Editorial: Hitting the mark with active agers: a call for more research on older consumers

Recent research by market research firm Age of Majority suggests that there are marketers hold some misconceptions about older consumers, including underestimating the attractiveness of this market (see Age of Majority 2022). Jeff Weiss, CEO of Age of Majority notes that research shows that 75% of consumers 55 years of and older can be classified as active agers, defined as people who are mentally, physically, and digitally active. In the U.S., this Active Ager group consists of 75 million consumers who control 40 percent of consumer spending and control 70 percent of spending (Taylor 2021). Moreover, Active Agers are more willing to try new products and switch brands than has often been made out to be the case. Global demographic trends suggest that similar patterns exist in several other countries as well.

In spite of the importance of the markets of older consumers and the presence of so many active agers who are actually much more digitally savvy than often made out to be, there is often a disconnect in efforts to target and reach the group. As pointed out by Phillips (2022), older consumers are severely underrepresented in advertising and many of the representations of the group have been stereotyped. Yet, in my tenure as editor of the International Journal of Advertising, we have received far fewer submissions on marketing to older consumers than on advertising to several other important groups including women, children, LBGTQ + consumers (see Taylor 2022b), and minorities. In this context, it is highly appropriate that Martin Eisend’s recent Journal of Advertising is included in a special section on forgotten/neglected topic in advertising research (Eisend 2022).

Eisend posits that some of the key reasons for neglect of research on advertising to older consumers relates to innovators and early adopters often being younger, the advertising industry being populated by many young employees, a focus on conventional beauty and endorser attractiveness in some prior research. I would add to Eisend’s list that myths about older consumers being inactive/depressed, set in their ways, and technologically challenged have led to an underestimation of the importance of the market (see Taylor 2021, 2022a).

No doubt, there have been some strong past studies on advertising to older consumers over the past few decades, focusing fully or in part on portrayals and/or factors associated with effectiveness (e.g. Moschis and Mathur 2006; Chevalier and Moal-Ulvoas 2018; Messias Shinoda, Veludo-de-Oliveira, and Pereira 2021), but far more are needed. Phillips (2022) provides excellent qualitative insight on a path forward to better targeting of women by focusing on how women want to be portrayed and provides findings that can be followed up with experimental research. Moreover, Eisend (2022) outlines a very detailed and thoughtful research agenda that, among other things, points to a need for a better operationalization of ‘older people,’ more studies of representation, portrayals, and stereotyping, and explaining advertising effects and their implications as well as social effects and implications for corporate social responsibility. Indeed, the essence of future research should be on working toward more realistic and well received portrayals of older consumers with a focus on what makes such portrayals effective. Age of Majority’s research has found that there are portrayals of older consumers that can be effective with both older and younger consumers as well, and research should delve into factors facilitating such broad effectiveness. In addition, delving into product category based differences would make a lot of sense.

Going forward, I hope to see more submission on older consumers at the International Journal of Advertising.