Don’t Let the Old Man in (To Your CRM, Please)

I keep reading articles explaining why people like me matter to marketers. Apparently, I’m a “missed opportunity.” A “high-value cohort.” A walking, talking wallet with knees that creak but credit that clears.

I’m over 50, statistically flush, demographically stubborn, and, according to brand strategists and business commentators at the Financial Times, criminally under-targeted. Which is fascinating, because my lived experience suggests the opposite.

Some days it feels like everyone is trying to sell me something, all the time, everywhere, with the manic enthusiasm of a Dalmatian that’s just discovered dog biscuits.

And yet the complaint persists. Brands, we’re told, have ignored the over-50s. They’ve chased youth, novelty, the illusion of forever 27. They’ve airbrushed wrinkles out of existence, treated age like a software bug rather than a feature, and forgotten that the people who actually buy things are often the ones with bifocals and opinions.

All true. Mostly.

But here’s the uncomfortable thought I keep circling back to. What if being overlooked is not the insult they think it is? What if, on reflection, I don’t actually want them to know about me at all?

The great misunderstanding

The data is solid. People over 50 account for roughly half of consumer spending in many developed economies. We buy houses. We renovate. We travel. We support adult children, aging parents, and the entire artisan sourdough ecosystem. We don’t impulse-buy every shiny thing, but when we commit, we commit hard. Brand loyalty, repeat purchasing, recommendations, all the good stuff.

And yet advertising culture remains frozen in a perpetual youthquake. Everything is new, fast, disruptive, frictionless. Every product promises reinvention. Every service wants to “understand my journey,” usually with a dashboard.

Advertising’s brief embrace of older models in the late 2010s to early 2020s didn’t so much fail as fade into normality: what began as a disruptive, values-led statement lost its novelty just as brands swung back toward Gen Z–driven aesthetics, tighter budgets, and safer, performance-focused marketing. Economic pressure reduced big brand storytelling campaigns where age diversity was most visible, while growing scepticism about overt inclusivity signalling made advertisers more cautious. All of which seems to be missing the point.

The irony is that many of the decision-makers designing this stuff are my age or older. Which suggests the problem isn’t ignorance. It’s projection. They remember who they were at 30, not who they are in their 50s. And who I am, at 53, is… complicated.

I’m not trying to reinvent myself. I’m trying to simplify. I’m not chasing identity. I’m shedding it. I’m not hungry for more. I’m allergic to clutter, whether that be physical, digital, or even psychological.

Which brings us to the real problem.

I am not a number

Marketers love to say that over-50s aren’t a monolith. Which is true, and also deeply ironic, because the moment they say it they immediately try to turn us into one.

We’re split into “active agers,” “silver surfers,” “empty nesters,” “pre-retirees,” “late bloomers,” “longevity consumers.” Every label carefully designed to avoid saying “old,” while quietly screaming “we know what you’re worth.”

The older I get, the less interested I am in being known by CRM systems. I don’t want my holidays, financial prudence, skincare routine, Spotify algorithm, and blood pressure readings fused into a single marketing persona called “Stephen, 53, Values Quality.”

The fact is, healthcare notwithstanding, I value privacy more than personalisation. I value anonymity more than relevance. I value being left alone more than being perfectly served.

This is not because I’m anti-technology. I adopted smartphones early (and still desperately miss my first ever Blackberry). I stream, scan QR codes, and use AI daily for a variety of tasks both personal and professional. But I do so with the quiet suspicion of someone who’s lived long enough to know that convenience always comes with a receipt.

The luxury of being unremarkable

When I was younger, being seen mattered. Now, being uninteresting is the prize.

There is a deep, underrated pleasure in walking through the world without being relentlessly interpreted. Without pop-ups that say “people like you also bought…” Without ads that assume they understand my aspirations better than I do.

Because here’s what age teaches you, if you’re paying attention: Most of what passes for insight is inference. Most of what passes for relevance is guesswork. And most “understanding” is just well-funded surveillance with nicer fonts.

I suspect there are those in the advertising industry who believe that if they can just model us more accurately, track us more subtly, categorise us more finely, they will finally unlock our spending power.

But what if my resistance isn’t about representation? What if it’s about boundaries?

We’ve seen this TV show before

People my age have lived through several waves of promised liberation. We have witnessed credit cards that became debt traps. We have signed up for loyalty schemes that quietly monetised habit. We have joined social platforms that turned friendship into content.

I still use “free” services that cost attention, time, and data, with the very real understanding that if the service is free then you are no longer the consumer, you are the product.

We’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that when something is designed for us, it is often designed to extract from us. So when brands say, “We just want to understand you better,” what many of us hear is: “We’ve noticed you still have money.” And the older I get, the less flattering that feels, not to mention the loss of autonomy, or the loss of exposure to potentially new and exciting ideas.

The quiet rebellion

Yes, older consumers are powerful. Yes, we’re underserved. Yes, ignoring us is strategically foolish. But the reason we’re hard to engage isn’t that brands haven’t tried hard enough.

It’s that many of us are actively disengaging.

We unsubscribe. We opt out. We pay for ad-free. We buy fewer things, but better ones. We choose relationships over platforms, trust over novelty, function over performance theatre.

This isn’t apathy. It’s discernment.

And discernment is kryptonite to any marketing model built on volume, velocity, and visibility.

My life is my own

Age doesn’t make me conservative. It makes me selective. It doesn’t make me technophobic. It makes me intentional. It doesn’t make me invisible. It makes me less interested in being seen.

If brands truly want to engage people like me, they may need to do something radical: Stop trying so hard.

Stop shouting. Stop flattering. Stop pretending you’re my friend. Instead make things that work. Price them honestly. Explain them clearly. Stand behind them quietly. Accept that some of us will choose you precisely because you didn’t chase us.

The final sting

So yes, brands that dismiss the over-50s are making a costly mistake.

But brands that finally “discover” us and then pursue us with the full force of data science, behavioural psychology, and personalised funnels may be making an even bigger one.

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Because the real shift that comes with age isn’t spending power. It’s sovereignty.

I don’t want to be targeted, would sincerely prefer not to be optimised, and would rather not be nudged. Please and thank you.

I want to buy what I choose, when I choose it, without being followed around the digital equivalent of a shopping centre by an algorithm in a polo shirt.

If that makes me a blind spot in a strategy deck, so be it. Because, if we reflect deeply, I am quite sure we all prefer a market economy as opposed to a market society. There is a price to be paid either way, and I know which side of the fence I am on.

All of which is to say that, this stage of life, being underestimated is not a failure. It’s freedom. And that, ironically, is priceless.

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This post was previously published on The Wisdom Vault.

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