The news: Several direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands are finding that older consumers are their biggest source of growth, prompting them to shift their marketing and creative strategies to better appeal to these shoppers, per Modern Retail.

• Baby food maker Little Spoon is receiving more orders and inquiries from grandparents, who now account for roughly 3% of its customer base, chief brand officer Caryn Wasser told the publication.
• Charcuterie board company Boarderie’s core customer leans more boomer than millennial, contrary to the brand’s initial expectations, co-CEO Rachel Solomon Fascitelli said.

Zoom out: By crafting campaigns specifically with Gen X and older consumers in mind, brands have an opportunity to win goodwill among audiences that often receive less attention from marketers. But that could require brands to rethink where their advertising dollars go, as well as how they present themselves to shoppers.

• Rather than follow the design cues of most millennial- and Gen Z-focused brands, Broaderie opted for a more classic visual style calculated to appeal to older consumers, along with copy “centered around the values that resonate with that audience, like long-distance gifting, ease, and time saving,” Fascitelli said.
• Little Spoon is testing ways to reach out directly to grandparents, including developing content and creative targeting specifically for the demographic.

Implications for retailers: The success of Little Spoon and Boarderie suggests that it pays for brands to broaden their scope beyond Gen Z and millennial audiences. Older generations tend to be more brand loyal than younger consumers, and they have greater spending power: Baby boomers and Gen X collectively spent $28.7 trillion globally in 2025, compared with $10.9 trillion for Gen Z and $14.7 trillion for millennials, per Nielsen IQ.