The rise of this new segment is particularly acute in Asia, as improvements in health and prosperity are more marked here than in Europe and the US, argued Publicis Asia-Pacific regional strategy director, George Singleton.
"This life-stage is emerging even more powerfully in Asia because the confluence of health and fiscal well-being has dramatically increased in virtually all markets," he said.
One major exception is China, where the economic upturn has sidelined many older people, who remain reliant on family networks.
Publicis investigated Asian attitudes to age and ageing in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan as part of a 12-country study. The results showed that old people are less likely to be portrayed as individuals in Asia, appearing instead together with family or friends. Asian advertisers and programme makers also use older people to depict life after 40 than their counterparts in other countries, ignoring the growing number of active, independent and well-off people in their 40s and 50s.
"These people are almost invisible from a marketing point of view," Singleton said. "Nobody speaks to them."
This is the fastest growing segment of the population in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea according to Asian Demographics, which described the life-stage in a recent report as "the opportunity of the decade".
These countries tend to have people over 40, as opposed to younger countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, which have younger populations. Marketers tend to focus on younger people as they are perceived to be more open to new ideas, though older people are more likely to be able to afford to experiment with new products, Singleton argued.
"Even more condescending may be a belief that marketers can get older consumers with advertising targeting younger audiences. But few marketers would try to reach a teenager with ads designed for a 30- or even a 25-year-old."