Five Reasons Why... Edelman Is Backing Older Influencers

Edelman is challenging brands to rethink their approach to older audiences with the launch of 'The Power of 55', a new global index celebrating creators over a certain age who are reshaping influence, trust, and commercial impact.

The list spans more than a dozen markets and surfaces a cohort of creators who Edelman argues have been hiding in plain sight. Despite controlling over half of global spending - a figure expected to hit $15tn annually by 2030 - people aged 55+ receive less than 10 per cent of marketers’ budgets. Edelman believes its curated group offers brands an immediate route into this vast but neglected opportunity.

“Marketers aren’t just underestimating this audience, they’re overlooking them entirely,” says Jackie Cooper, Edelman’s global chief brand officer and co-founder of the Longevity Lab. “This generation is digital, discerning, and in the prime of their spending power. There is far more economic and cultural influence here than most brands realise.”

Creators on the list range from Crazy Auntie Ann in the UK to Jennifer Valentyne in Canada, Jannik Diefenbach in Germany, Makrye Park in South Korea, Olajumoke Adenowo in Nigeria and Granny Guns in the US, covering categories including wellness, finance, fashion, health, travel and lifestyle.

Each has been vetted using Edelman’s Trusted Creator Score - an AI-driven and human-reviewed methodology evaluating content quality, audience alignment and brand safety - designed to give marketers a low-risk, high-return pipeline of credible collaborators.

'The Power of 55' marks a significant expansion of Edelman’s Longevity Lab, which mirrors the consultancy’s popular Gen Z Lab but focuses on the commercial and cultural possibilities of the ageing population. The ambition is to help brands turn generational insight into action - and growth.

As Cooper puts it: “This isn’t about visibility, it’s about value. Brands that partner with Power of 55 creators won’t just reach a high-spend audience – they’ll earn trust, build relevance, and drive real commercial outcomes.”

Five Reasons Why This Report Matters

• Ageism is costing brands money

Agencies still behave as though the over-55 audience is peripheral, despite their $15tn projected annual spend by 2030. Cooper says legacy thinking - particularly the fixation on capturing Gen Z at all costs - has stopped brands updating their models for new consumer realities. She thinks brands need to rebuild audience strategies based on actual spend and influence, not inherited myths.

• The industry still doesn’t know how to represent older people

Creative work continues to push clichés - we all know the score: retirees in white linen, cruise-ship sunsets and Specsavers gags. Cooper points out that today’s 55+ consumers lead radically different lives - in behaviour, spending and lifestyle - yet older talent is rarely present in the agency teams tasked with representing them. Brands need to put older voices in the room and build campaigns that reflect lived reality, not outdated tropes.

• Older creators outperform younger influencers on trust and engagement

Edelman’s data shows that 55+ creators consistently drive deeper engagement and hold more credibility across audiences - including younger people, 39 per cent of whom actively prefer older creators for fashion, lifestyle and financial guidance. Brands need to expand the definition of influence and move away from reach-only metrics and invest in creators who can shape behaviour.

• There’s a creative opportunity the industry has barely tapped

When brands get it right, audiences respond. Cooper points to campaigns like Edelman and Dove’s 'Beauty Never Gets Old' and high-fashion work from brands like Burberry and Alexander McQueen as early signs of a shift - but stresses that it’s nowhere near the scale it should be.

• Brands need a long-term longevity strategy - not a last-minute bolt-on

Consumers are living into their 80s, 90s, and beyond. Cooper argues this requires structural change: rethinking briefs, casting, creator rosters, NPD, product design, and the assumptions agencies bring into the room. Longevity, she says, is “a growth engine - the thing that protects value, relevance and future revenue." Brands should bake longevity into the brief from the start. Treat the 55+ audience as central to brand health and long-term growth.