We use cookies to improve our service for you. You can find more information in our data protection declaration. In the modelling industry, youth is everything. But as Germany's population ages, advertisers are increasingly using older models to tap into a target group with money to spend -- seniors. In the headquarters of the Senior Models Berlin agency, there's a poster on the wall featuring a vampire-like figure, eyes glazed over in a startling light blue. The poster sums up the business philosophy of the agency's owner, Nicola Siegel, who opened Senior Models Berlin last year.
Over the next 10 to 20 years, judging from the demographic statistics, it's only going to grow. Germany is waking up to the fact that a demographic revolution is under way.
With fewer babies being born and many young, qualified people moving abroad in search of jobs, experts predict that by the middle of the century, more than half the German population will be over the age of Siegel says companies would be well-advised to start targeting their advertising campaigns at the population segment that now has the greatest economic power in Germany -- senior citizens.
Years ago, it was different -- older people saved their money, and young people were out shopping and spending. On her desk, Siegel has a red leather binder filled with the set cards of her models. Around 70 percent are actors, she says, because in the senior models business, clients want faces with character, not blank canvases with perfect features. Twenty percent are professional models, and the rest are what she calls "new faces" -- ordinary people who flood her office with around 40 applications a day, looking to earn some extra cash as senior models.
Flipping through the set cards, there are some noticeable "senior" types -- people with grey hair and wrinkles around the eyes. But many don't look a day over That's because they're not. In the youth-obsessed modelling industry, "senior" starts at They have good photos, but all the agencies told them they were too old. So these models are in my agency," Siegel said.
