The Seven Myths
of Middle Age
Crispin Reed has worked in leading
advertising agencies and brand
consultancies both in Europe and
Asia with blue-chip clients including
Procter & Gamble, Molson Coors,
Kelloggs, and DaimlerChrysler. He
is founder of Skyscraper Consulting,
helping companies to establish
firm foundations and to see above
the clouds. With the passage of his
owntime, he has become fascinated
with the challenges ofmarketing to
the experienced generations.
Helena is a behavioral scientist at
Innovia Technology, an innovation
consultancy based in Cambridge,
United Kingdom. She works with major
global corporations on their innovation
challenges and focuses specifically on
trying to understand why people do
what they do ... not what they say they
do! Her doctorate, in social psychology,
concerned how older women think
about aging and she also lectures on the
psychology of aging at the University of
Cambridge. Previously she set up and
managed a global-brand consultancy at
Leo Burnett, an international advertising
agency and headed the corporate
reputation practice at Brunswick Group,
a communications firm.
Business Expert Press 978-1-94784-367-7 (2018)
www.businessexpertpress.com
Implications for Marketing and Brands
Crispin Reed and Helena Rubinstein
Abstract: We may think we understand the oldergen-
eration, but all the evidence suggests we dont. Our
perceptions are shaped more by marketing and media
stereotypes and distortions than by reality.
This article suggests seven commonly held myths
aboutmiddle age and, drawing on a wealth of aca-
demicresearch, shatters these myths. Importantly, it
offerspractical advice to businesses and marketers on
howto better understand, represent, and communicate
tothis commercially important group of consumers.
Keywords: avoiding stereotype trap in marketing;
marketing; marketing to older generations; marketing
to older people; marketing to the middle aged; myths of
middle age
Some ContextAn Ageing Population
And in the end, its not the years in your life that count. Its
the life in your years
Abraham Lincoln
Back in 1965 the now sexagenarian Roger Daltry sang
I hope I die before I get old. Whether he has revised
his opinion since then is not recorded but it is a fact
that both he and the majority of his generation, today,
are richer and happier than they were back then and, in
many cases they are healthier too.
Statistics show that life expectancy is going up and up.
In the UK, according to the Office of National Statistics,
an adult man can expect to reach the age of 79, while a
woman can expect to reach 82. But a man or a woman born
in 2009 can now expect, on average, to live a full 10 years
longer, to 89 and 92 years, respectively. In the past living
beyond that, to the age of 100, was something extraordi-
nary, but today it is becoming almost run-of-the-mill.
In 2009 the United Nations estimated that there were
455,000 centenarians globally. As of September 1, 2010,
theUnited States had an estimated 70,490 centenarians, the
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 The Seven Myths of Middle Age

greatest number of any single country in the
world, partly a result of the size of its over-
all population but also its increased empha-
sis on long-term care. Japan has the second
largest number, with 47,756 estimated as of
September 2011. Furthermore, the Japanese
data shows that in 1963 the country had 153
centenarians, rising to an estimated 40,000
in 2009. In the UK, at the latest count there
were 11,600 centenarians; by 2033 there are
estimated to be over 80,000.
On the basis of these data, it is clear that
reaching 50 years of age is truly the middle of
ones life. By this time of life, many people in
the UK have acquired a significant amount of
assets (Figure 1). On average, those aged be-
tween 55 and 64 years of age have 634,900
in total assets. Some have considerably more.
It is true that some of these assets may be
tied up in houses and pensions but compare
this with 2534 year olds who have, on aver-
age, 120,900 in total assets. In other words,
the average mid-lifer has 80% more wealth
than their children. According to the English
Longitudinal Study of Ageing, those aged 50
or over account for a third of the population
yet three-quarters of its wealth.
And the importance is that the number
of those over 50 is set to increase. By 2020,
nearly half the UK population (48%) will
be over fifty1 and in the United States, ac-
cording to the US Census Bureau, there will
be an estimated 106 million people over 50
years of age by 2015, accounting for 45% of
the population.
It is, therefore, surprising that this cohort
is not well-represented in the media (as we
shall show) nor, compared with younger
cohorts, has it been the focus of attention
by the business and marketing sector.
What are the reasons for this surprising
omission? We hope to demonstrate in the
following pages that much of the invisibility
of people over the age of 50 is due to a num-
ber of stereotypical beliefslets call them
mythsabout what it is to be older and these
myths prevent us not only from understand-
ing what it is like to reach middle years, but
also results in many lost opportunities.
How Media and Marketing People
Ignore the Most Lucrative Market
Youth is a disease from which we all recover
Dorothy Fulheim
Today in the UK, over-50s account for
47.6% of all consumer expenditure.2 They
buy 80% of all top-of-the-range cars sold,
50% of all face-care cosmetics and 50% of
mineral water.

Figure 1: Total household wealth by age, Office of National Statistics

2 Business Expert Press 978-1-94784-367-7 (2018) Expert Insights

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 The Seven Myths of Middle Age
Statistics from the US are similarly re-
vealing. The mature market, as it has
been called, controls household net worth
of over US$3.2 billion in spending power.3
They account for 60% of all healthcare,
41% of all new cars, 25% of all toys, and
80% of all luxury travel.
Yet, back in Britain and Europe, more
than 90% of all marketing and advertising
spend is dedicated to the under-50s.1
86% of over-50s questioned in a survey
consider that most online advertising is
irrelevant to them. Beyond a certain age,
it seems, millions of people all but cease
to exist for most intents and purposesor
at least as far as the media and marketing
communities are concerned.
The age at which older people begin to
disappear from media and advertising dif-
fers and this seems to be due to a double
standard of aging such that society is more
permissive of aging in men than in women.
In a survey in 1997, Professor Susan
Sherman4 at the University at Albany,
State University of New York found that
men were considered to be old almost a
full decade after women; old for men was
defined as being between 60 and 64 years
compared with 5559 years for women.
We see this bias reflected in our media
every day; news shows, for example, have
developed a formula in which the attrac-
tiveness of a younger female presenter is
balanced with the gravitas of a silver-haired
alpha male. And even though some types
of older males remain visible, their repre-
sentation in the media is still below their
actual numbers in society.
Despite their growing numbers, and
despite their significant and increasing
disposable wealth, most people above a
certain age do not see themselves reflected
or spoken to in the output of the media and
marketing industries.
What is more, they notice the snub and
they are not happy about it. A BBC report
in 20125 observed that 40% of people per-
ceived that there was a lack of middle-aged
and older people on TV. Dissatisfaction
Business Expert Press 978-1-94784-367-7 (2018)
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with this state of affairs increases with
age; 10% of 4554 year olds were very dis-
satisfied or dissatisfied with the portrayal
of older people but this increases to 18%
among 5464 year olds.
The situation is especially hard on
women. In the same BBC survey, over
one-third of women over 55 years of age
said there were too few women of middle
age on television. The reason for this dis-
satisfaction may be due to a belief that
while youth may be prized, age, particu-
larly for women, is simply not valued. In a
study with women aged between 30 and 60
years of age, 70% believed that the media
is so obsessed with youth that it makes it
difficult for older women to get noticed
and 48% believed that older women are
not valued in our society.6
From the point of view of older people
and particularly from the point of view of
older womenthis is bad manners, to say
the least.
From the point of view of the media and
marketing industries, it is extraordinarily
bad business practice.
There is no commercial theory, no model
or precedent in which it makes sense to
go out of your way to alienate and annoy
millions of your most valuable customers.
But if so many highly educated media pro-
fessionals are all making the same mistake,
there must be a reason for it, or a number
of reasons. That is where this article comes
in, because it identifies not one but seven
explanations for the way things are.
We call them The Seven Myths of Middle
Age.
How Stereotyping Contributes to the
Myths of Middle Age
Stereotypes are devices for saving a biased
person the trouble of learning
Anonymous
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality,
German humour and English wine.
Peter Ustinov subverting some
familiar stereotypes
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