The senior population is growing and represents an important target for consumption. Executives, marketers and advertising specialists should take them into account and understand them better in order to serve them better. This paper then uses first theory to identify the behavior of seniors towards advertising in general and towards actors in particular, and then determines the factors that make seniors-oriented advertising effective. Second, the paper presents the theoretical background that informs the study’s conceptual model. Third, it reports and discusses the results and presents managerial implications for managers, marketers and advertising agencies. 

Then, this study makes six main contributions. First, it reviews a rich literature on the different concepts, identification factors (perceived age similarity, attractiveness), overall perceived similarity, and advertising effectiveness factors (Attention to message, recall, attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the brand, and purchase intent). Second, we complement the literature by considering the entire process of advertising persuasion, presenting the effect of perceived similarity, induced by subjective age and attractiveness, on message attention, recall, and attitude towards advertising. To our knowledge, no study has considered these factors. Third, our study takes into consideration both genders, males and females, unlike the literature, where only the female gender is considered. Fourth, we develop a theoretical background that represents first the effect of identification factors on overall perceived similarity and second the impact of overall perceived similarity on advertising effectiveness. Fifth, we develop a conceptual model that considers three new variables representing advertising effectiveness factors and estimates the impact of gender on all variables. Sixth, bearing on the results, the study presents recommendations for executives, marketers, and advertisers seeking to target senior consumers. The overall aim of this study is to help lay down the criteria that identify the best actor to make seniors-oriented advertising effective. The study examines Tunisian seniors. The elderly occupy an increasingly important place in Tunisian society. The total population of seniors in Tunisia represents 11.4%, or about one million 250 thousand people (according to the general census of population and housing). This number is continuously increasing over the years. According to the projections of the National Institute of Statistics, around 2030, people aged 60 and over should represent the one fifth of the Tunisian population, a trend worth taking into consideration.