X Marks the (Age) Spot

When trend reports started hyping up Gen Alpha, I realised it was time to spotlight my generation—the quietly confident yet often overlooked Gen X.

Sandwiched between the far more memorably named Boomers and Millennials, we’re the middle child of the generational story. But while everyone’s busy talking about the younger and older ends of the spectrum, midlife is where the real action happens, and where brands are leaving money on the table.

Ageing is an expectation, not an exception. 

As soon as we are born, we start to age. The live fast and die young has, well died. Globally, we’re living longer and healthier; almost 80% of women and 70% of men will hit 65 and beyond. Ageing is no longer a privilege; it’s systemic. 
 
Early life is formative, full of possibilities, and represented by every brand everywhere. Later-Later life has a rosy glow about it, often child and work-free; you can enjoy those sunset years or ‘rage against the dying of the light’ depending on your preference; Dove is celebrating ‘beauty never getting old’ fabulously, as you would expect.  
 
But what about the in-between years, where possibility meets pressure? Midlife isn’t an exception; it’s a pivotal stage brimming with potential. 

Our age doesn’t mean we’re wearing beige.So, what is happening in midlife? We’re midway through, 50-ish percent there. We’ve perhaps gained experience, wisdom, and means and hopefully, we have a similar length of time left. But we’ve also gained responsibilities, dependants (‘sandwich’ caring for both children and parents), and new and increasing personal health needs. 

Our lives are a busy juggle of all the above, with our own health needs often descending on the list of priorities. But we’re still brand savvy, and we love beautiful things that fit with our outfits, homes, and lifestyles. Yes, we might be wearing varifocals, but they are designer. Our Veja’s can accommodate our bunion supports. We’ve swapped to an e-bike, but we’re still wearing Rapha and our decreasing ability to handle a hangover is fortuitously supported by the rise of the uber-trendy zero alcohol category. 
 
That ‘c’ word associated with midlife is not crisis, it’s combining.  
 
Brands need to do the combining, not consumers 
Our lives are combinations of function, the medical efficacy we know we need. And form, the lifestyle brands our heart wants and make us feel alive and desirable. Yes, we’re juggling again, combining vital needs with desirable wants.  
 
Consumers only control what they can see, touch, and feel. The rest, like the natural loss of muscle mass starting in your 30s (hello, sarcopenia)—stays invisible. The brands that are experts in ageing nutrition know, but they aren’t speaking our language, they’re not showing up for us when we need them, they don’t seem to understand what we look like or realise the other brands in our ‘neighbourhood’. I’m not an athlete and don’t have a medical condition or need elderly care. So, where and how can healthy ageing brands help me? 
 

Enlighten meWhere is the Aptamil Baby Club for ageing? Birth and parenthood are pivotal moments in life, triggering a need for learning. But ageing doesn’t have that singularity. Would we ‘hear’ a message about healthy ageing from our mortgage provider? Today, we see pubs hosting men’s mental fitness meet-ups and shecanics combining MOTs with mani-pedis. So, maybe what we do need here is a combination—a category combination. 
 

Teach me We have birth doulas and death doulas, but who is my ‘living or ageing doula’? Which brand offers sage advice on healthy ageing, supports my longevity, and promotes my thriving in life? When Monzo helps 6 to 15-year-olds navigate banking and savings, transforming financial education, guess what? They’ll stay customers for life. Imagine if a brand did this for healthy ageing.

See me  We often skew too old when repping Gen X, maybe because of the age of those working on the brief, but more perhaps because we only have one story about our audience. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks insightfully about The danger of a single story; knowing our audience better will certainly help deepen our stock imagery searches. Age without Limits is making great strides with their free positive-age image library, and Jane Evans is helping teach AI (amongst many other things) at Visible Inc. to represent mid-life women better—‘it’s not AI’s fault, it currently at the learning stage of a five-year-old.’  
 
These are steps in the right direction but brands must move faster. Midlife is dynamic, diverse, and full of life. It’s time to show us as we are. 

Speak to me  We have growing conversations in our early years and ageing conversations in our declining years but what about the middle bit, do we need a new word? From a brand’s perspective, the word ‘ageing’ is as elusive and circumvented as the cohort of people they should be talking to. Midlife is, hopefully, halfway through. We have a lot of spending power left in us, and if we were mid-way through a football match, there’d still be everything to play for. Where is the ‘This Girl Can’ attitude for ageing? I ‘juggle’; therefore, I am.  

Entice me Make your brand a desirable addition to anyone’s life. We’re aiming for envy amongst those not old enough to join our ‘club’, get on the waitlist. Medical efficacy can still be delivered beautifully, creatively and in an emotive way that belongs front and centre in the audience’s life not in the under-sink cupboard. 
 
We all know we’re getting older, so let’s not hide from it. Midlife isn’t a limitation; it’s an invitation. Brands that understand this will capture our hearts and wallets and be part of the journey ahead. 
 
It’s not just about a ‘celebration’ of age. It’s about a profound understanding of the audience that makes the brand both useful and desirable, striking a balance between form and function by combining brand efficacy with everything about me (rather than my parents). 
 
In the meantime, if you are still struggling to think of Gen X, picture Jennifer Anniston and Will Smith. Create your brand world with them in mind, and you’ll be on the right track. Reframe your thinking about midlife. During an interview, founder David Holz shared that Zhuangzi’s philosophy inspired the term ‘Midjourney’: ‘We are mid-journey. We are on a continuous journey, with a rich and splendid past behind us, and ahead lies an exhilarating and incredibly valuable future.’ 
 
Mid-journey, not mid-life—that’s us. 
 
With a rich and splendid past behind us, the future for us and for healthy ageing brands that ‘get’ us is exhilarating and incredibly valuable.