Steve Gibbons says the beauty industry needs to look beyond youth culture to find opportunities for business growth
Two things have happened recently that seem to pull in opposite directions. Firstly three briefs have crossed my desk; they’ve given me a little bit of angst because, despite some signs to the contrary, apparently I no longer exist.
Or at least, I no longer exist in the eyes of a well known shampoo brand, a premium chocolate manufacturer and a maker of analgesics.
My great sin is to have gone beyond the age of 55. Turning 50 was bad enough but 55 is clearly beyond the pale. If the briefs are to be believed, I’m of no interest whatsoever to any of these brands. Yet I still wash my hair, eat chocolate and get a sore head.
Secondly, my daughter tells me my mother has joined Facebook. I won’t be so indelicate as to tell you her age but you can probably do the maths – or ‘math’ as my children irritatingly insist upon calling it – yourself. And I need to be careful here because I know my mother, with her newly found digital connectivity, will be reading this (hello mum!).
So what does all this tell us?
It tells us that the baby boomer generation, those born in the two decades after the Second World War, is incrementally slipping off the marketers’ radar. Given that we’re largely a lucrative target and represent a significant proportion of the 28% of the population that are over 50, it looks like a derogation of their duties to be ignoring us so much.