Marketing professor Ela Veresiu from York University's Schulich School of Business examines age-inclusive branding in her latest study, one of the first empirical analyses of how brands can authentically engage older consumers.
The seed for Veresiu’s latest research began in 2019, when she turned her attention to the Advanced Style Movement (ASM). The movement highlights older women – typically over 55 – by showcasing their creativity and personal expression through photography, social media and other platforms.
With York alumna Marie-Agnès Parmentier, now a marketing professor at HEC Montréal, Veresiu examined how older influencers connected to ASM confronted gendered ageism in fashion and beauty. The result was a study, "Advanced Style Influencers: Confronting Gendered Ageism in Fashion and Beauty Markets," published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, and the emergence of a new research question.
Through that work, she found that older influencers often wanted to collaborate on age-inclusive projects but faced persistent barriers around inclusion and representation. “Aging consumers, and especially aging female consumers, are underrepresented in the marketplace,” she says. “More worrisome, in the rare cases when older female models appear in ads, they are misrepresented. Yet, older consumers want to see models that represent their actual age and intergenerational relationships amongst equals in ads.”
Veresiu began to wonder how brands could change that. To the best of her knowledge, no empirical study had examined how brands could create age-inclusive marketing and products. This gap became the focus of her next project with Parmentier, "Building Age-Inclusive Brands: The Case of 19/99 Beauty," published in the Journal of Product & Brand Management.
The article focuses on Toronto-based cosmetics company 19/99 Beauty, which several Advanced Style influencers identified as already embracing age inclusivity by featuring older models and developing products designed for mature skin.
The researchers analyzed blog posts, videos, social media content and interviews to identify patterns in the brand’s approach. Veresiu wanted her study grounded in real-world data to show which strategies actually work in creating age-inclusive marketing and products. “Most diversity and inclusion branding and marketing research is conceptual and thus lacks empirical verification,” she says.
The study identifies three strategies brands can use to challenge ageist and sexist norms. Narrative work involves telling stories and using imagery that break down stereotypes about older women. For instance, 19/99 Beauty uses the slogan “Less Correction, More Expression” to promote makeup as a form of creativity rather than a tool to hide signs of aging. Material work focuses on developing products that meet the functional and aesthetic needs of consumers of all ages. Veresiu's article provides the example of the brand’s creamy multipurpose pencils and lash tint mascara, which are designed to suit mature skin and sensitive eyes. Relational work engages stakeholders across generations to ensure representation is authentic and meaningful. This is reflected in 19/99 Beauty’s campaigns featuring older models, its podcast interviews with women discussing aging, and its efforts to build a multigenerational online community.
Veresiu's research also shows how smaller, independent brands like 19/99 Beauty can drive industry change more quickly than larger companies. At the same time, it offers guidance for other companies on avoiding tokenism and embracing authentic, sustained inclusion to succeed with older customers.
From a business perspective, Veresiu says this is increasingly important, as the so-called Silver Generation has significant disposable income. She points to a McKinsey report, which projects that in 2025, consumers aged 50 and older will drive 48 per cent of incremental growth in global spending. But her goals extend beyond financial success. “I sincerely hope that age-inclusive brands will not be treated as a fad, niche branding strategy, or part of special activism work,” she says. “Instead, I aspire for them to become a mundane and taken-for-granted reality of branding in today’s aging marketplace. This way, aging consumers, especially women, will be able to rejoice in seeing their demographic actually represented in the marketplace.”
Veresiu’s interest in greater age inclusiveness also extends to research. Older consumers remain understudied in her field, which motivated this work. “This study hopes to change that, as well as contribute to the development of theory and practice in the field of inclusive marketing by expanding DEI branding research to explore the intersection of gender and age,” she says.
She acknowledges that her study represents only one step in understanding age-inclusive branding. Because the research focused on a single brand in Western markets, further studies across industries and cultural contexts are needed. Future research could explore how age-inclusive branding can be developed for men and other gender identities and how it manifests across cultural settings. The authors also suggest examining consumer perceptions more directly through surveys or focus groups to deepen understanding of how age-inclusive strategies are received.
Nonetheless, by showing how companies like 19/99 Beauty navigate narrative, material and relational strategies, Veresiu says her work can provide a practical blueprint for other brands. She hopes it signals that meaningful age-inclusive branding is not only achievable but commercially relevant, paving the way for a marketplace where older consumers see themselves represented as the norm rather than the exception.