From Frail to Fearless: Why Stereotyping Older Adults Still Misses the Mark
The problem with rebranding old age as a performance of youth
Age-positive advertising isn’t always as inclusive as it looks. A recent LinkedIn post featured an ad showing an older man DJing at what looks like a Gen Z party, paired with the line: “It’s not about age, it’s about attitude.” The caption praised “the new old” as a diverse, dynamic group and urged marketers to innovate accordingly.
The image stuck with me. Not just because older consumers are indeed treated as a monolith, but because I have noticed a pattern. Increasingly, ads cast older people as just as cool, wild, and thrill-seeking as their younger counterparts. You have seen the archetypes: the skydiving grandparent, the retired woman in a monster truck. The message is that age is irrelevant if your attitude is right.
At first glance, this feels progressive. It looks like inclusion. Scratch beneath the surface and you find the same trap: one stereotype quietly replacing another.
Four stereotypes still shaping how we see older adults
For decades, advertising has relied on reductive roles for older people. Four stand out:
Technologically inept seniors. The trope of the confused grandparent asking “What’s a TikTok?”, remains everywhere. Nearly 70% of consumers say advertisers cling to this image, even though most people over 50 use smartphones and social platforms.
Out of touch and stuck in the past. Seniors portrayed as clueless about culture or fashion reinforce the idea that they are irrelevant to modern life. That exclusion fuels invisibility in mainstream media.
Physically weak or afflicted. From health supplements to mobility aids, older adults are shown as stooped, slow, or asleep in a chair. Mockery has softened, but decline still dominates.
The happy older couple. Retirement ads filled with benign gardeners and hand-holders flatten older life into one-dimensional cheer. It’s not offensive, but it’s bland, and segregates media “for seniors” from everything else.
Take YoungCapital’s “Boost Your Boomer” campaign. Styled like a Gen Z tech ad, it depicts Boomers as broken products to be “rebooted” by younger workers. It pretends to celebrate intergenerational cooperation but actually infantilizes older adults, useful only once “fixed” by youth. The joke is at their expense, not for their benefit.
Or Ensure’s muscle-and-bone-strength ad. Less mocking, more caregiving, but still reductive. It frames aging as a deficiency: a decline to be corrected with nutrition. The intent may be supportive, but the lens is narrow.
Both examples reveal the same dynamic. Whether through satire or sympathy, older adults are cast as problems to solve, obsolete, frail, or in need of rescue.
The rise of the “Super-Ager”
Lately, we have swung to the opposite extreme: the Super-Ager. This version trades frailty for daredevilry, skydiving, crowd-surfing, and monster-truck-driving. Fearless, yes. Realistic? Not quite.
Consider Coca-Cola’s Mr. Hadley spot, where a Coke Zero inspires an older man to get a tattoo, join a Pride parade, dive into a pool, and crowd-surf to Queen’s “I Want to Break Free.” Or Doritos’ “For the Bold in Everyone,” where a grandmother abandons routine to commandeer a monster truck.
These campaigns aim to be age-positive. They want older people to look bold, rebellious, adventurous. But here’s the problem:
It flattens reality. Not everyone at 84 can, or wants to, crowd-surf. Calling it a matter of “attitude” erases the structural and physical realities of aging.
It just swaps clichés. We move from doddering to daredevil. Still a stereotype, just with a better outfit.
It centers youth as the gold standard. Fulfillment is framed as acting young. Yet satisfaction at 70 may look quieter, rooted, and un-Instagrammable.
It subtly blames the individual. If you are not joyful, wild, or camera-ready in later life, the implication is that you have failed to age “successfully.” The standard is youthfulness, not fit between life and context.
These ads are entertaining. They challenge old tropes. They also tether older people’s value to youthful behavior. That is not liberation. It is another form of ageism.
What stereotypes really cost
Why does this matter? Because stereotypes do not stay in commercials. They shape real-world attitudes, with measurable consequences.
For older adults, repeated exposure to frailty or irrelevance erodes self-image, health, and even longevity. A review across 45 countries shows internalized ageism consistently shortens life expectancy. Even brief exposure to negative cues can impair memory, mobility, and mood. Invisibility in culture reinforces isolation and discourages engagement.
Younger people absorb the message too, developing a fear of aging and a distance from older generations. One study found that belief in media stereotypes heightened the dread of growing old.
Policy is not immune. During COVID-19, ageist assumptions shaped decisions around elder isolation and treatment prioritization. In workplaces, stereotypes normalize discrimination.
Culturally, ageist tropes fuel division. The UK Parliament has warned that narratives like “greedy Boomers vs. struggling Millennials” stoke resentment and weaken social cohesion.
The costs are collective. Ageism shrinks opportunity, worsens health outcomes, and weakens economies. The WHO calls it a major social determinant of health. Society pays when stereotypes set the frame.
What good representation looks like
Some campaigns show what’s possible when ads treat older adults as people, not symbols.
Chevrolet’s 2023 Christmas ad tells of a grandfather who asks his granddaughter to take his wife, struggling with memory loss, on a drive in their old Suburban. Familiar places spark recognition. Aging is not denied or mocked. It is honored through history, connection, and care.
Nike’s Unlimited Youth featuring Sister Madonna Buder, the 86-year-old Ironman triathlete, strikes a similar note. She is extraordinary, but the tone is reverent, not prescriptive. She is not framed as defying her age. She is defining it for herself.
These ads resist caricature. They show aging as layered: strength and vulnerability, memory and endurance, joy and fatigue. Inclusion here means portraying the full spectrum, the bold, the content, the tech-savvy, the digitally indifferent. In other words, real people.
The role of the industry itself
Advertising’s youth obsession isn’t just external. It’s structural.
Internally, agencies skew young. Only 6% of employees are over 50, far fewer than in law, finance, or medicine. Experience is not valued in the same way it is in other fields. As Rory Sutherland of Ogilvy notes, advertising lacks a clear framework for seniority. Years add weight in law or medicine, but not in marketing.
Externally, campaigns still aim at youth, despite older adults holding enormous purchasing power. Nearly 80% of ad professionals acknowledge ageism in the industry; over 40% have witnessed it firsthand. About a third have experienced it themselves.
When few older creatives are in the room, stereotypes thrive. Misrepresentation is not surprising. It is the default when lived reality is absent from the table.
Where do we go from here?
If advertisers want to connect meaningfully with older audiences, they have to do more than swap clichés.
It starts with hiring and listening to older creatives. Designing campaigns that speak to older people without filtering everything through the lens of youth. Rejecting the notion that relevance requires rebellion.
Aging does not need to be hidden, hacked, or heroized.
It just needs to be seen.