The AARP event held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on September 22, 2011, was well attended by seniors with name tags listing their cities across the county. Stephanie and I spoke to and had the occasion to be close to conversations of individuals who traveled from surrounding states and I personally met a woman from Missouri who was in attendance and planned to be at the event for three days and getting involved in many of the evening programs and entertainment.

Blue Cross, Humana and UHC were at the event. UHC was a major sponsor of the event along with Walgreens. There were just a few life insurance and investment companies that were present. I had a great conversation with both the MassMutual booth’s marketing staff and TIAA-CREF.

The break-out sessions and education talks on Medicare planning seemed to be drawing large audiences. I had hoped to see more insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies, even medical devices companies, but there were just a few in each of those categories. We did have a great conversation with the executives at Healthways Silver Sneakers Fitness Program. They seemed to express an interest in advertising their services to seniors and said that insurance companies did most of their marketing to their policyholders and they’d not done much of anything in their own campaigns.

The AARP Life@50+ event opened up a lot other opportunities for SPMG. Stephanie and I are glad that we attended the event.