The Longevity Blind Spot: What Better Not Younger Reveals About Marketing in a New Age-Inclusive Economy

Founder Sonsoles Gonzalez on brand evolution, ageism in marketing, and why the industry must rethink its assumptions about relevance, confidence, and growth.

For decades, marketing has quietly operated on an outdated timeline.

Career momentum peaks early. Innovation belongs to youth. And women, in particular, are often treated as if their relevance fades just as their purchasing power and influence reach their height.

Sonsoles Gonzalez, Founder of Better Not Younger, built her company by confronting that contradiction head-on. After nearly 30 years leading global beauty brands at Procter & Gamble and L’Oréal, she launched a haircare brand dedicated to women over 40 — a demographic long underserved despite its enormous economic and cultural power.

Today, as she transitions from day-to-day operator to Founder focused on long-term vision, Gonzalez sees her work as part of a larger shift: adapting marketing to an aging society.

Beyond Surface-Level Inclusion

Representation of older women in advertising is improving — but often only superficially. According to Gonzalez, many large organizations still focus on visual updates rather than structural change.

True progress requires more than featuring gray hair in a campaign. It demands dedicated teams focused on 40+ consumers across product development, research, and marketing strategy. Without that infrastructure, brands risk treating longevity as a trend rather than a fundamental demographic reality.

The industry’s internal culture mirrors this gap. Leadership pipelines still skew younger, reinforcing outdated assumptions about when careers — and creative relevance — peak.

View a Clip from the Interview with Sonsoles Gonzalez of Better Not Younger

Confidence, Community, and the Power of Trust

Better Not Younger was built on a simple insight: hair is deeply tied to identity and confidence at every age. But serving older consumers requires a different marketing approach.

In a noisy digital environment increasingly shaped by AI and performance metrics, Gonzalez argues that credibility and lived experience remain powerful differentiators.

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In this Trendsetters conversation, we discuss:

• You’ve recently stepped into a Founder role and brought in a CEO—something many founders struggle deeply with. What helped you recognize when it was the right moment to make that shift?

• You built some of the world’s biggest hair brands at P&G and L’Oréal, then chose to serve a segment the industry largely ignored. What did you have to unlearn from big-company marketing to truly serve women 40+ authentically?

• When you launched Better Not Younger, “age-inclusive beauty” was barely part of the conversation. Now that more brands are entering this space, how do you think about defending the category you helped legitimize—without becoming generic?

• With hindsight, what’s the most dangerous mistake brands make when they decide to “go after” older consumers?

• You’ve said many times that hair is deeply tied to confidence and identity. What has listening to your community taught you about women at this stage of life that marketers still underestimate?

• Early on, Better Not Younger leaned heavily on education, conversation, and trust—not hype. In today’s noisy, AI-driven marketing environment, why is trust still your strongest growth lever?

• You’ve built a brand where customers often become ambassadors. What’s the difference between “user-generated content” and earned advocacy—and how should marketers think differently about that?

• You’ve been very outspoken about changing society’s narrative around aging—especially for women. Do you think brands are genuinely evolving, or are many still just changing the visuals without changing the mindset?

• You’ve described Better Not Younger as a platform and philosophy, not just a haircare brand. How do you decide which opportunities to pursue—and which ones would dilute the mission?

• Finally, what’s one belief about growth, leadership, or branding that you hold today that would have surprised your 30-year-old self?

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Marketing for the Longevity Society

Longevity is reshaping global markets. Consumers are working longer, reinventing careers, and redefining what fulfillment looks like across decades of life.

For Sonsoles Gonzalez, this creates an opportunity for collaboration. She envisions partnerships among brands, researchers, and cultural leaders to normalize aging and build ecosystems that support consumers through extended life stages.

Her own career trajectory reflects that philosophy. What she once imagined as retirement became a period of reinvention — evidence that ambition and creativity do not expire on a fixed schedule.

A New Growth Frontier

The implications extend beyond beauty. Populations over age 40, 50, or even 60 are not niche markets; they are central drivers of economic growth. Yet many brands still approach them with inherited assumptions designed for a different era.

Better Not Younger illustrates what happens when those assumptions are challenged. By centering confidence, community, and respect for lived experience, the brand reframes aging not as decline, but as expansion.

For marketers, the lesson is clear: the longevity economy is not simply about older consumers. It is about updating the industry’s understanding of relevance itself.