News just in. Women over 50 use beauty products. They also eat, drink and drive cars

Women over 50 are now the biggest buyers of beauty products in the UK and those over 60 now account for a quarter of all UK beauty sales – more than double a decade ago, according to new research by beauty retailer Escentual.com, published today.

In fact, women over 45 now account for 58.14% of the beauty market, while the expenditure of young women has dropped slightly. The research credits the rise to an increase in beauty brands using older celebrity brand ambassadors, such as Helen Mirren for L’Oreal and Tilda Swinton for Nars.

So far, so what?
This will come as no surprise to anyone who, knows something about the ‘older consumer’. Come to that, it will come as no surprise to most women over 50. And as a marketing consultancy specialising in the 50+ consumer, it is certainly no surprise to us.

People over 50 have, on average, more wealth and disposable income than those over 50. There is an increasing number of them. And women over 50 no longer conform to outmoded stereotypes of age and ageing. In fact, the findings of Escentual are in line with what industry marketing data has been telling us for some years.

What’s more, I said as much – and more! – two years ago, in my presentation at InCosmetics, the international cosmetics industry conference. And in many other presentations since. For more information on my speaking capabilities, click here!

Escentual is to be congratulated for making this newsworthy. As with so much else concerned with older consumers and the mature market, the assumptions of youth-oriented marketers and journalists are often a long way away from the realities of how the UK’s ageing population think and act.

Our Mature Market Report covers the subject of marketing for older consumers in exhaustive detail – 250 pages, 60,000 words, more than 300 sources. For a FREE copy, please contact me now!

Mark Beasley
mark@rhcadvantage.co.uk
www.rhcadvantage.co.uk

Share this article