This post is a reply to my classmate, Carol’s post on the “What Will your Last 10 Years Look Like” commercial by the Heart and Stroke Foundation. The commercial can be viewed below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo6QNU8kHxI

This commercial was launched as part of the foundation’s “Make Health Last” campaign and it’s main purpose, as my fellow classmate also points out in her blog post, is to encourage the elderly to go for risk assessments and to donate to the foundation. Although the message is very clear, I would have to agree with Carol that it seems like the Heart and Stroke Foundation is almost blaming the sick and elderly for being sick and not taking care of themselves earlier. The targeted segment for this TV commercial is the group of aging population who are still healthy and who still have a chance at staying healthy; however perhaps they failed to see that although their action-inspiring message would reach this group of healthy elders, it could be interpreted in completely different and blaming way by the group of sick elders.

I believe this arises from the problem that the 2 segments (healthy elders, and sick elders) are too closely related and so it is very difficult to distinguish between the two. Both groups are around the same age range (most likely baby boomers or older), they live in the same environment (Canada), they both want to live for a longer period of time, and most likely they both have family members they do not want to leave behind. By distinguishingsolely based on that fact that one is still healthy and the other is already sick is not strong enough to really put these people in 2 different groups, especially when marketing something so sensitive.