phone call from a viewer.

There is one group who rarely see themselves represented – the old.Credit: ISTOCK

One of the ads featured a slightly awkward moment when an ex-husband tried to make conversation with his ex-wife while bringing the kids home after an access visit. Stuck for something to say, he made inane remarks about the laundry she was sorting. But the wry humour of the script was not what prompted the viewer to call our client.

“Thank you,” she said, “for showing divorced people and their families as normal, as just another part of the community.”

Advertising, especially on TV, was much more powerful in the ’90s than it is now. But it still matters. And while we may dismiss it as trivial, we are also fascinated by it.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay says we love ads because they talk directly to us about our ordinary lives. The success of the ABC’s Gruen – 16 seasons and counting – is testament to the power of that. The viewer who bothered to pick up the phone to heap praise on a laundry detergent commercial felt seen by that 45-second commercial, and less judged and excluded.

That sense of being seen, being just another kind of normal, is the reason almost every marginalised group has fought for representation, not just in obvious places like parliaments, boardrooms, the media and the arts, but in humble ads.

That sense of being seen, being just another kind of normal, is the reason almost every marginalised group has fought for representation.

JANE CARO

Being seen is not the same as being looked at. Women have always featured in advertising (we’ve always been 80 per cent of the shoppers) but until relatively recently we were mostly being looked at, lectured to, trivialised, stereotyped and laughed at. Our essential humanity, our right to be taken seriously as just another person was not even recognised.

The most likely reason that little laundry detergent campaign won so many awards is because my art director and I worked so hard to treat our audience with respect. Our mantra was that while doing the washing was boring, the people who did it were not. This was a revolutionary thought in 1994. But as the mother of two little kids, I was doing a couple of loads of laundry every day. It wasn’t revolutionary to me.

These days, ads much more accurately reflect the richness and diversity of our society and one that doesn’t feature a range of ethnic backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations – even, occasionally, someone with a disability – is the exception now.

But there is one group who rarely see themselves represented – the old. Just as women in the ’80s featured mostly in hair, make-up or sanitary protection commercials, so older people can expect to see themselves – grinning as inanely as women did in feminine hygiene commercials back in the day – in ads for funeral plans, superannuation, cruises and retirement communities. But as everyday consumers of ordinary household products like, um, laundry detergents? Never.

We wrote another commercial as part of that award-winning campaign. It featured an older couple doing the laundry and bantering with each other affectionately. It was for a laundry detergent that stopped colours fading. As the older man told his wife she was just as beautiful as the day he married her, the tag line came up: “Some things never fade”. The client wouldn’t buy it. Why? He didn’t want his product associated with old people, he said.

Ageism remains the last acceptable prejudice. I never met a client who said he didn’t want his product associated with black people – not out loud, anyway. But old people? All the time.

As people age, they see themselves disappear from screens, and particularly from ads, those chroniclers of the ordinary and the everyday. The old literally stop being seen. We talk a lot about loneliness among the ageing and I sometimes wonder how much of that feeling of isolation and irrelevance comes from finding that as we age we become too unimportant to even be sold to, as if our money isn’t worth as much.

Ageism isn’t just the last of the acceptable prejudices, it is also the most stupid. Which is saying something, given how dumb all prejudice is. After all, when you discriminate against someone because of their age, the person you are excluding is your future self.

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