If your mental picture of an over-60 consumer is somebody who struggles with technology, worries about money and spends most of their time thinking about retirement, there is a good chance your marketing is aimed at somebody who doesn't exist.
Or, at least, doesn't exist in anything like the numbers marketers seem to imagine.
There are people in their 60s running companies, starting companies, travelling, renovating houses, buying cars, moving into retirement villages, playing computer games, dating, exercising, investing and spending money on their children and grandchildren.
There are also people in their 60s dealing with chronic illness, financial pressure or caring responsibilities. And there are people in their 80s who are active and independent.
Which is precisely the problem with marketing to "older people". Age tells you something about a customer, but considerably less than many marketers assume.
Yet businesses across New Zealand and Australia continue to treat people over 60 as though reaching a particular birthday turns them into a new and largely homogeneous species.
That is becoming an expensive mistake.
Why should businesses market to over-60s?
The commercial argument starts with numbers.
Harvard Business School professors Elie Ofek and Barak Libai point to research across 12 international markets that found 870 million people aged between 50 and 70 were spending about US$7 trillion annually. In the US, the 55–64 and 65-plus groups together accounted for 43 per cent of consumer spending by 2022.
It isn't merely the result of there being more older people. The research found that spending per household among older consumers had also increased and that mature consumers were comparatively resilient in their spending during economic downturns.
The demographics are moving in the same direction.
Australia's population reached 27.8 million at the end of 2025, and the ABS continues to publish population data by individual year of age as the age profile of the country changes. New Zealand faces the same broad demographic shift towards an older population.
For a business developing a marketing strategy in New Zealand or Australia, therefore, the question shouldn't be whether older consumers are relevant. It should be whether the business understands which older consumers are relevant to it.
There is no over-60 market
Someone who turned 60 yesterday and somebody who is 87 are both "over 60".
Marketing to them on that basis makes about as much sense as putting everybody between 20 and 47 into one consumer segment.
This is one of the more useful findings in the research into older consumers. Chronological age is convenient for marketers because it is measurable, but it doesn't necessarily tell us how somebody lives.
Harvard's research distinguishes between chronological, biological, psychological and social age, and suggests looking at life events and circumstances as another way to segment older consumers. Someone approaching retirement may behave differently from someone enjoying an active retirement, while another person's circumstances may have changed because of bereavement, health or dependency.
Practical consequences for marketing
If I were developing a marketing strategy for a New Zealand retirement village, for example, "people aged 65-plus" wouldn't be much use to me as a customer definition.
I would want to know whether they own their home, whether they're still working, what is prompting them to consider moving, whether the decision is theirs or involves their adult children, what they fear losing by moving, what they hope to gain and what would cause them to put the decision off for another five years.
Now I have something I can market to.
The same principle applies whether you're selling financial services, travel, technology, healthcare, professional services, property, cars or consumer products.
Market to the person and their circumstances, not their date of birth.
Are over-60s comfortable with technology?
Older people are routinely portrayed as being baffled by apps, passwords, smartphones and anything involving a QR code. There are obviously differences in digital confidence across age groups, but treating older consumers as technologically inept is increasingly detached from reality.
The Harvard research cites US evidence showing widespread use of email, text messaging, social media, video chat, online research and ecommerce among older adults; as well as massive uptake in AI.
Australia provides a useful contemporary example. The Australian Government's Be Connected programme, which helps people over 50 develop digital skills, reached three million learners in October 2026. Its training now ranges from basic internet use through to online banking, shopping, government services and social media.
That doesn't mean every 70-year-old wants to download your app.
Neither does every 30-year-old.
The point isn't that older customers need different digital channels, but that those channels need to work well. Websites should be easy to read and navigate, forms shouldn't be longer than necessary, and instructions should be clear. Where a purchase involves significant money or commitment, there should also be an obvious way to speak to somebody.
That's what good marketing looks like.
Why is trust important when marketing to older consumers?
This is where marketing to over-60s becomes more interesting.
Older consumers can be harder to convert.
That doesn't necessarily mean they are suspicious of marketing or resistant to change. Somebody who has been buying products and services for four or five decades has had considerably more time to establish preferences, discover what works and decide which companies they trust.
A new supplier isn't competing against ignorance. It may be competing against 20 years of satisfactory experience with somebody else.
The Harvard research describes this rather neatly as "hard to get, easy to keep". Older consumers may require more effort to acquire because switching introduces risk and inconvenience, but once trust has been established, retention can be higher. The implication is that customer lifetime value may be considerably greater than marketers assume.
That changes the marketing job.
The objective isn't to pressure somebody into making a faster decision, but to give them enough reason to make a confident one.
Trust comes from giving people enough information to judge the offer for themselves. For example, being upfront about price and what it includes, making terms easy to find, and backing claims about quality or service with evidence.
If you charge more than competitors, there should be a clear reason for it. Saying you offer "premium quality" doesn't tell anybody what they're paying for.
What marketing messages work with over-60s?
Start by abandoning the assumption that getting older means wanting to be younger.
That seems obvious, but a surprising amount of marketing is built around precisely that proposition.
Research cited by Ofek and Libai suggests many older consumers aren't aspiring to recover their youth at all. They're interested in being the version of themselves they want to be at their current age.
There is also evidence that emotional outcomes and positive framing can resonate strongly with older consumers, but don't be confused with filling an advertisement with smiling silver-haired couples walking along beaches.
The emotion still has to be relevant to the purchase.
A travel company might be selling the experience somebody has wanted for 20 years. A retirement village may be selling freedom from maintaining a large property. A technology company may be giving somebody greater control. A financial business may be helping a customer use their money in the way they intended.
The research also suggests active older consumers respond to people who look like them in advertising, while the assumption that showing older people will alienate younger customers isn't well supported.
Representation doesn't mean putting grey hair into the photograph, but you do have to speak to the life they are living now.
How should businesses market to older customers?
I would start with three questions.
Who are you actually trying to reach? "Over 60" isn't enough. Define the customer by circumstances, behaviour, needs and life stage. A 62-year-old business owner and an 82-year-old requiring assisted living may share a generation but little else as consumers.
What does that customer need to believe before buying from you? The task is to understand what makes somebody hesitate before buying and make sure your marketing gives them the information they need to get past that hesitation.
Does your marketing resemble their life? Look at your photography, language, examples and assumptions. If every older person is retired, grey-haired and standing beside a grandchild, you may know considerably less about your customer than you think.
This is also where a fractional marketing director's approach can be useful for New Zealand and Australian businesses that don't have the scale or need for a full-time marketing director. The job isn't necessarily to produce more campaigns, but it is to work out which customers the business wants, what those customers value, what gets in the way of a purchase and how the various parts of the marketing programme should support that decision.
Because there is a sizeable commercial opportunity sitting in front of businesses on both sides of the Tasman.
The problem is that too many marketers are still looking straight past it.
