• by Les Luchter , February 14, 2025

“Don’t feel your age. Act your age. Aspercreme.”

Squarely targeting baby boomers, that’s the tagline of pain relief brand Aspercreme’s first major campaign in four years, running through June 30.

While the previous campaign, “Kick Pain in the Aspercreme” focused on obviously fictional situations like sword-wielding women and men fighting in the street action-movie style, “Act Your Age” centers around four :15 spots showing real baby boomers in real-life situations: doing yoga, drumming, rock climbing, and motorcycling.

The spots “were crafted with the insight of ‘age makes you interesting’” and “to ensure we balanced aspiration with relatability,” according to Claudine Patel, CMO at Aspercreme parent Opella North America, formerly Sanofi Consumer Healthcare.

Each of the four protagonists are “authentically defying outdated perceptions of aging,” Patel tells Marketing Daily.

“Boomers really are thriving in their golden years, despite the stereotypes and what many perceive,” she declares, pointing to proprietary Aspercreme research conducted in December.

In that survey of 1,000 baby boomers and 1,000 non-boomers by Talker Research, “We identified several key data points,” Patel says. “Notably, 46% of boomers feel happier now than when they were younger, and 21% report being more active today than in their youth. Additionally, over three-quarters (77%) no longer care what others think of them, with 63% living life to the fullest as a result.”

Directly relating to the ad content, the study found that 17% of boomers had taken up cycling, and 16%, yoga.

Non-boomers, meanwhile, were found to often associate being "old" with forgetfulness (45%), decreased strength (41%), or needing mobility aids (40%).

Among other findings: 50% of boomers refute the idea they lead boring lives, 48% disagree with claims that they refuse to learn new things, 46% reject the assumption they don’t understand technology, 34% keep up with current celebrities, and 28% are familiar with today's slang.

While boomers are the focus of Aspercreme’s “Act Your Age,” the target audience gets into most of Gen X as well, as Patel says the campaign’s demo is 50+.

To reach them, Aspercreme is using streaming video, Meta, programmatic digital and mobile, with media buying handled by Havas.

While “Kick Pain in the Aspercreme” was created by the Terri & Sandy agency, “Act Your Age” comes from The Martin Agency.

In addition to the paid campaign, Aspercreme has teamed with two celebrities to help “reframe” the brand: season one “Golden Bachelorette” contestant Joan Vassos and personal trainer/wellness expert Joyce Shulman.

Vassos, Patel says, “finds different ways to remain vibrant, active and youthful whether it’s chasing her grandkids around, walking her dog or traveling,” while Shulman ,“a loyal user of the brand for years…also recommends Aspercreme to her clients as a way for them to relieve their pain so they can stay active and enjoy life.”

Aspercreme has also engaged active boomer social media influencers, via the Influential agency.

In toto, the new campaign “takes a more empowering, insight-driven approach” than the brand has done in the past, “aligning with how today's boomers truly feel,” Patel says.

Aspercreme is now being positioned as the brand “that gives “our active-boomer consumers the freedom to age without pain holding them back,” she adds.

Unlike competitors who Patel says are “focused on embracing the aging stereotypes with functional messaging,” Aspercreme “has defined our role as the brand who defies pain’s power with science, so you can defy aging’s stereotypes.”

She adds, “Aging does bring on more aches and pains. The thing is, boomers aren’t letting the pain get in their way of doing the things they love, and we love that attitude.”