One Nation Under AARP by Frederick Lynch

Author:Frederick Lynch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2012-01-22T16:00:00+00:00

BATTLE OF THE BRANDS: CONSUMER TRUST VERSUS POLICY WARRIOR

AARP’s dual business/politics model leads not only to conflict-of-interest charges but also to competing organizational identities—or “brands,” in the lingo of Novelli’s public relations field. These dual personalities continue to make AARP “a seriously schizoid organization”—a diagnosis made more than a dozen years ago by Charles Morris.30 To maximize its consumer base, AARP’s products-and-services “member value” function requires high levels of nonpartisan public trust unsullied by controversy. But strong political stands or controversial compromises required for political advocacy—what Novelli terms the “warrior brand”—jeopardize broad public trust and risk alienating politically attuned customers.

Midway through Novelli’s tenure as CEO, AARP was still struggling to integrate these competing “member value” and “social impact” agendas—a tension quite evident in the organization’s 2006 “Strategic Plan.”31 This organizational blueprint blends a general social change outlook with a more market- and choice-oriented, risk-shift America. Thus, in addition to being a “champion brand to enrich the lives of all people and enhance society as a whole,” AARP is also a partner that “helps people navigate life’s on-going and changing needs (health, finances, connecting, giving, enjoying).”

“Engagement on social issues” is one the five major goals of member value. The latter has its own set of four goals: (1) economic security—ensuring a Social Security that is solvent for the long term, enabling age fifty-plus Americans to remain in the workforce, helping Americans accumulate and manage retirement assets, and protecting low-income and vulnerable populations; (2) health and supportive services—promoting quality health care access and coverage and encouraging improved health status through healthy behaviors; (3) livable communities—encouraging local governments and business to provide affordable and appropriate housing options and to sustain mobility options for aging populations for whom driving is problematic; and (4) global aging—encouraging governments to better serve the needs of older citizens and informing businesses of the needs, talents, interests, and marketing possibilities of older populations.

Insofar as the social impact and member value agendas overlap on providing information and services, a nonpartisan, noncontroversial brand works fine. But the social impact goals of maintaining economic security (including Social Security) and quality health care for age fifty-plus Americans (through general health care reform and through Medicare) are inextricably linked to AARP’s policy advocacy and its “warrior brand.”

AARP’s legal and media relations departments are hawkish in protecting the nonpartisan consumer trust brand. The two departments seem extremely cautious and conservative. Not only are they understandably sensitive about public relations gaffes, but they have reasonable fears of “deep pockets” lawyers looking for excuses to sue the forty-million-member organization. Thus AARP’s legal department has reportedly come to exercise an extraordinary amount of control over routine communications of AARP staff with outsiders, even by AARP’s resident scholars and researchers. (The only two AARP officials who refused to be interviewed for this book first sought official permission through “legal.”)32

AARP’s legal and media relations departments are also wary of long-term foes such as the former U.S. senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), who loves to tweak the tensions between AARP’s business and policy advocacy goals.

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