At 52, Martha Stinson is not quite sure where to turn when it comes to new music. The local Tower Records in Nashville, Tennessee, where Stinson is an owner of a general contracting company, is going out of business, and she never did figure out how to load music onto the digital-music player she bought a couple of years ago.
But she may soon receive an overture from a source not known for its musical savvy: the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP. She is the kind of consumer that the association is targeting with a sweeping marketing campaign that it hopes will entice millions of new members, as the first kids weaned on rock 'n' roll turn gray.
But if Stinson is any indication, the group faces an uphill battle. She has repeatedly thrown out AARP membership solicitations, after all. "It's going to be tough," to market to those like her, she said. "Our generation has always been a little revolutionary. We feel like we're in middle age. We're out bike riding, running businesses. Our kids are fully grown, and we're kind of footloose and fancy free."
In the US, older consumers (along with children) represent one of the few reliable markets in the music business these days, and AARP, the organization for older Americans, is keen to capitalize on that. On Nov. 21, the group announced that for the first time it would sponsor a national concert tour, by Tony Bennett. And that's just a start. Other sponsorships will follow, and from those, AARP hopes, many new members. With plans in the works for an alliance with a major retail chain, a Web-based music recommendation service with Pandora and even a music blog, AARP is looking to graduate from advocate of the shuffleboard set to the ranks of cultural concierge.
"I hope that we make this thing so relevant and so cool," said Tena Clark, a music consultant helping to devise the group's marketing strategy. "I would hope that one day in the future that my 20-year-old daughter would want to borrow my AARP card to get into a concert just like she tries to borrow her sister's ID."
Consumers like Stinson may not be the only skeptics however. For musicians, a deal with AARP is a different matter than a deal with a hip coffee house or a fashion retailer. No matter how hard the group may try to change its image — even with the likes of Paul McCartney and Susan Sarandon on the cover of its magazine — some people still associate it with the Saturday-night-bingo set. And many musicians may want to keep their distance, even if it means sacrificing enormous sales.
"The problem is going to be getting the artists to allow, next to their name, those four feared initials," said Jonny Podell, the longtime talent agent who books appearances for artists including the Allman Brothers Band, Alice Cooper and Peter Gabriel. "I'm the agent for half a dozen acts they're going to want," Podell said, and "short of saying, 'In addition to your normal fee we're giving you US$1 million in cash,' I don't think they'd have one taker." For the artists, he said, "It's about not admitting they're old." For his part Podell, who is 60, said he has been receiving AARP entreaties for years, and each time "I drop it like a hot potato."
Jan Reisen, who along with her partner Peter Kooiker runs the Web site aginghipsters.com, said she planned to join AARP at some point to take advantage of financial benefits like discounts on insurance, rental cars and hotels. But as for recommending albums, "If I want to know about cool music, I'll ask my 22-year-old."
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