What is a Chief Evagelist Officer?

by Jeff Weiss

I want to thank all of my friends and business acquaintances who have so thoughtfully pointed out that my title was incorrectly spelled. How embarrassing is that?

The only problem is — it’s not a typo…I am, in fact, the Chief EvAGElist Officer (aka CEO) of Age of Majority and not the Chief Evangelist Officer. Let me explain…

An Evangelist is typically defined on the basis of religious motivation — something like:

“A person who tries to persuade people to become Christians, often by travelling around and organizing religious meetings”.

Those of you who know me would laugh if my picture appeared next to this definition, mainly because I am Jewish and have little desire to organize or even attend almost any type of religious event at any place of worship (except for weddings, of course).

From my perspective, evangelism really is about clarifying a problem, building a community around the philosophy of the solution and making it possible for people to be part of the solution. For me, at least, religion does not come into play.

An evangelist is the face and voice of the company’s mission or its “why?”. They narrate a compelling story, engage through various channels and build a community of like-minded user/customer evangelists who advocate for their product or cause. There are several types of evangelists in the business world, including Data Evangelists, Technology Evangelists and Product/Brand Evangelists — all of them pontificating within their respective areas of expertise.

Since launching Age of Majority, we have been guided by our mission to break the myths and crush the stereotypes and stigmas associated with aging. Given the massive challenges that lay in front of us as we tackle these challenges, we thought that an evangelistic approach would be necessary for us to succeed, but without the religious connotations or motivations behind it. Hence was born my title as Chief EvAGElist Officer.

My EvAGElist role comes to life on two different fronts. For Age of Majority, I try to help brands “see the light”, so to speak, when it comes to the opportunities that exist in marketing to Active Aging consumers in a way that is meaningful, relevant and engaging. For Revolution55, our proprietary online insights community of Active Agers, I give our Revolutionaries a voice so that they can ultimately help us in our mission.

These roles combined allow me to see and articulate the insights and innovations relevant to the Active Aging community.

If you’re a marketer who believes in our mission and wants to hear more about identifying and exploiting opportunities with Active Agers, send me a note and we can schedule an exploratory call.

If you are an Active Ager who has lots to say about the ways that brands currently misrepresent you or even sometimes ignore you altogether, we’d love to have you join our community of like-minded people at www.Revolution55.com.

By bridging the gap between marketers and a better understanding of the Active Aging consumer we hope to help them “see the light” to the many opportunities that exist. As an EvAGElist there is no greater reward than helping others be part of this “solution”.

Not sure where to start or what a campaign “targeting” older consumers looks like? Please reach out. We can start opening some doors for you, whether that’s through quick insights from our community of Active Agers or a closer audit of your current marketing efforts.