I went to a very interesting group discussion with a group of other, well, that was the point, what DO we call feisty, successful, purposeful women over 50? (Any thoughts please send to me on Twitter @BarbaraStopher) We’re the baby boomer generation and are pioneering what people of our age can do. In our youth, people in their late thirties / forties were ‘middle aged’, a derogatory term that conjured up a pastel twin set and a tight curl perm.
The women I met were as far from crimplene and perm solution as the weapons of mass destruction were from reaching Britain! A more trendy US term for women like us is mid-life, which at least suggests there is more to come! But are we the sort of people who want to be categorized and labeled?
The trouble is that marketing and advertising for the big brands is in the hands of relatively young people. The new IPA census (http://tinyurl.com/y9t5aau) shows that 45.2% of advertising agency employees are aged under 30, with another 37% being between 31 and 40, 12.7% between 41 and 50 and only 5.2% over 50. Perhaps that’s why I heard colleagues talking about a brand wanting to target the grey market and the immediate solutions that sprang to these naïve young minds were Saga and bingo!!
But we have to admit that we are a difficult target group to reach. We complain that there is nothing representative of us in the media or targeted to us as a niche market but then, in the same breath, we also want to be part of the crowd, shopping in the same places as everyone else and not ghettoized. Is that because we are truly rewriting the rule book or because we don’t want to admit to getting old(er)?
I have just received a newsletter update from Springwise with their top 10 business ideas for 2010 (http://tinyurl.com/ye5hx2j) and there it was again; a newly launched company called Ruby Slippers (www.rubyss.co.uk) that claims to stylishly renovate homes, combining good design with practical functionality so that the effects of ageing are invisibly catered for. Now I know that this service will be valuable for some and is targeted more at those over 65 but I’m just a bit concerned at how much ageing I and my fellow (now what was that collective term for 50+ feisty women again?) are supposed to do in the next 10-15 years?!