Openly Gray? Play on Words Caught my Attention. The Size & $ This Demos Holding Should Catch Yours.

I was curious where OpenlyGray.com was going when I saw a social media post about it from a business gal pal. 

Was it a site for older people with Gray Hair? 

Nope!

I ‘got it’ and smiled.

It’s way cooler than that!

It’s a movement.

It’s an attitude adjustment about aging!

Lord knows we need one.

Thanks to the longevity revolution we are in a unique time and place in history. Until now many in their 50's 60's, 70’s, and beyond believed it was time to stop.

That isn’t the thinking of older adults today at all!

I Invited Lee St. James and gal pal Brooke Stachyra of Openly Gray, to join my show to share their purpose with Openly Gray and their big disruptive plan!

 Lee St. James is the Co-Founder /Creative Director of Openly Gray

Lee is a Cannes award-winning, multidisciplinary CD who has led major brand content development for over 20 years. From strategy to conception through execution Lee believes in partnering cross-functionally to build consensus and ensure projects meet all milestones, deadlines, budget, and business results requirements. Accustomed to fast-paced and start-up environments. He is constantly onboarding new technologies and innovative processes while ensuring compliance with corporate and client standards.

 Brooke Stachyra handles Partner/Client Success for Openly Gray

Brooke is a social media consumer specialist. Proud former NBC Page, longtime (recovering) journalist-writer, and storyteller with a million tales! NBC News, Time Inc/People Magazine veteran. Former content creator for Church and Dwight brands Arm & Hammer, OxiClean, and Trojan. Social media contributor for the American Cancer Society and CUNY. Grown X woman, lover of all things 80s. Name that tune champion! Foodie and travel enthusiast, bougie barganista, and expert in anything about Bravo's Real Housewives.

 

They are on a Mission to Loudly Call Attention To These Facts: 

 

The Gray Market has $8,000,000,000,000 (that's trillion) waiting to be seen

 

For the next 30 years,
10,000+ people will turn 65.
Every. Single. Day.

 

In our conversation Lee said,

“When you turn 50, this is something that we observed years ago. We being the royal we, we observed years ago that you turn 50 and all of a sudden you become invisible. You become invisible to the opposite sex. You become invisible to your friends, sometimes even your family, but definitely to the marketing world. Marketers are taught from day one that you go after the 17 to, say, 45. Sometimes people switch it to 17- to 54-year-old market, but then after that, you stop. “

“Well, times have changed, and as you mentioned, there's $8 trillion in assets at play that are controlled by what we call the gray market, which is 50-plus. To put that in context, we saw a great little snippet about if you put this in context, this would be if the gray market in the U.S. was a country. It would be the third largest GDP in the world.”

“There's so much more to this audience and that's why we are Openly Gray. And there are two sides of the organization. One is called OpenlyGray.com. We are marketers. That's our goal. We want to get clients to start recognizing this audience and not leave all that money on the table.”

“On the other side of the coin though, we're advocates. So openlygrey.org is an advocacy organization, anti-ageism, pro-helping people grow older and grow into the next phases of life. And even there's an offshoot called Cozy Homes Community where we're trying to help build communities for 50 plus folks.”

 

It’s a big mission for Openly Gray who feels their biggest hurdle is to get relatively young brand managers and clients who are still in their 30s and maybe 45 to recognize that this is an audience that they are missing out on.

 

Brooke said, 

“It's unfortunate, but what Lee is saying is absolutely true, that you have the people that are in the power that are making the decisions that are creating the content aren't seeing us. We are invisible and we have to make them see the dollar sign. There is expendable income. There's money.”

 

I'm personally passionate about encouraging people to transform how they think, feel and act, to embrace and enjoy and celebrate whatever stage of life they're at. 

 

And like the folks at Openly Gray says, it doesn't matter how much hair you have on your head or what color it is or whether you have any of it all, it's the mindset and the attitude!

 

Enjoy learning more about Openly Gray and their growing movement that’s not stopping anytime soon in this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show.