A great joy of working in an agency environment is interacting with the rich mix of interesting and creative people it takes to develop great communication. One of those folks here at GlynnDevins is writer Charles Harris. Charles is always sharing his eclectic collection of news and notes internally, and we thought our growing community of GlynnDevins blog readers would find Charles’ take just as refreshing. So take a walk through Charles’ world and look for more musings every month or so – he does have a day job you know.

Notes from a dimly lit cubicle.

• Asked why he moved to a CCRC, one man said, “I’d had enough mowing.”

• When I read about banner blindness, where my brain doesn’t recognize an online advertising banner even though my eyes see it, I think I must’ve missed a lot. I suppose I’ll never know.

• The word “enjoy” is bone-weary after years of overuse in advertising and by wait staff.

• Travel tip: If three carnivorous women target a hotdog restaurant for lunch, a vegetarian copywriter traveling with them can make do with tater tots and a milkshake.

• Print, direct mail and broadcast are passive. The web isn’t. “Linear vs. non-linear. Author-driven vs. reader-driven. Storytelling vs. ruthless pursuit of actionable content. Anecdotal examples vs. comprehensive data. Sentences vs. fragments.” (Jakob Nielsen) Understanding this changes everything about writing and designing for the web.

• Once championed for its response-boosting effectiveness, now neglected. I seldom see a Johnson Box in direct mail letters anymore.

• Travel tip: Everybody knows Houston has 2 airports. If you inadvertently drop off your rental at the wrong one and amble off looking for the Southwest terminal that isn’t there, call for Luis, the High-Speed Cabbie. And tell him his new friends at GlynnDevins say hello.

• Interviewing retirement community residents for testimonial ad campaigns is almost as energizing for the GlynnDevins writers as Starbucks.

• Among my “Friends” on Facebook, it looks like the most active are those who’re burning the midnight oil in Farmville.

• From a 72-year study of 268 men that began in the 1930s: “Their lives were too human for science, too beautiful for numbers, too sad for diagnosis and too immortal for bound journals.” A rather nice way to think of our target demographic.

And life goes on. So far.

During a recent conference I attended, the senior vice president of global public affairs and communications at Coca-Cola did a presentation on social media strategy. Clyde C. Tuggle’s comments are relevant to any business trying to build relationships online ─ and they definitely apply to senior living communities.

1) Consumers own our brands. We may think we’re in control, but ultimately it’s their experience with your community that shapes what you’re really selling to the public.

2) Look for ways to engage with your consumers. The best way to bring them in is through connectivity. Fish where the fish are, not where you think they are.

3) Do something different. Find a way for consumers to make an emotional bond.

And this last point is probably the most relevant for senior living.

4) Every day is election day. Get in the campaign mode, because the consumer is “voting” every day about your product, your community. Let people know what you stand for, communicate your values and live them.

Think about your operations. Think about your messaging. Why? Because “every day is election day.”

I know, it’s one of those buzz words that everyone’s a little bit tired of. Yet we keep hearing about the need to be transparent – to communicate honestly and openly – to gain trust.

And isn’t building trust the guiding principle in selling our product? In retaining residents? Keeping staff members motivated and committed?

I was recently consulting with a community that’s in the early stages of redevelopment. They want to deliver on the promised “insider updates” at an upcoming Priority Member retention event, and are facing a familiar challenge – the fact that the Priority phase is generally characterized as a time when there’s very little interesting or relevant progress to report.

My suggestion? Instead of trying to manufacture something “exclusive” to share with them, why not give them a deeper-dive explanation of the development process? Explain the business reasons that drive the benefits we’re offering them – that we need to build early momentum to achieve the pre-sales needed for financing. What’s the risk, really? It’s information they could find on their own if they really wanted to, and we can score big points by offering it up in an honest, forthright way.

Another community – this one operational – was considering opening up a popular resident event to hot leads. Their hesitation stemmed from the expected presence of some memory support residents at the event. Of course we want to create a welcoming, enjoyable experience for prospective residents, but don’t you think it’s also important for them to know – to see for themselves – that they’ll still be valued participants in the community, if they ever require a higher level of care?

While decisions like these must be carefully considered and won’t always be easy to make, think about steps you can take to be more transparent to your various audiences – and foster that trust that is so paramount to your community’s success.

The recent conversation began when a colleague, who does research for 55+ communities, remarked via email to a group of marketers to the mature, “We’ve tested ads that use the word old in a very accepting and progressive way, only to find our respondents hating the word and the idea in most contexts. (They hate) even the photos that went with it. These were 50 to 68 (years old), salt-of-the-earth belonger types – and didn’t want to go near the idea of old.”

As marketers, we’ve been looking for a suitable replacement for the word old for at least three decades. David Wolfe, author of the Ageless Marketing books, thinks that verbal Botox (a younger vocabulary for the aging process) wouldn’t be necessary if we’d just buck up and see aging and old as reality. Good for some, not so much for others; just like any other phase/phrase – the terrible twos, teenager, thirty-somethings.

He says, “Real is real. At my age (77) I know that I am senior, elderly, old…and none of these descriptors cause me a second thought. Euphemisms don’t do a thing for me. On occasion there have been contests to come up with substitute words for the traditional terms by which we know older folks. Generally, old folks wonder what the problem is.” Then he quoted another member of the e-dialogue, who encourages calling the audience that is our market simply, “people.”

In the U.K., older people are called geezers, and it’s a term of endearment there.  In the U.S., there was a sports magazine that honored older athletes and had geezer in the title. It didn’t do well here.

As I read what these experienced people had to say about the perfect descriptive words to label someone older, it became clear that the younger the thinker, the more fight in them against using the words senior or old.

The younger members of the e-conversation were adamant about the need for verbal Botox. They didn’t mind a discount because they are of a certain age, but please, please don’t refer to them as “seniors” or “old,” if you value your health. 

The lesson here may be that our older prospects can handle being referred to as seniors – they even know they’re older; their adult children, the Boomers, prefer not to be reminded or labeled now (or maybe ever). 

Your advertising often provides the first exposure your audience has to your community. In fact, it’s probably the only exposure they have before actually calling for information or making an appointment.

For these people to think it might be a good idea to consider your community over another, they first need to be interested in who you are and why they should care. So your communication with them – your advertising – will work best when it’s presented in a truly interesting way that will stick with your audience.

How do you do that? Although it’s tempting to believe others are as interested in us as we are, the best way to get someone truly interested in you is to show you’re sincerely interested in them, and what’s important to them.

People respond most positively to advertising that approaches them in a sincere, genuine fashion. Advertising that uses the same kind of language they do with their friends. Advertising that shows you understand them and are interested in them by talking about them and their concerns, their hopes, their needs – not just about yourself.

Look at your advertising as if it were a real person representing you out there in the community. You’d probably want that person to be smart, truthful, friendly, approachable – maybe even funny. You’d want them delivering the message that shows you understand what is important to your audience, and suggests you can help them achieve whatever it is they want to achieve. And maybe – just maybe – it leaves them with something to smile about.

So if you want people to remember your community, make sure your community is interesting to them by creating advertising that shows you’re interested in them. For example, here are a couple ads that present a message in a truly interesting way:

• “City You’ve Grown to Love” Ad  

• “Countless Ways to Express Yourself” Ad