The lazy obsession with youth is costing brands their real buyers

We’ve turned youth into the Atlas of modern marketing, carrying the cumulative weight of every brand chasing growth at once. And in doing so, we may be overestimating their ability to carry and underestimating the real buying audience.

When was the last time a brief landed on your table where the target audience was not the young, and happening twenty-something? If it has, it probably deserves to be framed as a rare artifact.

Jokes apart, Gen Z has become the default tick box for brands across categories today. A face wash is portrayed as a teenage girl’s first personal care product. A high-end bike is sold to the young explorer seeking freedom. A health drink is marketed to the early twenty-something gym-goer. Even the most premium smartphone is imagined for the young always-on user. Across categories, advertising disproportionately represents people in their 20s, even in categories where purchase decisions skew older. In fact, so deeply is this youth bias ingrained that it has almost become a safe shield to hide strategic laziness.

The origins for youth-centric marketing were, in many ways, sound. But like most best practices, over time we forget the ‘why’. And then we start embracing practices as commandments irrespective of the relevance because it feels safe and universally acceptable. The origin of course goes back to 3 basic tenets:

• Help the brand look dynamic and aspirational – Often portrayed through a younger protagonist. Especially seen in categories like automobiles. The principle is to go a decade younger to make the brand seem youthful.
• Catch them young – Prime and reel-in the consumer when young, so that the brand becomes a habit for life. Particularly relevant for categories like CPG where entry into category often happens young and usage is repeatable over a lifetime.
• Use the influence of youth – Young people have a way of influencing their parents (the actual buyer) to choose which brands to buy. After all, household decision-making is rarely individual. Particularly visible in categories involving shared consumption like food and beverages, consumer tech.

Whether it was motorcycles sold through the lens of youthful freedom, or toothpaste introduced as an early habit, the logic was always clear: youth was a proxy for aspiration, habit, or influence. The bottom line is, no brand wants to be perceived as “My father’s brand”. Having said that, this youth-centricity has been amplified to another level over the past couple of decades, owing to a few factors. First, India’s demographic dividend offered an opportunity for brands to target a large, young population that is experiencing rising disposable income and a shift toward discretionary spending. And second, the rise of social media gave the younger generation a voice and amplified the influence they can have. Youth drives pop culture and trends using social media, and brands follow these trends.

But what began as a set of valid strategic choices gradually hardened into a default. A structural inertia has set in, often reinforced by misplaced logic and habits that validate the choice of younger audience.

1. The ghost of the TV era – In the TV era, creative had to work for everyone because media was undifferentiated. So, youth was often used as a marker for aspiration. Everyone in the family saw the same ad and youth had a mass appeal. Having said that the youth imagery was not as young and omnipresent as today. By and large, this strategy was efficient. But now it has conveniently made its way to the digital era where every audience is on a different platform, exhibits different behaviour and is targeted differently.
2. Ease of youth targeting on digital – Digital has over-representation of younger audience, making it the most economical audience to reach. Additionally younger audiences tend to engage more, click more, share more, making it compelling for a media planner or an algorithm to optimise more for younger audiences.
3. Career-safe choice – As mentioned earlier, focussing on the young audience, especially Gen Z has become a universally accepted practice over the years. It is the safe and easy choice for both brand managers and the strategy practitioners to opt for. Easy to defend, easy to get an alignment on.

While the last two decades amplified the importance of youth, the shift to digital has quietly changed the consequences of this bias. Over-indexing creative and media for younger audiences triggers a double whammy for brands. First, unlike the TV era, not everyone gets to see the ad now. So, it is not just a matter of over-representation, it is a case of exclusion. Media plans over-indexed for youth tend to exclude the older audience from the reach altogether. Second, only using youth codes results in creative dissonance for the older generation even if you reach them. Older cohorts (Gen X and Boomers) increasingly seek authenticity and representation rather than just a mirror of youth. Using youthful codes for a product mostly bought by them is no longer aspirational; it’s exclusionary, as it fails to address the specific life-stage needs of the actual buyer.

The real cost?

It is evident in the Income-Expenditure Gap. While Gen Z's total spending power is high, only 27% is direct spend. The remaining 73% is ‘Influenced Spend’. While Gen Z drives brand talk and social engagement, the Silver Economy (50+) and Established Professionals (35-50) remain the primary revenue drivers due to higher stability in disposable income for many categories. There is no denying that youth will always remain culturally powerful. But culture does not always translate into consumption. By only using youth codes and youth-centric targeting, brands might win influence on social media, but alienate the real decision-maker.

But a few real questions still remain. Why is this bias getting stronger? Who benefits?

Platforms benefit by easily reaching abundant audience at low cost. Agencies benefit from the high engagement metrics. The brand manager gets a safe sign-off. Everyone in the chain has an incentive to keep the bias intact.

This is no longer just inertia. Everyone in the chain benefits. The brand pays.