5 Reasons Marketers Have Overlooked Generation X

They're parents, homeowners and at the peak of their careers. So why have so many brands ignored Gen X? Here's five reasons why.

- Robert Klara

A few weeks ago, Lincoln Financial began running a 60-second spot about fiscal planning for your family’s future. Financial services ads aren’t typically attention grabbers, but there was something stark and penetrating about this one. Created by FCB and shot in black and white with a backing track of “Love Me Tender,” the spot showed people in their 40s, dealing with the joys and challenges of middle age—raising children, caring for elderly parents, trying to carve out time for themselves. Love, the ad said, means having responsibility—your responsibility.

If you happened to notice this spot, and if it happened to speak to you, it also may have shaken you from a kind of cultural torpor. The ad was targeted squarely at Generation X, consumers who fall between their mid-30s and mid-50s. And that’s an age group that’s not used to being marketed to very much.

These days, nearly any brand you can think of is tripping over itself to reach millennials—and leapfrogged the generation before them. It’s a situation that frustrates FCB’s chief strategy officer Deb Freeman. “I’m a proud, card-carrying Gen Xer,” she says. “We were the crossroads generation, and we had to absorb so much change—everything from growing up with technology to having no job security. We’ve been at the forefront of all that, and we’re stronger. Millennials haven’t had to fight the fight that we had. I’m so tired of hearing about the millennial spirit.”