GNer aged 50 or over? Take our survey - £100 voucher to be won

Survey completed

1. Don't tell me what I can afford. "Quality at a price you can afford. That's Room Sense". How do you know, you presumptuous ar*****e?

2. Don't sing to me. Why would some bunch of second rate session singers intoning a 3rd rate ditty make me want, among other things, a log cabin, high ABV rated cider, laxatives, a hearing test, a new car, a new kitchen? Generally, it has the opposite effect and I shun products whose ads annoy me.

3. Don't run the same ad on broadcast media any more often than hourly and preferably less often than that. Currently, I'm being driven insane by the NHS nursing recruitment ad running three or four times an hour on any commercial station I happen to tune to. It's probably made more aggravating by the voice-over's horrible accent.

4. Don't use meaningless phrases, e.g.: Nat West, "we are what we do". Eh? Whatever does that mean?

5. If the rules say you have to include all that waffle about terms and conditions; share prices can go down as well as up; please drink responsibly, etc, then please book more airtime instead of having your voice-over gabble 30 seconds' worth of words in 15 seconds.

I, too, agree with what has been posted so far. I would add that some of them are quite patronising.
We need to know the cost of something, what it does and where we can buy it without all the added flannel!

The only older person I ever liked in an advert was the J. H Hartley one. It didn't make me like Yellow Pages, though.

I so agree with all that's been said. We're all very different as we get older and know our strengths and weaknesses and exactly what we want. Consequently, enticing an older person to change is probably quite difficult.

Why over 50s? That’s barely middle aged!

Have all the advertising you like, all that needs to be done is for people to decide not to buy things they do not need. We are only sheep if we choose to be.

Tentatively inching head above parapet... I suspect we'd be a lot better off with a lot less advertising! Think bank balance, waistline, household clutter and the global environment for starters.

Wow! What else to add to the comments above? I agree with every single one of them, and it's good to know I'm not the only one who feels this way.

The facts, and the price - those are the two most important things to get across. Please stop the stereotyping....

I think that advertisers need to focus on making the best that people can be, rather than concentrate on staying and looking young. Most people actually have a much younger version of themselves in their head so will probably ignore adverts peopled with the elderly!

I think, as far as possible, keep people out of adverts. By the time people reach their 60s they are so diverse in appearance from still looking absurdly young (naturally) to ageing long before their time and this diversity grows the older we get. So it is impossible to put anyone in an advert that everyone in the target group will identify with, rather than be alienated by.

Currently there seem to be two stereotypical ad old people: 1) old dears, crabbed and shrunken, disabled, needing their children to do everything for them or 2) tall slim elegantly dressed and beautifully coiffed (men and women) all white hair and white teeth. Most of us find both stereotypes equally alienating.

Don't use twee, smug, middle class oldies to sell either funeral plans or life insurance. Those adverts are so irritating.

Cut down on the overblown prose and half truths. Give us succinct and relevant facts about the product.

Don't tell us how many people our age are impressed, we prefer to make up our own minds.

Don't use celebrities who probably wouldn't be seen dead using the product if they weren't being richly rewarded.
Sue Pollard is often seen in Waitrose but are there any sightings of certain slebs in Iceland or Farm Foods?
I use Iceland because the staff are courteous and cheerful, it's convenient, sells many groceries I use, and delivers free, not because a bemused-looking Hoff endorses it! If I drank beer the writhing denim man and his greasy looking hair in the snow would but me off the one he recommends!