Brands are failing to represent women over 50, with advertisers showing women in their 50s ‘wearing old-fashioned clothing’ or ‘kooky and struggling with menopause’, according to a recent Centre for Ageing Better survey.
The data has revealed the biggest mistakes made by brands and advertisers when representing older women include representing women in their 60s, 70s and 80s as ‘lonely and lacking in relationships’, ‘frail’ or ‘lonely’.
It also uncovered that one in eight women felt that brands and media outlets use younger models to promote products that are aimed at older women, further exacerbating negative feelings about ageing.
Other statistics showed that a third of women are concerned about lazy and negative stereotypes in stock imaging, while one in five highlighted the lack of ethnic and body diversity in the representations of images.
The online survey, which was conducted in partnership with Ageism Is Never In Style, is also supported by an empowering social media campaign where women are encouraged to dismantle unhealthy stereotypes by sharing age-positive images to redefine what it means to “look their age”.
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest marketing news sent straight to your inbox each morning
The collaboration between the two organisations also included creating a collection of age-positive photography to add to the Centre for Ageing Better’s image database.
Ageism Is Never In Style and The Bias Cut founder Jacynth Bassett, said: “Representation matters. It influences how we see ourselves, and how others see us. It boosts self-worth, self-esteem and creates a sense of value and validation within society. ”
The campaign follows the launch of the organisation’s free public image library, which since its creation last year, now contains over 3,000 alternative images to represent older women in the media.
Centre for Ageing Better chief executive, Dr Carole Easton OBE, Said: “The image library is our response to the ageism that is still so pervasive in society and forms part of our age-friendly movement, trying to change how people think, feel and act about ageing.
Available on the Centre for Ageing Better’s website and hosted on the platform Unsplash.com, the new collection will be added to the existing database, which has currently been viewed over 25 million times.
