Let’s start painting over 65s with strength and nuance in ads

In less than 20 years, it will be one in four. They have more time, money and purchasing power than any other generation. The average 65+ household has a net worth of between £500k and £1m. This is not new. Many brilliant articles and studies have been published over the past decade, pointing to the huge commercial opportunity older people offer brands.

So...

Why aren’t we doing anything about it?

We remain an industry obsessed with youth. We have younger CEOs, 30 under 30 lists, and endless briefs and trend forecasts on millennials and Gen Zs. It’s literally as though we don’t recognize older consumers exist. Many brands cut off their segmentation at 65 or even younger. And over 65s only show up in 1.5% of ads. It’s no surprise that, according to our research, 73% don’t feel that marketers or brands understand them or their desires. Look to culture and some other industries, and the over 65s are being seen, heard and celebrated.

Dame Maggie Smith is the face of cooler-than-cool luxury brand Loewe. Shows like Grace & Frankie are putting older characters in the limelight, and older stars like Demi Moore and Michelle Yeoh ruled the MET Gala green carpet last month. Last year, Martha Stewart was Sports Illustrated’s oldest cover model at 81.

But in advertising, we’re still stuck on youth culture.

It’s time we became as obsessed with silver culture as we are with youth culture.

Paint older people in all their color and vibrancy

To understand this audience better, we ran in-depth interviews with 15 over-65s and soaked up insight into their passions, habits, sex lives, fears, sense of humor and more. This was supported by broader quant. And it led us to learnings that we hope will help brands and marketers represent this lucrative audience more authentically.

These learnings are represented visually by a redesign of the iconic shopping trolley, reimagined to reflect what over 65s told us they actually want from brands.

Today’s over-65-year-olds see their life’s “third act” as a time of liberation, beginnerdom, and purpose. One interviewee told us, “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” Another, that “Outside you are 66, but inside you are Peter Pan… you are 24.”

They want brands to be less earnest, less worthy and to mollycoddle them less. One interviewee complained about how Classic FM wouldn’t stop telling her to make a cup of tea and put her feet up “as though anything else might make me drop down dead!”. Another was that she wanted a “glitter coffin.”

Despite being potentially less able, less desirable, less powerful, and of lower social status, they report feeling more confident than ever. In their bodies and their identities. And they might be better at social media than younger generations. For them, it is not damaging but a brilliant, productive tool for connection that they know when to put down. They put Instagram activism to shame with real activism, grounded in action, not just words, and rooted in the activism of their youth in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

They see being (in their words) “sexually invisible” as wonderfully liberating. Free from decades of being valued based on their appearance, they finally feel able to appreciate their bodies for what they do rather than how they look.

And that brings us to...

The Silver Culture Project

The over-65s offer businesses the opportunity for growth that the youth once did, so let’s start challenging assumptions about who our brands are for.

Let’s paint older characters with strength and nuance rather than automatically treating them with fragility. Let’s celebrate how older people are different from younger people and dump the “skateboarding granny” trope once and for all. Let’s paint them in color and vibrancy like everyone else, figuratively and literally. Please, no more beige cardigans!

Older people are our most expensive blind spot. Learn more about them here.

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