A new outlook on Aging
60 is the new 40
In 2019 you can’t tell a 60+ year old they are a “Senior”, you could not even tell them that a couple years back when I first started developing the idea for the startup and called it “Senior Together”. I still remember the looks I got from the people that I was attempting to propose a new revolutionary service to when I showed them the name: it was an interesting combination of dismay, contempt, and who is she kidding? The concept was promising but the name and attitude was not.
It quickly became evident to me that a lot of people in their 60s did not see themselves as “seniors”, and rightfully so. A person over 60 today is in better health than in 1935 when the age of retirement was established in the US and life expectancy was 58 years for an American male. In effect one of the biggest accomplishment of the last century is how we almost managed to double our life expectancy; and though our longevity was changing our marketing and solutions to people in the third act of life had not. While we debate the power of AI and techies are planning trips to Mars our model of aging has literally stayed in the Great Depression years.
The western world demographics are heading in a so called “silver tsunami” as the Baby Boom generation benefited from many medical advancements and are living better and longer lifes in the developed world. With this new found longevity the inevitable is a change of mindset, and a shift in lifestyle solutions and how we generally view aging. The 60+ no longer wants to be hidden, forgotten, or thought as “old”. As beautifully put in the Accidentals Icon’s manifesto this generation “Repudiates invisibility.”
Marketers and companies are obsessed with Millennials but a true untapped new market is found in the “longevity economy”. Renown academics like Joseph F. Coughlin, the director of the MIT AgeLab have been studying and talking about this for a while. I remember pre-ordering his book The Longevity Economy before it came out and now use it as constant reference. His views on bad design and the perception people have of themselves as they age versus what we attribute to them as a society are exactly how I feel about the problem with the aging paradigm.
“The big, beige, and boring” look and mindset have to go. From assumptions that “seniors” don’t like or use tech (see stats here), to spending next to no add budgets: only about 10% of marketing budget had traditionally gone to the longevity economy, or more importantly creating exiting products for this demographic. We have arrived at the time when it is time to change how we think and feel about aging, and make it feel and look better.
The shift has definitely started to happen as I certainly have noticed huge change from a couple of years back when I started looking into to the subject, and women are leading this change. Perhaps I am paying attention in this direction simply because I am one and naturally gravitate towards this group, but as one of the strongest advocates against ageism Ashton Applewhite explains, we get the hardest brunt of the discrimination even when we tend to lead longer lives. Shaming us into thinking aging is bad has created a huge profitable industry exploiting insecurities. It is for this reason that is has been refreshing to see women 50+ be active on instagram and become influencers celebrating their age. Brands are taking note and I have started to see more interesting campaigns with models like Maye Musk (yes Elon’s mother) becoming a Cover Girl at 70. On tv and films there has also been now an increase of story lines depicting older characters. If some seem a bit cliche, at least they are finally starting to explore this demographic. One of my favorite ones has Jane Fonda -a big advocate of aging as opportunity- staring in the popular Netflix show Grace and Frankie which looks with humor and candor to the life of the60+ when starting over. Come to think of it the 80s show the Golden Girls was way ahead of its time.
Why do I talk so much of how older people are portrayed? Because the images and messages we see are a reflection of trends and part of our collective consciousness in how we perceive things. Perhaps it is my years in branding that make me focus on the story we are telling about aging, but I think it is a fundamental change and there is proof that we are heading in exploring a new vision of it.