Brands finally remembered Gen X exists. We noticed.

Something is happening this summer and if you were born between 1965 and 1980, you can feel it. Swatch just caused scenes of actual mayhem in cities around the world with a $400 pocket watch collab. Madonna is at the top of the charts. And somewhere right now, an ecstatic midlife mom is standing in a Costco aisle holding an Esprit crewneck, living out an unrealized teenage dream. It’s, like, totally rad, y’all.

We are having a moment. And honestly? Duh.

Generation X — roughly 65 million Americans born between 1965 and 1980 — has spent the last decade being the most ignored consumer segment in marketing. Brands chased Millennials, then pivoted to Gen Z, then started worrying about Gen Alpha, all while completely overlooking the generation sandwiched in between. The latchkey kids who grew up on MTV, mixtapes, and mall culture. The ones who defined cool before there was an algorithm to tell us what cool was supposed to look like.

Here’s the marketing data point that should make every brand strategist put down their coffee: Gen X outspends Millennials per capita. We have more disposable income, more established careers, and more accumulated wealth than the generations brands have been obsessively courting. The reason we get ignored is simple: there are fewer of us. Smaller generation, smaller target, easier to deprioritize in favor of the bigger numbers. What they miss? We’re not a volume play. We’re a value play. And brands that figured that out are being rewarded right now.

Take the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop. Swatch was the watch of the 80s — colorful, stackable, affordable, iconic. Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak was a real Blane McDonnagh accessory most of us couldn’t even imagine actually owning. The Royal Pop brings those two worlds together in a $400 pocket watch that caused lines around the block at launch. It’s not just a product, it’s a permission slip. The watch Gen X always wanted, finally within reach, with the luxury credibility still intact. The genius of it is that it speaks simultaneously to the Gen X nostalgia for Swatch AND the Gen X aspiration for AP. It knows exactly who it’s for.

Then there’s Esprit at Costco. Esprit was the mall brand. Not aspirational-luxury mall, but the specific kind of cool that felt accessible and slightly European and absolutely everywhere from about 1982 to 1992. I never owned the iconic sweatshirt, but I remember exactly what it felt like to want it. Costco brought it back, priced it like Costco prices things, and watched it sell out instantly. The TikToks of people finding it in the aisle — “my childhood was unlocked, look what I found!!” — are not marketing. They are pure, unscripted joyful responses. You genuinely cannot buy that. You can only earn it by actually understanding your customer.

And then Madonna dropped Confessions II. The Virgin Tour was my very best concert back in the day. I was the exact target audience for everything she did from 1984 to 1994 and I had all the black rubber bracelets and mesh tops to prove it. So, when this album debuted, I obviously put it on repeat for the entire weekend. That debut, by the way, was at number one — not number one in some legacy chart category, number one. It confirmed I wasn’t the only one. Gen X shows up for the things that mean something to us. We buy the album, we go to the concert, we stand in line for the watch, we put the sweatshirt in the cart before we’ve even finished reading the tag. We are not a passive nostalgia audience. We are an active, spending, emotionally engaged one.

And one final bonus: Last week, FX released The Shards and I thought I might actually die from excitement. It’s Bret Easton Ellis’s semi-autobiographical story of 1981 Los Angeles, adapted by Ryan Murphy, set in the world of privileged teenagers, serial killers, and the specific kind of beautiful dread that only Ellis can conjure. If Less Than Zero made you feel somehow seen as a teenager, this is your vibe. And the soundtrack is pretty much everything. There’s definitely a multi-generational audience for this one (aka my Gen Alpha daughter 🙄), but it’s the cherry on top of a perfect summer of ‘80s throwbacks. Four cultural moments. One very clear message.

The nostalgia is real, y’all. And it’s not just a feeling. In the hands of the right brand, it’s a conversion strategy.

Here’s the marketing lesson underneath all of this, and it applies whether you’re a global brand or a small business trying to figure out your audience: the most overlooked customer is often the most valuable one. Gen X got ignored because we’re smaller in number and harder to reach through the channels brands have been chasing. But we’re not gone. We’re not disengaged. We’re right here, with money and memories and a totally unhinged emotional response to anyone who finally bothers to show up for us. (Yeah, we know we need therapy. Whatever.)

The brands getting Gen X right aren’t doing anything complicated. They just did the math. And we are making it very worth their while.

I’ll catch y’all later. I’m headed to Costco to see if they’ve got any Esprit left.

The assumption that your audience skews younger than it does.

It shows up in creative briefs constantly — “our target is 25 to 40” written as if anyone over 40 has stopped buying things. Gen X is between 46 and 61 right now. We have disposable income, established brand loyalties, and a demonstrated willingness to spend emotionally when something resonates. If your brand has been defaulting to younger demographics without actually checking who’s buying — check. You might find your most valuable customer has been there the whole time, waiting for you to notice. Cut the assumption. Look at the data. Then go make something for the people who are actually buying.

To my fellow Gen Xers: we built the culture they’re all borrowing from. Enjoy the moment. We earned it.

And thanks to Michelle over at Use Error for sharing the Swatch story that inspired this post! She writes about product design and where it falls, often hilariously, short.

Kristin
Creative director. Brand obsessed. Agency life ex-pat. ✌️