Notes for owners · Branding and communication
How to advertise to senior citizens
Run two campaigns: one to the parent in print and regional television, one to the adult child searching from another city. And never use the urgency that fraud calls taught them to fear.
The GullySales team · Updated 21 Sept 2026 · 7 min read
Two people decide most purchases made for an older person in India, and they consume completely different media. The parent reads the paper at seven in the morning, watches the evening news in the language of the state, and trusts a printed phone number and a person who answers it. The adult child, often in another city or another country, searches in English at night and compares three websites. Advertise to both, separately, and take the fraud problem seriously, because the urgency and countdowns that work elsewhere are exactly what this audience has been warned to hang up on.
Two campaigns, one product
For senior living, home care, hearing aids, health cover, mobility equipment and diagnostics, the enquiry frequently comes from a son or a daughter who is worried and is doing the research themselves.
The child's campaign is search, in English, on a phone, at night, answered by a page that states the price band, what is included, and whether there is a place available. The parent's campaign is print, regional television, the local clinic and the neighbourhood, in the language of the state, with a number and an address.
Running only the first leaves the parent unconvinced when the child brings it up. Running only the second means nobody ever finds you online, because the person searching is not the person you wrote for.
What this audience actually uses
| Medium | How it is used | What it is good for |
|---|---|---|
| The morning newspaper | Read at a fixed hour, cover to cover, often the same paper for thirty years | Credibility, a number, a date, an address |
| Regional television news | Evening, in the state language, with the family in the room | Anything that needs explaining, and reassurance |
| YouTube on the television | Devotional content, old films, health talks | Longer explanations, in the language |
| Forwards, family groups, voice notes rather than typing | Reminders and confirmations for people you already serve | |
| The phone | Preferred over every digital action | The entire conversion |
| The neighbourhood | The chemist, the clinic, the temple, the park bench at six | Word of mouth that travels faster than any campaign |
The pattern underneath is that this audience will read, listen and talk, and will not fill in a form. Design the response accordingly.
Never use the urgency that fraud taught them to fear
Older people in India are heavily targeted by telephone and message fraud, and they have been told repeatedly by their banks and their children to distrust exactly the devices advertising loves. A countdown. An account that needs verifying. A limited offer that ends tonight. A call from a number they do not know.
Use the opposite signals. A landline or a local number. An address they can visit. A printed document. Cash or cheque as an option. A named person to ask for. The offer of a home visit, or an invitation to bring a family member.
It is slower. It is also the only way this audience becomes comfortable, and the enquiry that starts at a slow pace closes more reliably than one hurried through.
What to leave out
A form with more than three fields, and any form as the only route.
An app download as the first step.
A chatbot as the only way to reach anybody.
Microscopic type. Set the number, the address and the price larger than the design wants, and accept that the layout will look unfashionable.
Creative that says "senior citizen" and nothing else. Age is not an interest. What is bought is a specific thing: the knee, the hearing, the pension formality, the ride to the hospital, the company on a Sunday.
Who pays, and how long it takes
The money is frequently the parent's and the transaction is frequently the child's. A pension and a fixed deposit sit with one person, the card that gets used online belongs to another, and the UPI on the phone was set up by a grandchild.
So offer more than one way to pay, and do not design a flow that breaks without a card. A cheque, a bank transfer from the son's account, cash on delivery, or payment at the branch all still matter here.
Expect the decision to take weeks rather than days, with a conversation in between that you are not part of. A family will look at the place, ask a neighbour who has used it, and call back. Follow up gently, at a fixed time, with the same person calling each time.
Say only what the rules allow
Health cover, pensions and financial products for older people are advertised under rules about what may be promised, and the categories are watched closely because of the history of mis-selling. Guaranteed acceptance, no medical test, assured returns and cover for a condition the policy excludes are the claims that cause trouble.
Your compliance team and the insurer decide the wording. As a general habit, put the exclusions and the waiting period in the advertisement rather than in a footnote, because a family that discovers them later complains to everyone.
An example of the split working
For example, a home care company in Bengaluru runs two campaigns from one budget. In Kannada in the local edition of a daily, with a number and the Nagarbhavi address, aimed at residents of two or three neighbourhoods. And in English on search, on terms such as attendant for elderly parents in Bengaluru, aimed at a daughter in Dubai or Pune.
The second campaign produces most of the enquiries. The first is what makes the parent agree when the daughter calls home to suggest it. Neither works well alone, and any figures you see quoted for this split will be somebody else's.
What to do next
Ask your last twenty enquiries a single question: who made the first call, the older person or a family member. The answer tells you which of the two campaigns you have been running and which one is missing. If you want both built, in the right languages, with a phone line somebody senior answers, book the free audit.