Selling retirement in financial planning advertisements

The nature of, and course toward, retirement are perennial issues that the financial services industry bids to define. We used a sample of print adver tisements for retirement financial planning from 1997 to 1998 to examine ho w advertisers create structures of meaning for retirement. The model custom er was an individual, conscientious and self-reliant, typically male, and f inancially sophisticated. Worthy traits notwithstanding, ads suggested to r eaders that saving for retirement is a difficult and anxious task, the comp lexity of which the companies stood ready to manage. The savings gear - ret irement itself was depicted in only a minority of ads, underscoring its lif e-course givenness and desirability. Ads with an image of retirement showed an emancipatory life stage of active leisure underwritten by necessary fin ancial security. The ultimate commodity for sale here was rationality of a remote and near kind - an eventual retirement that is controllable, and a f inancial path to that state that is routine and orderly. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.