One Response to “The Active Adult Housing Market is Dead …”

1. Rebekah Shwarootz-Schiller says:

   February 8, 2010 at 3:15 pm

   2009 is over. Now you face the beginning of that yearly series of decision points, and one is determining the marketing message you will deliver for the 2010 year. Perhaps this is the very best time of year to discuss two critical aspects of your marketing message: content and tonality.
   Creative Content
   On the issue of content, you have the opportunity to balance needed information (often called “rates and dates”) with promotional messages about the value of the active adult community experience that you offer. Some marketing managers choose to treat content super-seriously — never straying from a straightforward exposition of every last detail about the workings of the active adult housing market and the requirements of homeowners. As a result, some active adult marketing materials resemble little more than a homeowner’s manual. They bypass the opportunity to eagerly highlight what makes an active adult housing community special and valuable.
   Why does this happen? Too often those responsible for guiding the active adult marketing message feel that to stray from the factual straight-and-narrow may erode perceptions of the active adult’s overall trustworthiness. Those who feel this way may imagine a homeowner reading a more fanciful message and responding with something like this: “Gee, that active adult just said something funny in its brochure. Maybe they don’t take their near-sacred role of responsibility very seriously.” We can readily see that this is an association that is unlikely to occur among the vast majority who will see or hear the message. Therefore, it is unnecessary to reign in the marketing message just because it might raise the eyebrows of “someone out there.”
   Setting the Tone
   Including humor and joyfulness in the content of the message moves us into a discussion of tonality — the two are interrelated. In short, you are a housing industry for active adults. You are expected to provide an end product of . . . lifestyle. If your marketing materials constitute the first look prospects get of your community housing, and if that first glimpse does not impart a sense of the fun you create, how do you dig yourself out from that point?
   Even if your specialty makes it important that your emphasis is on the instructional component — for example, a tennis or computer club — the learning is still imparted in a manner that is appropriate for a community activity. Never fail to portray fun, enjoyment, and relaxation as part of your operation’s total ambience.
   Here are some examples depicting the fun-filled experience of active adult housing that are fine for your web site or your brochure:
   • A homeowner or group of homeowners just totally cracked up in hysterical laughter — over who-knows-what
   • Community members & staff in outrageous costumes
   • A homeowner reading a book in an Adirondack chair
   Marketing the truth
   On the subject of truthfulness, you have some interesting decisions to make. As an example, consider the situation where a videographer went out to shoot testimonials from homeowners for use in the finished production. One homeowner smiled a big banana grin at the camera and said, “I love it here so much that you know what I’m going to do? In January or February, I’m going to play a round or two on the mini-golf course!”
   How precious, right? However, the marketing manager would not allow the clip to be included. The rationale: “We would not want anyone to possibly think that our grounds are penetrable during the winter season and that some homeowner might get hurt while unattended on our community property.”
   How sad, right? This was a fanciful wish expressed by an excited homeowner — not based in fact and certainly unlikely to occur. It was almost certain not to happen in reality. Any reasonable marketing manager would understand that this is not some implied invitation from the active adult community to sneak back during snow season. Yet, the video was produced without this magical moment.
   In editing your message, consider your statements carefully; however, do not express your message in such a standardized fashion that your finished marketing tool loses its impact.
   When is “puffery” acceptable?

   You can appropriately “bend” the truth about absolute reality. And, when you do it, you are supported by a variety of court decisions on the use of “puffery” in advertising. Judges have routinely rendered opinions that various exaggerated claims are permissible as long as those claims would not be taken perfectly seriously and thus would not be relied upon by a reasonable buyer. Several opinions include rulings that substantiation is not required for claims that are clearly exaggerations or boasts upon which a reasonable consumer would not rely. The Council of Better Business Bureaus mirrors these decisions in its Code of Advertising.
   Of course, this does not suggest the wisdom of creating a message such as “Active Adult Housing X is the best place you could possibly live.”
   However, here is a better application: Del Webb Communities, located throughout the United States, maintains an exhaustive lifestyle process to find outstanding lifestyle directors. When developing a new community brochure, the decision was made to use the following headline on the cover: “Come live the legendary Del Webb lifestyle today.” The brochure goes on to inform homeowners and prospective homeowners all about how the active adult housing industry finds these wonderful lifestyle directors to carry out many fantastic community activities. Even so, logic suggests that no buyer would assume that this lifestyle is factually claiming to have the best lifestyle director of any active adult housing community whatsoever. Thus, the claim — when reasonably explained — stands the tests of appropriateness and persuasion.
   An interesting word . . . persuasion. Perhaps an understanding of this word and its relevance to active adult marketing will help those who remain skittish about their messages to become a bit bolder. Make no mistake, your marketing tools are — here it comes, the dreaded “C word” — commercials about your active adult communities. They are not simply documentary statements of fact — they are meant to persuade. Your prospects live their lives as consumers, and they have certain expectations about being persuaded. In short, they accept it. You are asking them to make a purchase, and they expect that you will give them reasons to do so and that you will appear chauvinistic about your operation. Thus, you need not feel uneasy or embarrassed about making energetic claims on behalf of what you do for active adult homeowners.
   Your first goal is to gain attention, and you cannot do this successfully if your message recedes into the background. Your next goal is to build interest, and this can only be done by highlighting what you do and how well you do it. The third goal is to create desire, and this is usually achieved in a competitive arena where you find an appropriate way to make your offering more enticing than those of your competitors. Finally, you need action from the prospect, and this is best accomplished by asking for the sale.
   That’s advertising, and that’s what you’re doing as you begin to think about filling active adult housing for 2010.