THE THIRD AGE MULTI-TRILLION-POUND MARKETING BLIND SPOT

By Michael Constantine

Neither am I delusional nor exaggerating to make a point.

I just keep coming back to the same uncomfortable numbers: 80% of UK wealth sits with people over 60. Yet only 5% of ad spend is aimed at them.

That's not a rounding error. That's an entire industry looking the other way.

Having worked in marcomms for decades, I understand and appreciate why it happens,

of course.

Quite simply, marketing skews young. It has forever prioritised and focused on reaching the ‘next generation’: attracting new, younger consumers. In the time-honoured belief that ‘older’ consumers have already made their brand and services life choices.

Consider this: The average new-car buyer is in their fifties...an opportunity, you’d think?

And those undoubtedly smart brand managers and their creative agency teams partners also skew young.

Somewhere along the line, did "insight" start meaning "what resonates with people who remind us of ourselves." And the Third Age — broadly, the 55-to-75 age group — got quietly filed under "not our problem”.

But this is the wealthiest, most active generation in recent memory, and it's growing. By 2050, a third of the global population will be Third Age, spending an estimated £6.4 trillion a year. What we at A3A (www.a3age.com) call ‘The Lost Wallet’.

The strange part is how badly we're getting it wrong when we do bother to speak to them.

Wealth marketing aimed at over-60s tends to default to one of two moods: decline (retirement, legacy, care) or condescension (product features dressed up as reassurance).

(There are exceptions of course: ‘Silver’ Travel being a notable one).

Neither reflects most of the people I know in this age group — people starting businesses, changing careers, taking up new sports, investing for the first time. Or myself for that matter.

Three-quarters of them say advertising simply doesn't speak to them anymore. I don't find that surprising. It's inevitably what happens when you stop bothering to ask.

The brands getting this right share a habit: they treat the Third Age the way they'd treat any other valuable segment — worth researching properly, worth testing language and imagery with, worth measuring whether the message actually resonates and engages - rather than just whether it was seen. Worth spending against – especially in today’s challenging economic times.

It's not complicated. It's just been neglected.

My rule of thumb: ‘Sell them a Porsche, not a funeral plan’. Speak to who they are now, not who marketing assumes they've become. The wealth is there. The attention isn't — yet.

That gap is either your opportunity or your competitor’s.

Michael is Co-founder and Chairman of A3A