E-mail a friendBill Novelli
original airdate December 1, 2006
Bill Novelli is CEO of AARP and a recognized leader in the practice of social marketing. He previously helmed the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, was EVP of the private relief and development organization CARE and helped direct recruitment efforts for the Peace Corps, VISTA and social involvement programs for older Americans. He also co-founded what is now one of the world's largest PR agencies, Porter Novelli, and was named one of the 100 most influential PR professionals of the 20th century.
Bill Novelli
Tavis: Bill Novelli is the CEO of AARP which represents nearly thirty-seven million Americans over age fifty. He's also the former CEO of CARE, the world's largest private relief organization, and the founder of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. His new book is called "Fifty+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America." Bill Novelli, nice to have you here on the west coast.
Bill Novelli: Thank you, Tavis.
Tavis: Good to see you. Let me start with your background. When I think of Novelli, I still think of Porter Novelli way back when. But your background uniquely qualifies you, I think, to be running AARP, given what you've done over the years, but share a little bit about your background. Be immodest for just a second.
Novelli: Well, thank you (laughter). I started in business. Most of my career was in business and I started in marketing in a big company, Unilever. Then I went to a pretty hot ad agency in New York. Then I had kind of an epiphany and it was that I got a new account at the ad agency and it was the Public Broadcasting Service. They wanted to build audience.
Tavis: Something called PBS, yeah.
Novelli: PBS. So the first thing I did was to go to a press conference which was being held by Joan Gantz Cooney, the woman who invented Sesame Street. I saw her applying what I thought of as marketing to education. A kind of light bulb went off in my head and I thought to myself, you know, this marketing I've been using to sell kid's cereals and laundry detergent, you can use this to sell ideas and issues and causes. That's when I really began to think about using marketing for social change.
Tavis: And you then did what?
Novelli: Then I went to the Peace Corps to help market the Peace Corps, and then co-founded a firm with a friend of mine, Porter Novelli, and the idea was to apply marketing to social and health issues. That's how we started the firm. Then I retired after some years because I wanted to have a second career in public service and do public service full-time. That's when I went to CARE and then started the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and now AARP.
Tavis: See, that's a fascinating backstory. I wanted to get to that, one, because I wanted to give a shout out to PBS (laughter). Seriously, though, the main reason I raise that is because it's fascinating that the company you founded worked around health issues and now you're running an organization that was founded around health issues. How ironic is that in this point in your career?
Novelli: Well, it is ironic, but I think it's also appropriate because I feel like all the training I've ever had in my life has kind of prepared me for this job. It's a great job and it's a great organization. Of course, when you have a mission to enhance the quality of life for all as we age, then you want to get up and go to work in the morning.
Tavis: How should one feel right now who's watching who, at fifty, still feels young, but here's a book from the CEO of AARP saying fifty+ igniting a revolution. Should I be offended by that?
Novelli: If you're fifty years old today, you're a kid. We're living longer today than ever before. We're living healthier. We're better educated than any of our previous generations and this longevity is a great gift. On top of that, Tavis, we've got seventy-eight million baby boomers moving into their mature years. Now the oldest of the boomers this year is sixty. The youngest is forty-two. So you've got all these numbers. You've got longevity. We've got the chance to really, really do something in this country.
Tavis: When you think of AARP, you don't think of igniting a revolution. When you think of igniting a revolution, just that word "revolution," one tends to think of those who are young behind revolutions. Here again, here comes your genius with marketing and using the right words and the right approach. Talk to me about this notion of a revolution being ignited by this particular age group.
Novelli: Well, as I said, it's really due to the fact that there are so many of us and that we're in such good health and we've got the world as our oyster. The truth is, our country needs a revolution. We've got a lot of problems. The question is, can we afford to grow old as a nation? Because we are growing old. From my vantage point, and I'm an optimist, I say the answer is yes, we can afford to grow older and we will be a better society as a result of that.
Tavis: We can afford to grow older, but I think that begs the completion of a statement. "If we . . ."
Novelli: Exactly. After the . . . comes that we've got to reform health care. We've got to fix the health care system. It doesn't work. And we can do that. There's money in the system to do all the kinds of changes that we need. Right now, we spend twice as much on health as any other industrialized nation and we don't get the results, so that's the big issue, number one. It is really costing the country greatly. It's what's driving up Medicare costs and Medicaid costs. The average American can't afford health care, so we've got to do something about this and we've got to do it pretty soon.
Tavis: I want to check my sense against yours. I was just giving a speech not long ago, a few weeks ago, at the Starbucks headquarters, their World Headquarters, up in Seattle. I'd been invited to speak there. Starbucks is one of the companies - not the only one - but one of the companies with their CEO, Howard Schultz, who's been talking a lot about health care and how companies can do a better job of providing it, but our government has got to start to tackle this issue. To your very point, it's what's driving the cost on the corporate side of this.
I raise that only because I'm wondering whether or not your sense is the same as mine, which is that in a moment the push from corporate America on this issue is going to be so great, the chorus is going to be so loud, that government is going to have to - even though it's put its head in the sand - is going to have to start to address it because the push is coming from that particular sector of the American public. Does that make sense to you?
Novelli: Absolutely. I agree with it. I think it's a brilliant strategy. When you talk to Howard Schultz or other CEOs of major corporations, I think what they're basically saying is, "We've had enough. We can't afford to compete the way things are and we can't keep shifting costs to our own employees, so we need reform." When those people start speaking loudly like that, then something will happen.
But we need two more things. We need the public to demand change and that's, I think, where AARP comes in because we can go to the public. We can talk to them about this. The third thing we need is for government to stop with this gridlock and get things done.
Tavis: Talk to me about specifically, that is to say, this notion that AARP is the most feared lobby in Washington. How did that come to be? Is in fact that still the case? What is this thing that AARP wields that frightens everybody in the nation's capital?
Novelli: Well, I would prefer to say respected rather than feared.
Tavis: Fair enough (laughter).
Novelli: But if sometimes -
Tavis: - (Laughter) Sometimes you get respect by making people fearful, but that's another story, yeah.
Novelli: That's true. In the last election just a few weeks ago, fifty-two percent of the electorate was over fifty years old in the whole country. So what this tells us, of course, is that these are people who care about the country. They vote. They're activists. They want things to change. Our research shows over and over again that people are worried. They want change. They want things to happen. They're worried about their kids and their grandkids and the future of the country.
So when you have an organization like ours - and we're not a partisan organization. We're nonpartisan. We don't give money to candidates. What we do basically is educate voters, educate the public. We advocate hard and it is true that we do. Our job basically is to bring the story to the public and also to policy makers and, as you say, work with corporate America.
Tavis: You mentioned a moment ago that we got to stop the gridlock in Washington. One could argue - we'll see what happens - that that situation could be getting worse before it gets better, given now that we have divided government in D.C. where you live and work. How do you view this divided government over the next couple of years?
Novelli: Well, the glass may be half empty. It could be that gridlock is the future for us. I personally don't think so and I'll tell you why I think this. Because I think both parties realize that neither one of them has a mandate. I think they both realize that they've got to perform, they've got to produce before the next election in 2008.
One of the things we have to do is get the 2008 presidential candidates talking about the issues that you and I are talking about. So I do believe that we've got a chance to make change in Washington if only because the politicians realize that they've got to do something because the voters won't accept it otherwise.
Tavis: So how far am I away now from being able to get my AARP card? I'm forty-two now.
Novelli: Oh, you're forty-two? You have to wait eight years, but some people lie about their age (laughter).
Tavis: (Laughter) So in eight years when I apply for my AARP card, what does that entitle me to these days?
Novelli: Well, one thing is discounts. Who doesn't like discounts? People love discounts.
Tavis: Yeah.
Novelli: But we speak on the public's behalf, so we do a lot of that and people appreciate that collective voice. We also have various kinds of health and other insurance products that people appreciate. We have a terrific volunteer program and we have a lot of information.
We have a great magazine that goes out every other month and it's a kind of lifestyle magazine. Robert De Niro is on the cover this month. It's a hot ticket and readership is up and so forth, so we offer a great deal. I think one of the most important things is that, when you're a part of AARP, you can feel like we're really working for the country's benefit.
Tavis: Your summation about that finding, quickly, is that this issue of health care, for example, is an issue that AARP is leading the charge on and the irony of it is - all joking aside - it's people who are my age and younger who will ultimately benefit from whatever you guys can push through Congress on health care.
Novelli: I believe that. Also on social security. Also on pensions. Also on older workers. All these things are really going to be so important for the fifty+ generation's children and grandchildren.
Tavis: The new book by Bill Novelli, the CEO of AARP, is "Fifty+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America," a wonderful forward in it by Steve Case. Nice to have friends like Case to do a forward for the book. But, anyway, let me thank you for the work that you're doing on behalf of not just older Americans, but for those of us who need that health care. I look forward to talking to you in eight years to get my card. Bring on the discounts.
Novelli: Very good, Tavis. I'll get you one.
Tavis: Up next on this program, actress Catherine O'Hara. Stay with us.
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