Wrinkles have found their way into luxury advertising. Grey hair has become a coveted fashion statement, and faces once largely absent from campaigns are now selling cosmetics, cars and clothes. The fashion and beauty industries have discovered that youth is no longer the only marketable ideal. And that is a great news.
But there is another side - the very generation whose faces are being used to sell products is largely missing from the teams that create them. Who designs the products, develops the campaigns and makes the business decisions? Judging by workforce demographics, the answer is still predominantly younger people. “And men,” says Claudia Vaccarone, an inclusion strategist who has spent more than two decades working on generational representation in media, marketing and the workplace, in an interview with Bloomberg Adria.
The disconnect between how older consumers are portrayed in public and their actual standing within companies has a name: greywashing. It describes the practice of promoting age inclusivity through advertising and marketing while leaving employment and workplace policies largely unchanged.
By 2040, people over 50 will account for 41 percent of the global population and control an increasingly significant share of consumer spending. If more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of older generations, why aren't brands listening to them?
“There is a disconnect between the way companies communicate their acceptance of older consumers and the silver economy - adapting their imagery and campaigns accordingly - and what they actually do when it comes to hiring and retaining employees. Quite simply, they are not hiring people over 50,” Vaccarone says.
Vaccarone and Daniel Jolles, a behavioural scientist at the London School of Economics (LSE), examined the phenomenon of greywashing in depth in the LSE Business Review.
“It happens when there are no older employees — people aged 50 and over — around the table where decisions are made, whether those decisions concern product design, marketing campaigns or the communication of services aimed specifically at them,” she explains.
The issue goes beyond a marketing contradiction. It points to a significant commercial opportunity that companies are missing because they do not sufficiently understand the very consumers they are trying to reach.
A Generation With Money, but No Seat at the Table
According to the LSE analysis, older people account for just four percent of those featured in media campaigns.
Vaccarone points to L’Oréal as an example. In a full-page advertisement in The New York Times, the company promoted its “For All Generations” initiative, highlighting that it employs more than 13,000 people over the age of 50. At first glance, that sounds impressive. But L’Oréal has a workforce of approximately 90,000, meaning that employees over 50 account for only about 15 percent of its total headcount.
The problem, then, is not that the company does not hire older people at all. It is that its marketing message about inclusion creates an impression that does not fully reflect reality.
Why do companies continue to overlook this consumer group? Vaccarone identifies three particularly widespread assumptions: that older consumers are technologically unsophisticated, that the same marketing messages work on them as on younger generations, and that they are more interested in saving than spending.
All three assumptions can prove costly.
“Data and research show precisely the opposite. Older consumers have enormous purchasing power today. They make decisions about household spending, and there is also the transfer of wealth already under way, which will continue over the coming decade,” she says.
They are not a homogeneous group interested only in pharmaceuticals, insurance and comfort products. They travel, buy luxury goods, invest in skincare, fashion, gastronomy and experiences. Their needs cannot be reduced to fighting wrinkles, finding more comfortable shoes or buying medication.
That is precisely why it is problematic to view an entire generation through a handful of marketing stereotypes. Companies that fail to understand its diverse lifestyles and spending habits risk developing products that do not reflect what consumers actually want.
According to the authors of the LSE analysis, these myths persist in part because the people creating advertising campaigns rarely belong to older generations themselves.
In the UK, for example, the average age of employees in creative advertising roles is 35. While people over 50 account for roughly one-third of the working population, they represent just seven percent of those employed in advertising and other creative professions.
Why the Message Is Still: Fight Ageing
In recent years, brands have begun to recognise the commercial potential of older consumers, particularly in the luxury market.
The late Maggie Smith appeared in Loewe's Spring 2024 campaign at the age of 88. Christopher Walken fronted a BMW Super Bowl commercial at 81, while Brian Cox became the face of sportswear brand ASICS at 78.
Helen Mirren, the ambassador for L’Oréal's Age Perfect range, and Jamie Lee Curtis are among the high-profile figures challenging the language and imagery that frame ageing as a problem to be solved.
Yet featuring older faces in advertising does not necessarily signal a broader shift in attitudes towards ageing. As the LSE researchers point out, beauty brands often position older models as youthful ambassadors for anti-ageing products. With carefully controlled lighting and digital retouching, wrinkles and other natural features of older faces are once again softened or erased.
The message is contradictory: older people are welcome in advertising, but only if they still look young enough.
The same problem extends beyond beauty advertising. They are frequently portrayed through familiar stereotypes — as technologically inept, out of touch or physically frail. An advertisement that appears to celebrate intergenerational connection can, in effect, reinforce precisely the prejudices it claims to challenge.
Inclusion Doesn't Start in Front of the Camera - or does it?
“This disconnect has serious financial consequences — both for brands that are missing out on a significant market opportunity and for older consumers and employees who do not feel adequately represented,” Vaccarone warns.
The solution, according to the LSE researchers, is not simply to hire more older models. Companies need to rethink how they operate.
The first step is an honest assessment of their own workforce and practices, without overstating their progress. The second is to employ people over 50 in proportion to their presence in the wider population, particularly in roles where decisions about products, services and marketing are made.
Third, companies need to develop products that address the actual needs of older consumers rather than selling them unrealistic promises. And finally, advertising needs to portray ageing authentically, without reducing an entire generation to a collection of stereotypes.
Ageing is neither a niche nor a passing trend destined to disappear with the next marketing season. It is a universal human experience and a demographic reality that will increasingly shape markets in the decades ahead.
Brands seeking a share of the silver economy will therefore need to do more than launch a campaign featuring a model with grey hair and natural wrinkles. They will need to change the composition of their own teams.
Because genuine inclusion is not simply about putting an older face in front of the camera. It is about ensuring that the person behind that face has a voice where decisions are made.