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.
Marketers are more obsessed with our looks than we are
How much of our lives has been spent on living up to impossible beauty standards? Standards created by the media, the patriarchy, and yes, advertising. Global ad spend in the beauty category continues to grow, but who’s really paying attention? Who is absorbing the nonstop barrage of content messaging and predetermined ideals? Apparently not women over 40.
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?
How Old is a mom?
When you picture a “mom” in your head is she 25? 35? How old are her kids? Newborn? Pre-schoolers? School-aged? Mothers in their 40s, never mind 50s, are largely left out of the motherhood conversation brands are having no matter how old their kids are.
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.
Our Mothers, Ourselves
Have you all seen all the hullabaloo about the new "Not Your Mother's Tiffany" campaign? Wowza is there ever a lot of passion around that! The good news is that Tiffany certainly learned it had a lot of fans. The bad news, of course, is that all of these people are now royally pissed off.
1 in 4 americans is a woman 40+. Surprised? I was.
For as long as we can remember there have been so few women over 40 portrayed in advertising and entertainment, or celebrated in the highest ranks of business, that we have come to believe that is reality. We literally think there are far fewer of us than there are. Consequently, we feel alone. But we’re not. There are 83 million of us. 25% of the population.
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.
New Work Alert: Hair Biology “Signs of Aging”
Ask any woman over 40, 50, 60 and she’ll tell you it’s the Age of Invisibility. Irrelevancy. It’s a time when brands stop paying attention. Stop seeing these women for who they are, what they offer, and how they live.
Not Hair Biology.
Our new campaign for this haircare brand designed specifically for women 50+ celebrates age. Shows it off. Purposefully. Proudly.
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.
Let’s be honest here.
Women over 40 have seen and heard a lot. They’ve been bombarded by messages from advertisers, Hollywood, magazines (because women over 40 actually read magazines!), men, mothers and mothers-in-law. They’ve received criticism masquerading as advice. Advice sold as a must-do. And opinions laid out as fact.
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.
Should Brands Be Responsible for Debunking Gender Stereotypes? Let’s ask the ladies.
These days women across generational divides, races, and industries are banding together to empower one another and fight for equality in women’s issues and beyond. But, they don’t think they should be doing it alone.