Queenagers: not walking hot flushes! How brands are ignoring women with REAL buying power! 

Guest blog by Eleanor Mills, Founder and Editor in Chief of Noon.org.uk

After 25 years at the top of the mainstream media in the UK, I left the Sunday Times and set up my own platform for women in midlife noon.org.uk. It became increasingly clear to me that there was a huge disjunct between the women I saw around me who were founding their own businesses, travelling the world, going back to study, changing careers, becoming coaches – basically full of vim and purpose - and the grey-haired-woman-walking-down-the-beach cliché of the way we were usually portrayed. I knew from my time in newspapers that women were often used to ‘brighten up a page’ and have campaigned for the last decade for women not to be seen as eye-candy, arm-candy or victims but to be portrayed as people with agency, doing things in their own right.

As a journalist – editor, columnist, interviewer over three decades – my job was to read the zeitgeist, understand emerging trends and differences in society. I could see that women as they hit midlife faced a double whammy, the collision of sexism and ageism (gendered ageism) but that beyond the cliched portrayals was a fascinating and distinctive cohort, very different from the midlife women who had come before. The recent noise around menopause is testament to the fact that this generation do not want to go quietly into that good night; they won’t put up with gaping health inequalities. But they are also more than their hormones. Queenagers want their menopause treatment to be sorted out so they can get on and live their best lives. This group of women have more economic power and more agency than any other set of midlife women in history; it is there in the statistics. In 2019 women over 40 started to earn more money than women under 40 - for the first time ever. Rather than dropping out during their child-bearing years they stuck at their jobs; Forbes magazine calls the cohort I have dubbed Queenagers as ‘super consumers’; they out-spend millennial women by 250% and are behind 90% of all household spending decisions.

Yet despite our deciding and spending power, brands rarely address us directly. These women feel invisible (over half according to our Noon/Accenture research conducted this year said they “didn’t feel seen” by the mainstream) and 61% of university-educated women in this group said they would be “way more likely to buy from a brand which represents me”.

The opportunity for businesses to tap into the Queenager brand is huge; but so far a youth-obsessed culture has overlooked them. And if brands are to speak to Queenagers they need to get it right. These women value authenticity, they smell humbug a mile off, and they don’t want to be patronised. They also don’t want to be sold impossible examples of how they ‘should’ look or behave; too often the ‘role models’ they are shown are completely unrepresentative and unachievable eg Carla Bruni at 54 on the catwalk looking like a 20-something. These women aren’t squeamish, they have a great sense of humour – but the only thing that is ever sold to them specifically are incontinence pants and anti-ageing cream. This is a mistake when, as one partner in a London law firm put it to me: “I’m 50, I’m single, and when it comes to brands it’s as if I don’t exist. Which is crazy because I am disposable-income-erarma.” Another professional woman said to me: “I feel excited like a teenager, but in my own house, with nice sheets and good tea. I’m a Queenager.” Noon has the largest most up to date data set on this cohort ever conducted. Don’t just take it from me: a summary of the findings were reported in the Telegraph under the headline “Brands are foolish to ignore midlife women.”

My platform Noon works with brands to help them get their messaging right for these women, engaging in a new optimistic conversation, acknowledging that these women face challenges – we call them pinchpoints. These include divorce, bereavement, redundancy, elderly parents, tricky teens, their own health issues, menopause. But although these life events are challenging they also bring wisdom. We say our Queenagers are Forged in Fire: and the ones who have been through the most are now the happiest. As one put it, “I am delightedly divorced; I’ve got my life set up just as I want it.”

I called my platform Noon because in the 100 year life (which is statistically where many of us are headed), 50 is only half way through. We all have to reinvent ourselves, set out on new journeys – but as we say at Noon – There is So Much More to Come. We’re here to help our women into their next chapter.

Fifty is when you become the woman you deserve to be.

This positive message is missing in the wider culture, but is being lapped up by our Noon members; we have built our 40k strong community entirely on organic engagement and the strength of our content and message. Noon is unique. No-one else is offering women this conversation from this particular view point. We’d love to tell you more. Do contact eleanor@inherspace.co.uk to discuss consulting, our research and how we might help you meet this exciting cohort.