A few years ago a leisure centre advertised ‘Keep-fit classes for the over-60s’. Nobody turned up. To broaden the appeal, they advertised ‘Keep-fit classes for the over-50s’. The sessions sold out. Not one of those joining was under 65 years of age.
How many 65-year-olds want to attend anything aimed at the over-60s? And how many small cars would be sold if advertisements showed them being driven by pensioners (the people who actually buy them) rather than elfin 27-year-olds in capri pants?
‘User imagery’ it’s called, and it is a more powerful force than any of us would like to admit. Not only in what it makes us do, but in what it stops us doing. That sense of ‘who I am not’ means, for instance, that I can never go on a skiing holiday, even though I would probably enjoy it, because for some reason I hate the thought of being the kind of person who goes skiing.
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