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Advertisers are always looking for untapped areas of opportunity to grow faster. But there is one rapidly growing demographic in society that has consistently and persistently been excluded and ignored – those in their 50s, 60s and beyond. The range of reasons cited for this oversight varies widely, but a quick look at the data shows that there is a wealth of opportunity waiting to be unlocked.
A seismic demographic tailwind
Our society is ageing well and we are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. In the UK, government data shows that a girl born in 2018 can expect to live until she is 90 (88 for boys). This increase in life expectancy is mirrored on a global scale: according to the
International Longevity Centre’s report, The Global Longevity Dividend, people aged 50 and over now account for about 28% of the G20 population – an increase of 8% since 2000, and a figure predicted to increase to about 35% by 2035. By contrast, the population of under 40s in the UK is set to remain broadly flat over the next 10 years.
Not only are there more people over 50 than ever before but this demographic accounts for 79% of the total household wealth in Great Britain and 87% of net financial wealth by household. Despite these impressive demographics, research commissioned by Channel 4 to
mark the launch of its Diversity in Advertising Award found that TV ads in the UK remain focused on the young, with just 29% featuring people aged at least 50 and, of those, just 12% are in lead roles. An abundant, fast-growing and wealthy demographic is surely any marketer’s dream, which makes the persistent lack of representation in advertising even more difficult to comprehend.
Lack of diversity in the advertising industry
The advertising industry is notoriously youthful. In its 2018 census, the IPA reported that the average age of employees was 33.9. Just 6.2% of the workforce was made up of people aged 50 or older – a staggering representation of a demographic that otherwise represents 32% of the working population.
A lack of diversity of any sort is not healthy for the people working within those organisations and neither is it helpful for their clients.
A lack of diversity amongst those who are creating the narrative risks a very narrow focus on those stories that are relevant to their creators.
These echo chambers can reinforce a way of thinking without challenge and can lead to missed growth opportunities and fumbled execution on campaigns to less-well understood audiences.
Increasing age diversity in the advertising industry allows teams to bring a much wider representation to their campaigns, reaching new audiences and showing greater empathy in their narratives – something that makes perfect commercial sense.
Lack of representation in imagery
Ever since launched in early 2019, we have struggled to find age-appropriate images to represent our members. This continues to present a challenge for those pioneering organisations that are consciously trying to represent this audience in an authentic way.
To date, stock image searches consistently throw up images of wrinkly hands and couples on cruises – a far cry from the cycling, paragliding, marathon running Rest Less members we encounter on an almost daily basis. It is even more difficult to find gender or ethnic diversity among the images of people in their midlife.
Organisations such as the Centre for Ageing Better and the Disrupt Ageing collaboration between the AARP and Getty Images in the US, have launched some of the first age-positive image libraries and are starting to make a difference but we have so much further to go. To effectively engage an older and active audience, we need a much greater depth and breadth of imagery that people can see and associate themselves with.
Society is inherently ageist
One of our pet hates when referencing people in midlife is the ease with which industries and businesses condense this demographic into the blanket description of the "over 50s" or Boomers (in reference to those born in the post-war Baby Boom). Placing a group of more than 25 million people – 38% of our population – into one defining age bracket or generational term is nothing short of dismissive and totally undermines the vastly different experiences and life transitions undertaken at this stage of life.
Society, and the advertising industry as a whole, is not good at diving into this over-50 segment and breaking it out into its widely varying and diverse subgroups.
If you are over 50, you are simply deemed "old", which is nonsensical. There is quite literally a generational difference between someone in their early 50s and someone in their late 70s, not to mention the stark disparities in health and wealth amongst this demographic.
According to the ONS, there is an eight-year gap in life expectancy between the most deprived and least deprived deciles of UK society, which extends to a staggering 18-year gap in healthy life expectancy between rich and poor.
To illustrate the industry's lack of differentiation among an older customer base, we can look at the targeting capability of some of the world's leading advertising platforms. Facebook is one of the largest advertising platforms in the world, with some data suggesting that people aged 65 and older are its fastest-growing user group, yet it fails to allow advertisers to make a distinction between someone aged 66 and someone aged 86 – literally a generation apart.
You can target every age increment individually up to the age of 64, but to target a 66-year-old, you are required to target the 65-plus audience right up to its centenarian members.
The chicken or the egg?
Marketers can say fairly that a lack of authentic, representative imagery and reduced targeting and segmentation capability can naturally make it harder for them to create compelling campaigns targeting a more mature audience. In contrast, platforms and image libraries will say that they have lower representation among this demographic, because they see less demand from their advertising partners. What is clear is that the longer we argue about who needs to move first, the longer the industry is missing out on the seismic demographic opportunity that society is presenting it with.
Smashing stereotypes
The notion that people in their 50s and 60s struggle to keep up with technology, or don’t know what an app is, is totally false. Many people forget that this is the generation who pioneered and built the technology that we use today: Bill Gates is in his mid 60s; Tim Cook is 60; Jeff Bezos is in his late 50s; and Tim Berners-Lee, the architect of the internet, is 66. Those aged in their 50s and 60s are the true digital pioneers within society. As we all age in unison, assumptions that midlifers don’t "get" tech are far from the reality today. It appears that society's stereotypes change at a much slower pace than the rate of digital adoption does.
The opportunity of the decade
Society is undergoing some seismic demographic shifts right now with falling birth rates and a healthier, ageing population. The early-movers who recognise the size and scale of the changes that are taking place and move fast to build inclusive, age-diverse advertising campaigns will be the real winners over the next 10 years.
Stuart Lewis is the founder of Rest Less, a digital community for people in their 50s and 60s