Alright marketers and advertisers, the Mamamia Women’s Network is targeting you to get your heads around how to represent women aged 40 and over in advertising. One aspect being, women over 40 still have sex.

Yep, they engage in coital relations. They have a wee bit of a romp in the sack. They, too, want to feel desired and sexy. While this all may seem obvious, brands need to realise these women have personality, they are not all vanilla, and this personality needs to be injected into the creative, says the latest research from the women’s network.

The research comes as the network gears up to launch its new site Debrief Daily on March 21, a site aimed at women aged 40 and over.

Speaking to B&T, Mamamia’s national sales director, Kylie Rogers, says many women in the 5000 respondent survey admit they are having sex, but no one in advertising is really helping them through that. This pinpoints a clear avenue marketers can go down to target this demographic.

Rogers also outlined how much of the advertising today represents women aged 40 and over as cashed-up and spending their kids’ inheritance.

While it’s true these woman have much of the buying power, admitted Rogers, “none of these women felt like they were a ‘spending my kids’ inheritance’ generation”.

From the women who took part in the survey, more than half said they are offended by ads and sceptical, as they’ve bought many products that haven’t work. “Advertising has lied to them,” says Rogers. “They just want to be loved, spoken to and related to. If you do that, you will get them to open their wallets.”

The research resulted in six key findings – stop telling her how old she is, don’t confuse her with her mother, her time is now, milestones shift her world view, the optimistic preventer and she’s sending you an SOS.

From these findings, Rogers explained how much of the terminology used within advertising today offends women. The first of the points, stop telling her how old she is, is one area that gets them bristling. Marketers and advertisers should never mention a woman’s age. You would think that would be logical though, right?

Beauty brands are privy to this. How many times have you seen ‘anti-aging cream’ and ‘creams for women 50 plus’? Rogers says they shouldn’t do this.

“It’s not about their age,” she said, “it’s about what they’re experiencing and the conditions that they have in that time frame.”

Women too have evolved over the past 50 years, as has everything else, however Rogers says marketers have to stop comparing women today with their mothers.

“They are very different,” she stresses. “Advertisers and marketers need to reframe the stereotype and what these women look like and how they behave. Women today feel really different than their mothers felt at the same age.” However, Rogers continues to explain how there is no stereotype of women for now.

“It’s about authentically relearning who she is and understanding that women of today are multifaceted,” she says.

Marketers also need to be aware that women of this age are not sitting on their arse once their kids have left, they are now getting up and doing things, and the milestones in her life are important to her, so have creative that reflects and respects this.

They are also optimistic preventers, in that they are more adverse to risky situations, but instead of labelling it as ‘risk adverse’, ads should up positive terminology. And finally, women are sending marketers and advertisers an SOS. There are a number of problem areas women are lying awake thinking about at night, such as money, kids’ happiness, retirement, and these are needs marketers targeting these women need to address.