The Representation of Older Adults in Malaysian Advertising

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a content analysis of older adults in Malaysian advertising. It is the first study to utilize both print and television advertisements. Despite a global ageing population, many businesses in general and advertisers in particular have been criticized for not meeting the needs of older consumers. Previous content analyses reveal that older adults are vastly underrepresented, and this is true across many countries in the world. The present study finds that while older women are still slightly underrepresented, there appears to be progress made in that greater numbers of older adults are now included in mainstream advertising. Moreover, these seniors are depicted as relatively happy, active, and physically strong and are utilized in ads for a range of different products. The study is the first content analysis to tentatively suggest that business is now beginning to respond to the shift in demographics.

The Representation of Older People in East Asian Television Advertisements

“…Through watching television, the audience might learn what roles are “appropriate” to older people and to judge their importance in society. The findings from previous studies indicate that older people are generally shown in minor or background roles in the United States (Greco, 1993; Roy & Harwood, 1997; Swayne & Greco, 1987) and the United Kingdom (Chen, 2015; Simcock & Sudbury, 2006), while they are shown more often in major roles than minor or background roles in Asia, such as in Malaysia (Idris & Sudbury-Riley, 2016), South Korea (Lee et al., 2006; Ong & Chang, 2009), and Japan (Prieler & Kohlbacher, 2016; Prieler et al., 2015). On the basis of these findings from previous literature, we formulate the following hypothesis:H3: Older people are shown more often in major roles than in minor or background roles in television advertisements from Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea.…”

“…In addition to analyzing over-or underrepresentations of older people, other studies have broken down the results by gender. Almost all studies revealed a higher percentage of older men than women; this finding was true in the United States (Atkins, Jenkins, & Perkins, 1990/1991Hiemstra et al, 1983;Lee et al, 2007;Roy & Harwood, 1997), the United Kingdom (Simcock & Sudbury, 2006), Japan (Prieler, Kohlbacher, Hagiwara, & Arima, 2011), South Korea (Lee et al, 2006;Ong & Chang, 2009), and Malaysia (Idris & Sudbury-Riley, 2016;Ong & Chang, 2009). On the basis of these results from previous research, we formulate our next hypothesis as follows:…”

“…In contrast to previous research that found product categories associated with older people in TV ads, there was no visible pattern among all three societies investigated. While the strong prevalence of food products (Chen, 2015;Idris & Sudbury-Riley, 2016;Lee et al, 2006;Prieler et al, 2015;Simcock & Sudbury, 2006;Zhang et al, 2008) was supported in Hong Kong, this was not the case in Japan and South Korea. Similarly, pharmaceuticals or health care (Atkins et al, 1990(Atkins et al, /1991Chen, 2015;Idris & Sudbury-Riley, 2016;Lee et al, 2007;Ong & Chang, 2009;Robinson, 1998) and also finance or insurance products (Hajjar, 1997;Lee et al, 2006;Ong & Chang, 2009) were strong in South Korea but not in the other two societies.…”

“…This was found to be the case in the United States (Hiemstra et al, 1983;Lee, Carpenter, & Meyers, 2007;Peterson & Ross, 1997), Australia, (Higgs & Milner, 2006), Canada (Moore & Cadeau, 1985), South Korea (Lee et al, 2006;Ong & Chang, 2009), Japan (Prieler et al, 2015), Germany (Kessler, Schwender, & Bowen, 2010), Taiwan, and the United Kingdom (Chen, 2015). In contrast, a few studies have found that the percentage of older people is close to demographic reality, such as in China (Zhang et al, 2008), Malaysia (Idris & Sudbury-Riley, 2016), the United Kingdom (Simcock & Sudbury, 2006), and the United States (Lee et al, 2006). Overall, however, the majority of previous studies reported an underrepresentation.…”

“…While there are numerous studies on older people in television advertisements in Anglophone countries for many years (Harris & Feinberg, 1977; Hiemstra, Goodman, Middlemiss, Vosko, & Ziegler, 1983), only recently have studies been conducted on Asian countries, such as in China (Zhang et al., 2006; Zhang, Song, & Carver, 2008), Japan (Prieler, Kohlbacher, Hagiwara, & Arima, 2015), South Korea (Lee, Kim, & Han, 2006; Ong & Chang, 2009), Taiwan (Chen, 2015), and Malaysia (Idris & Sudbury-Riley, 2016; Ong & Chang, 2009).…”