MARKET WATCH
Brands lose money neglecting older shoppers
One interesting characteristic of older consumers is that age can coincide with a smaller pool of brands that make it into consideration and purchase decisions. A 2023 study on age-related differences in the purchase funnel published in Marketing Letters, covering 1,862 consumers across five markets and four age groups in New Zealand, found that purchase-set size declined with age—implying a tendency to reject the market.
In relation, researchers attributed increasing loyalty not to age-related cognitive changes, but to accumulated category experience and the development of purchase habits.
DATE
October 20, 2026
AUTHOR
ANGELA CLARE AGPAWA
READ
10 Min
Older consumers and why they are rejecting the market
Growth of the senior market
According to the 2026 data by the World Economic Forum, people aged 60 and over make up only 15% of the world’s population, but account for 27% of global consumer spending, roughly $19 trillion.In the US alone, 86 million adults over 60 spend around $6.7 trillion a year, which, according to the same source, would be the world’s third-largest consumer market if it were a country, behind only the entirety of the US and China. Currently, silver spenders make up 30% of national consumer spending, rising to a projected 33% by 2036.
So the population businesses are trying to reach is getting larger, especially those that aim for worldwide reach. However, population size does not tell marketers how many brands a consumer is actively considering. The researchers of the purchase funnel study examined three stages: brand awareness, consideration, and purchase. Older consumers continued to recognize and recall brands, but fewer of the brands they knew about progressed into their consideration and purchase sets. The study found a linear decline in purchase-set size with age.
Marketing barrier caused by years of buying
The research points to accumulated experience as one explanation.Consumers learn categories through repeated purchasing. They find a detergent that works on their clothes, a coffee they like, a toothpaste they trust, or a particular appliance brand that has lasted for years. At some point, another option has to compete with those.
The 2023 Marketing Letters study explicitly distinguishes this process from the assumption that older consumers have poorer memory. Findings indicate that the increase in loyalty with age can be explained by accumulated category experience and purchase habits. Repeated purchasing can create an automatic tendency to repeat the same behavior.
So the Filipino consumer behavior of “Ito na ang gamit ko” can now be explained from a marketing perspective. More than indifference, it comes from an endpoint of repetition.
Advertising has to adapt to habits
All advertisements have one of two types of customers to target: one who has never bought a category, and one who regularly buys the same brand. The difference is that the former has to be introduced to it; the latter does not.
As the concept of the purchase funnel indicates, awareness comes first, followed by consideration and then purchase. The study found that older consumers' purchase sets became smaller even though their ability to recognize and recall brands remained relatively strong.
Among consumers aged 60–74, the researchers found that brand recognition and recall remained substantial; the decline was more pronounced further down the funnel, where brands had to move from awareness into consideration and purchase.
By implication, one may know a certain coffee brand exists through a TV commercial or by recognizing the packaging in a supermarket, but does not have a reason to replace what they have used for decades.
In this case, the advertisement has achieved awareness, but the habit has retained the purchase.
Brand attachment
A 2010 study published in the Journal of Marketing, titled Why Do Older Consumers Buy Older Brands? The Role of Attachment and Declining Innovativeness , examined consumer preferences in the French perfume market. The researchers found that younger consumers were more likely to change their preferred brand, while older consumers showed a greater tendency to remain attached to the same preferred brand for longer periods.The researchers tested nostalgia, innovativeness, and attachment as explanations for brand preference. Nostalgia had only a limited role. Attachment and differences in innovativeness were more useful in explaining why older consumers remained with preferred brands for longer. The researchers also found substantial variation within every age group, meaning not every older consumer was highly attached or resistant to switching. This means that older consumers do not automatically reject new brands.
A 2020 study examining older consumers’ loyalty towards older brands analyzed 88,000 purchases involving 60 brands across six grocery categories. It found that older consumers did not buy older brands more frequently than newer brands and did not primarily buy older brands. The researchers also found that older consumers could trial newer brands and become loyal to them.
This finding does not cancel out the purchase-funnel research, but rather looks at different aspects of the same behavior.
Older consumers can have smaller consideration and purchase sets, while still being capable of entering into new brand relationships. Not every new brand is automatically rejected, but fewer brands may make it far enough into the consumer's decision process to be seriously considered. The 2023 study itself notes that older consumers continue to recognize and recall brands and can still purchase new ones.
Youth-centric marketing
In a speech at a symposium on business and older consumers, RHC Advantage Director and Mature Marketing Association Chairman Mark Beasly tackled the unspoken, yet practiced belief that creativity, energy, and innovation are youthful attributes and that these things decline with age to the extent that business decisions affecting older people must necessarily be made by the young. As a result, older people are seen as largely irrelevant to today’s technology-led, fast-moving, cool-grooving business world.He added, “The dress codes, language and office environments of any of the global corporations who dominate our economy – and those who service them - are designed to appeal to younger people.”
Statistically, most marketers are between 25 and 35 years old (40% in the United States and 49% globally), according to the American Marketing Association.
Following trends as a marketing tactic for gaining traction has always prevailed. Due to these trends being mainly controlled by the youth, older consumers seem to have no place to fit in or a brand they deem to have genuine empathy and understanding of them as buyers.
The commercial treatment of this group remains concentrated in certain categories. Healthcare, medicine, insurance, retirement planning, and mobility products are heavily associated with older consumers. Research on advertising has found the same pattern internationally, with older people appearing less frequently in mainstream advertising and more frequently in advertising for products explicitly associated with aging.
The idea of older consumers rejecting the market may come from how they respond to being treated as an age segment. This angle explains how the overall scenario is a result of the mentalities possessed and actions taken by both parties.
Challenge for brands
In an article posted by Harvard Business School , Marketing Professor Elie Ofek stated, “Companies largely continue to market products and services to youth and young adults while often ignoring the power of mature consumers.”A 2023 Boston Consulting Group study of mature consumers found that adults aged 50-70 represent nearly one billion people globally and a multitrillion-dollar market. More importantly, mature consumers spend more per individual purchase than younger consumers, value high-quality products, and show stronger brand loyalty. It was also discovered that mature consumers are more risk-averse and place greater importance on trustworthy information, direct communication, and transparency before making a purchase.
To recalibrate operations and target consumers, steps taken are not immediately about creating new products or services specifically for an age group, but may be about finding angles and coming up with innovations that effectively include them. This can attract and retain a substantial pool of higher-value, quality-conscious, and experience-oriented consumers.
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