The case for marketing to older adults

By Rebecca McLaren, Senior Account Manager

With Halloween now behind us and the holidays inching closer, many of us are in the thick of holiday brand activations. It’s a time of year when we get to execute some of our favourite work -  campaigns that give back and spread cheer. But while we help brands connect to their audiences through the beauty and nostalgia of the season, there’s one audience that is too often left out of the celebration: older adults.

The truth is, when it comes to the marketing and advertising industry, there’s still so much more we can do to celebrate this audience - in our briefs, in our teams, and in our stories. In fact, over half of working adults aged 50+ say they feel ignored by marketers, and it’s no wonder: it’s estimated that only 5-10% of marketing budgets are going towards reaching a mature audience.

Making up nearly 40% of the country’s population, here are three reasons why aging Canadians should be considered as a part of your next audience segmentation:

Reason #1: They have buying power.

While almost every brand seems to be pivoting marketing dollars to Gen Z and Millennials, Canadians aged 25-34 have a combined annual income of $298 billion versus Canadians 55-64 at $363 billion, and it makes perfect sense: Zillennials are still at the beginning of their careers and pay scales.

But the generational difference is even starker when you think about how many more years older adults have had to accumulate wealth: Canadians 55-64 currently stand at $1,407 billion – 4.6 times that of Canadians aged 25-34 at just $304 billion.

So, while it’s true that 50-70 year olds currently spend less annually, they have more money to spend. And if brands put in more effort to win them over, the pay-off could be huge: mature consumers tend to spend more per occasion, including in everyday categories like grocery, meaning a stronger ROI for every conversion.

In other words, the proof is in the numbers!

Reason #2: They’re influencers, too.

Gen Zers may have killed skinny jeans, but data shows mature consumers are more likely to influence younger consumers’ purchases than vice versa, even when it comes to apparel. Why? We look to and learn from the wisdom and experience of mature audiences – especially for big-ticket items, like vehicles and investments, where we aren’t willing to take as much risk.

A case in point for this is Metro’s Feed the Joy, a campaign which tapped into the expertise of local grandparents to encourage more millennials to cook with the grocer’s high quality holiday products. While filling half of our cooking classes with seniors last fall may have seemed counterintuitive to engaging a millennial target, it was actually what struck a chord with them, aligning with our value proposition of trusted quality and driving purchases in every region we executed in.

Besides, older adults’ influence is paying off for them, too. From @grandma_droniak (14.4M followers), to @grandadjoe1933 (7.7M) and @grandpachan (2.6M), “granfluencers” have taken over TikTok. Senior expertise has also made a significant impact in the recipe category, with the likes of @brunchwithbabs (4.1M) and our Feed the Joy influencer: @nonna.elda.cooks (407.6k), uniting generations through the art of cooking. Even categories like fashion have garnered an older influence, with Canada’s very own @greceghanem (1.8M) giving many up-and-coming influencers a run for their money.

Reason #3: They’re more tech-savvy than you think.

Though many of us have experienced helping our grandparents with tech, older generations are actually much more technologically adept than we’ve been led to think. Yes, adoption was heightened by the pandemic: the number of Canadian consumers aged 65+ with smartphones went from 58% in 2019 to 65% in 2020, with video calling doubling. But even so, 86% say they were online daily before COVID. 

They know their way around tech, too: in 2019, 3 in 4 (74%) Canadians 65+ felt confident using current technologies. And they aren’t as resistant to change as stereotyped: only roughly 1 in 6 of Canadians aged 50+ see the impact of tech as negative.

Plus, seniors are in the same digital marketing channels as your other audiences: in 2022, nearly 3 in 4 Canadians 65+ used email and almost half (43.5%) used social networking sites.  An American study even showed 62% of this age group has recently bought something advertised to them on Instagram or Twitter - a number which is even more astounding when you consider that roughly only 1 in 5 have ever bought something that was recommended to them by another senior. Hope you’re paying attention, media buyers…

Embracing older audiences

More than half (62%) of consumers 50+ say they’d consider switching to a brand that represented them better. And we, as marketers and communicators, have the power to provide this representation!

Let’s challenge ourselves to consider the interests of older Canadians – beyond the stereotypes – and show up for them as individual people in our products and our marketing. Year-round.

Let’s make these the “golden years” of marketing.