We talk a lot about underrepresentation in the marketing/communications/advertising industry, and often over-60s are forgotten in all this discussion.

So, here are some statistics that might surprise you:

➡️ Only 4% of people in ads are over the age of 60, despite that demographic controlling 25% of consumer spending (Global Study)

➡️ The over-60s demographic accounts for 25% of global spending power, yet just 3% of digital media budgets are allocated to ads featuring that audience (Global Study)

➡️ 62% of older people still feel ads have unrealistic representation of the over 50s (US Study)

➡️ 47% agreed that “ads of people my age reinforce outdated stereotypes” (US Study)

➡️ 44% of British women aged 50 and over find advertising to be patronizing (UK Study)

➡️ 6.2% of the industry workforce is made up of people aged 50 or older in the advertising industry despite that demographic representing 32% of the UK working population (UK Study)

So yeah, ageism is a major problem in our industry.

And the last statistic is especially paramount, because if we want to start effectively advertising and communicating to this demographic, we’re going to need lived experience to do it properly.