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Big Ad Campaigns Will Urge Boomers to Volunteer
November 24, 2005, The Chronicle of Philanthropy

By Suzanne Perry

In January, the baby-boom generation will start getting wooed by television ads urging them to volunteer.

The Harvard School of Public Health and the MetLife Foundation, as part of a project on civic engagement, are planning a major print and TV public-service advertising campaign to encourage boomers to volunteer time to help their communities.

The ads will feature "leading edge" boomers - that is, those nearing 60 - who are "reinventing their lives and giving back to the community," says Jay Winsten of Harvard, co-director of the project, who adds that he will be asking nonprofit groups to nominate candidates. "We'll also focus on really older people who are the mentors to the boomers, the people who are the pioneers and reinvented their lives and have experience and models to share," he says.

Appeal to History

The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that operates three volunteer programs for older Americans, will also start a print and television advertising campaign in January, called "Again." The ads will feature volunteers ages 55 to 60, and invite their peers to join them. "The key message is that you have something to give and our communities need you," says Sandy Scott, an agency spokesman. "But it will appeal to boomer history - you changed the world, now you can change the world again."

Promoting volunteerism to baby boomers is challenging, in part because nobody has come up with a good term to describe the later years of life, charity officials and marketing experts say.

Margaret Mark, a marketing consultant in New York who has conducted focus groups for the Harvard/MetLife project, says, "I think we know a lot about what not to call them," she says. "I don't think we have the answer for how to refer to people in this stage of life."

She has found that boomers are neither wild about phrases like "elders," "retired people," or "senior citizens," nor of catchy slogans like "The Third Age," "The Second Half," or "Second Adulthood."

The MetLife/Harvard project has decided to appeal to the public for help. In December, it will publish an article in Parade magazine inviting the publication's 75 million readers to propose new terms to describe the years between 60 and 80.

Ms. Mark says emphasizing experience is a good way around the problem: "'Experienced workers,' 'experienced Americans' is a way to say people who weren't born yesterday."

Mark Weiner, a veteran political-campaign consultant in Portland, capitalized on that theme when he developed ads for Experience Corps, a nonprofit group in Washington that recruits adults over age 55 to mentor urban public-school children.

The ads feature a small boy looking up expectantly. The text reads: "8-year-old seeks experience: Yours."