More than fifteen years ago I heard the phrase: “The secret is beauty and youth”, by the way, a phrase misattributed to Oscar Wilde in his work The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Certain or uncertain, the meaning of this phrase is very real and valid. Although it hurts some of us, the fact of being young makes us more beautiful by nature and I am not saying this, it is said by reality and the aesthetics that we have programmed in our societies. If you are young, you are beautiful, and these types of conventions, the marketing of all time takes them very seriously and capitalizes on it in every message they send us.
It is unquestionable and totally acceptable that young people naturally have a great advantage and the messages are there, and flow every day.
The segmented generations
Between the generations that exist: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y and the Millennials, and there is a clear and evident difference: age and youth.
The most recent generation, the Millennials, know that the advantage they have over other generations is what we all want most: youth, which is synonymous with beauty. For the same reason, this generation that was born between 1994 and 2010 is in a great hurry to do things and achieve clear goals, such as graduating fast, backpacking, getting drunk, being arrested -if not ask Justin Bieber-, playing the guitar, etc.
They know that they are young and have what everyone wants and therefore they have to take advantage of it before their youth runs out. They are like gentlemen. Not to mention, if when reading these lines you realize that you are no longer as young as the Millennials, you are in time to capitalize on the youth that you have around you to take advantage of it. Because if you are not so young anymore, this will be your disadvantage from the point of view of current conventions. Youth, divine treasure.
The old ladies execute the counter marketing
If you are not so young anymore, not everything is so bad. The experience still remains, they say, and I ran into Ariel out there who is doing Contra Marketing with his campaign of the powerful old ladies on YouTube in order to generate virality through irreverence and funny self-criticism.
Counter Marketing is about going against established organic conventions. If being young is cool, then according to this marketing tactic, being old is cooler.
Interesting that these brands bet on this type of countercultural messages, I think many brands could do the same and thus stand out better and not spend so much effort going with the flow and getting lost in normality and conventions to become invisible with their customers. .