Is your neck ageing faster than your face?
Pain-point copywriting & midlife women
I’ve been exploring the triggers for midlife women’s buying decisions, and how brand language can reflect these emotions empathetically and ethically.
I’ve also built a Knowledge Vault for brands and marketers hoping to target midlife women. You can consult it here (free, no sign-up needed for now).
When researching messaging and copywriting aimed at midlife women, I found the majority of examples came from fashion, skincare and health/wellbeing brands.
Of course I did. Women “of a certain age” are obvious demographic targets for those industries. So how much do we love what marketing shows us in the mirror?
Research routinely indicates our negative or apathetic feelings about the brand messaging that’s supposed to speak to us. That’s when it speaks to us at all.
Do we really see ourselves in it? Do we even care?
This 2022 report assessed the over-50s representation gap in advertising.
There are 52 million adults in Great Britain. 47% are in their 50s and above. Between them they control assets of over £6 trillion. They hold 69.7% of all UK household wealth. And yet as an audience, they are routinely overlooked by businesses. At the time of writing, just 12% of UK adverts feature someone over 50 in a leading role. It makes no commercial sense. (MullenLowe Group UK presents: The Invisible Powerhouse)
An earlier report uncovered a corresponding gulf in the way that menopausal women specifically are represented.
Almost half (46%) of women who are going through or have been through the menopause believe that women are not represented fairly or authentically by advertising, while 44% feel patronised by advertising, and almost a quarter (24%) are simply indifferent to it. (Women’s Worth study by UM London and Karen Fraser, as quoted in Campaign)
Patronised and indifferent. If our goal is human to human marketing, that’s a troubling verdict on the state of play.
Copywriting in the wild is ripe for a reckoning.
Age-agnostic marketing is yet to go mainstream. It’s an approach that places age further down the list of factors that shape a campaign. Instead, age-agnostic marketing focuses on behaviour, preferences and values shared across the generations. No more assumptions about lifestyle based solely on age demographics.
It makes sense, because midlife women have got plenty of other stuff going on, beyond fretting about Turkey Neck.
Skincare brand copywriters have a particularly tricky job. So do any writers working in other ‘appearance-first’ niches like fashion. They tread a fine line between writing about arguably superficial products and creating messaging that relates to the deeper, life-affirming emotional stuff.
That’s an easier balance to negotiate for an EdTech brand, for example. Yet I’ve still to find one that speaks directly to midlife women, despite the massive influence we have across the generations AND the learning projects we embark on ourselves around milestone moments.
Just like the mental shortcuts that influence our buying decisions, creatives have rules of thumb that help us complete our work efficiently.
As a copywriter, I know how easy it is to get caught up in wordplay or customer pain points, and then forget that your copy is just a version of talking, human to human.
Copywriter clockwork
Speaking of midlife pain points, I see brands poking at this one like an open sore - the ticking clock.
Is your neck ageing faster than your face?
Although I saw this question tucked away in a product description, I found variations on this theme in lots of midlife messaging.
ALL brand copy matters, from often-overlooked product descriptions to headlines. In a short sentence like this, a brand can easily and unwittingly undermine its core message of celebrating ageless beauty.
Human to human, can you imagine asking this question face-to-face? If you can, your social skills need some spa time.
It’s a passive-aggressive compliment delivered with an insult. At best.
My guess is that the language choice originated in a reasonable idea - use voice-of-customer research.
Some focus-group participant probably once said “I feel like my neck is ageing more than my face.” And that sounds quotable.
Yet here’s the insinuation in those eight simple words in the product description - Your face might look ok, but your neck’s f***ed. Go on, look.
Copywriting that pokes at this real-to-many pain point - the fear of looking older - is risky. It can sound patronising, spiteful and bleak. It could also provoke an unwanted customer response. My neck might be losing some bounce, but I’m not terribly happy about you pointing your metaphorical finger at it. So I’ll pass on your Dorian-Gray-in-a-jar serum, thanks.
What’s the alternative to copywriting with one eye on the clock?
Creatives targeting midlife women could consider the life events or values that shape buying decisions, rather than focusing on years on the clock (and how to dial them back).
Age is not our entire identity. Not even close. Midlife women don’t think and act as one homogenous, sweaty unit. Important as it is, hormone balance is not our only preoccupation. Nor is smoother skin.
We might have more in common with your 30 year-old niece. We could be childfree, a mum, a gran, a caregiver. We could be a career-restarter or a lifelong learner. We might be adding to our tattoo collection or accompanying our kids to Harry Styles concerts (and paying for the tickets too).
Or as one woman pointed out in the Noon research project: “I feel like a teenager but in my own house, with posh sheets and nice tea.”
We’re irreverent and a bit cynical.
Some of us remember Diana marrying Charles. We might recognise Yuppies and that Levis laundrette ad. We read The Face and watched Channel 4 and Live Aid. Don’t assume we were just prepping for a future of hormone imbalance and worry over crow’s feet.
We’ve lived a little. Or a lot.
Copywriting aimed at midlife women could consider three questions -
What are we spending our time doing?
What are we thinking about?
What are we talking about?
(And yes, ideally it is ‘we’, because we need midlife women on creative teams, creating the copy and shaping the message).
And when the words are finally written, add a human to human sense-check.
Would you actually say that in conversation to a friend? Is your neck ageing faster than your face?
Need a palate cleanser after any pass-agg queries about your crinkly neck?
This article confirms what we all suspect - Old People are Hot Now.
It also introduced me to the Brimley/Cocoon Line. Wilford Brimley from Cocoon was 18,530 days old when the film came out (somewhere between 50 and 51). So are all the people featured in the posts. When Twitter/X goes down in flames, this is well worth saving.
I’ve more to say on this. How about you?
Recent subscriber here. Very insightful. Thanks for sharing.