Why Advertise to Women Over 40 If They Are Already Buying Your Product?
It’s a lot less work (and less money) to keep a customer loyal and coming back than it is to seduce a new one.
Here are several more good reasons to continue advertising to women over 40, even if they're already loyal to your product.
Welcome to the New Age of Aging
Pretending there's an alternative to aging is getting old. And women are over it. as advertisers and marketers, we have a choice. We can reinforce stereotypes, keep repeating what’s been done, or we can use our influence to push culture forward. Fancy is here for it. Are you?
Where Have All the Women Gone?
We cannot accurately portray women of any age without hearing and seeing them. Advertisers must seek to understand women, commit to accurate representation, and then roll up their sleeves and do the work.
As our research revealed, women over 40 are thriving. They feel wiser, sexier, more confident, more powerful, more energized, and, paradoxically, younger than ever before, and yet they do not see their experience in ads. Often, ads targeting them focus on products for aging, slowing down, or desperately seeking ways to look and feel younger.
Women over 40 are different
A woman over 40 is anything but typical. So brands, when you’re considering broadening your focus to include her, be sure to really include who she actually is, how your brand can connect to what is important to her, and the kind of difference you can make for the life she’s living.
Want to reach women 40+?
It’s a fact that women over 40 are integral to the consumer economy. They’re heading households, buying for their families, often spending discretionary income on themselves. They’re loyal to their favorite brands and willing to try something new if there’s credible evidence to suggest it will solve a problem, or enhance an experience. But the question remains: how to connect with them in a way that’s interesting, relevant, and most importantly, motivating?
What Are Women Over 40 Worth to Your Marketing Mix?
Remember when it was all Millennials all the time? When the world was swathed in pink and brass gleamed bright. When inspirational sayings scrawled in neon adorned walls and terrazzo covered floors, tables counters and kleenex boxes? Sorry ladies, it’s all about Gen Z now. How quickly a media darling gets pushed to the side when a newer, cuter, younger, sparklier option catches marketing’s eye.
Aging: Finally Coming of Age
Aging is nothing new.
We beings have been doing it since time began. Time passes. We get older. No matter if we’re trees or humans or horses or plankton.
Women, especially, have internalized a societal directive that says stop it, slow it, avoid it, hide it at any cost for, basically, ever.
And that’s powerful.
Half of mothers Over 40 Think Brands Don’t Get Them.
When Fancy surveyed nearly 500 women over 40, we asked the moms whether they felt that advertisers understood their experience of motherhood. Over 50% said no. In the advertising world “mom” = “harried woman, 25-35, with toddlers through grade-schoolers, trying to hold it all together.”
Women Over 40: Is this a Moment or a Movement?
Here’s the thing though: women over 40, 50, 60, 70, etc are not having a moment. They are accelerating a movement. They are not fading into the background, quietly retiring (as if!) and re-doing the living room drapes. Women have never been more engaged, more motivated, more in control of their lives than they are today.
Why Women Over 40 Are Critical to Your Brand’s Success
Believe it or not, they buy tequila, tampons, and technology. They bank, renovate, and drive. They need tires and air conditioners and plane tickets (post-vaccination, please...). In other words, everything that anyone needs to live a typical life today.
Women over 40 aren’t who you think they are.
80% of women over 40 feel younger, cooler, or sexier than they expected they’d feel at this age.
Eighty percent. That’s a lot of women who aren’t interested in reliving their youth (misspent or not!). That’s a lot of women who are looking forward to life, not back at it. And, that’s a lot of women who aren’t going to be influenced by advertising playing (and preying) on their insecurities, fears, and anxieties.
Hello?... is anyone out there?… Women 40+ feel completely ignored by brands.
42 million women are between 40-60 years old. Gen-Xers have the highest post-tax incomes when compared with Millennials & Boomers. So ask yourself: are women over 40 important to your brand? Do they buy it? Do you want them to?
Something to think about:
Women over 40 see themselves presented in very specific roles, if at all. Many of the women we surveyed said that outside of anti-aging and pharmaceutical ads they really didn’t see anyone their age, and even those women didn’t reflect the way our respondents see themselves. Which, in case you’re wondering, is pretty awesome.
Life Between the Bread: Women Over 40 Are the Sandwich Generation
Gen X is not the first generation to be referred to as the sandwich generation, but we are experiencing it in a more intense way than our parents did.
To Resonate With Women 40+ Beauty Brands Need to Get Real
Global ad spend in the beauty category is expected to hit well over $15B this year, but who’s really paying attention? Who is absorbing the onslaught of content messaging and predetermined ideals? Turns out, not women over 40.
How do you categorize women over 40? You don’t.
A woman over 40 refuses to be defined.
At no other point in a woman’s life is she so likely to be so different from her age mates. Biologically, emotionally, financially, sexually, psychologically. This group is incredibly diverse.
5 Ways Brand Marketers Can Connect Meaningfully With Women over 40—and 1 Way They Can’t.
Women 40+ aren’t who you think they are. In fact, according to Fancy’s survey of 500 women over 40, they aren’t even who they thought they’d be. They’re cooler, stronger, and sexier than they ever imagined they’d be.
Brands: here’s How to talk to women over 40.
Here’s what’s true: women over 40 have money -- and they spend it. They’re not afraid to try new brands, and when those brands work for them, they stay loyal. Not only that, but they tell their friends about these brands and give them to each other as gifts, creating a virtuous cycle of new customers and fans over 40.
The Business of Rebranding Aging panel discussion at The Wing
Erica and I joined an incredible group of women at The Wing to talk about ageism, its impact on women creatives, advertising to female consumers, beauty, and mentoring.
Brands Continue to Overlook Women Over 40 as a Group Worth Marketing To
Women are living longer and better. They are not taking the increase in life expectancy and stretching out old age with more bingo and birdwatching; they are taking advantage of it now. Women are more engaged, more motivated, more in control of their lives than ever before. And brands are missing out.