Ad Men Use Beatles to Sell Senior Care

The songs you loved when you were 23 may someday be used to sell you retirement care. Researchers have homed in on that age as the likeliest time when music that triggers life-long nostalgia is heard. People who watched the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show at 23 are now turning 70, and Florida care home Lakeside Village is using images of the one-time youth sensation as part of a nostalgia-based ad campaign.

The good feelings nostalgia generates are a potent tool for marketers, and, execs at Lakeside Village say, help improve life for seniors with little short-term memory. The care home runs a pop-culture program taking residents back to their youth. "They might not remember what they had for lunch, but they can sing along with Sinatra and know all the words," the facility's director of sales tells the Wall Street Journal. (More Beatles stories.)