IMPACT COMMUNICATION
AND INNOVATION
AND INNOVATION
I always come back from longevity ecosystem gatherings restless.
Not necessarily because I leave with answers. Often it's quite the opposite: I come back with bigger questions than the ones I brought.
This time was no different. Perhaps it was even more meaningful.
From September 24 to 26, the Ibirapuera Biennial Pavilion hosted the 8th edition of the Longevity Forum & Festival, under the concept “Reimagining Futures”.
At the invitation of Sérgio Serapião (LABoo Movement), I was there in different ways: reconnecting with friends, meeting people, learning from the content and, above all, taking part in two conversations that stayed with me.
And I left thinking that perhaps the greatest challenge of longevity is not just living longer.
Perhaps it is relearning how to see those who live longer.
In the first panel, “Who tells the stories of a long life?”, moderated by Rosângela Marcondes (It_Avó), I spoke with Rita Almeida (Lab Humanidades/AlmapBBDO) about the narratives we build — and reproduce — about a long life.
In the second, “Between Stereotype and Authenticity: age representation in communication and advertising”, I interviewed Amanda Cristina de Oliveira, a researcher on the representation of older people in advertising.
It was in this second conversation that Amanda shared a finding that kept resonating with me, also echoing studies led by Rita:
older people say they don't recognize themselves in advertising.
This is not just a subjective perception. Research has been showing this gap between advertising representation and the real experience of mature audiences.
But there is an even deeper paradox.
When these same people are heard, many also don't recognize themselves as “older people”.
There is something powerful — and unsettling — in this contradiction.
Because perhaps it reveals that we are not just facing an advertising representation problem.
We are facing a cultural problem.
Brazil is aging rapidly.
The share of people aged 60 or over nearly doubled between 2000 and 2023, from 8.7% to 15.6% of the population. According to IBGE projections, this share should reach about 37.8% by 2070.
In other words: aging is not a distant future.
It is already happening.
Yet our cities, our companies, our advertising, our products, our shared spaces and, above all, our imaginaries still seem to operate according to a logic in which youth is the center.
A youth-centered society does not only produce ads that poorly represent older people.
It produces age barriers.
It determines, often silently, what someone can desire, wear, work on, learn, consume, create, lead or experience from a certain age onward.
And perhaps the most profound realization is that this prejudice is not only “out there”.
It can also live within us.
How often does someone start a sentence with “At my age...” and then dismiss a possibility before even trying?
How often do we confuse aging with no longer desiring?
How often do we treat experience as the past, when it could be raw material for the future?
One of the provocations Rosângela Marcondes, who moderated our first conversation, brought to the panel was precisely this:
Which practices and beliefs do we need to let die so that other perspectives on longevity can flourish?
The question kept resonating with me.
Perhaps we need to let die the idea that youth is synonymous with the future.
The idea that innovation necessarily means novelty.
The idea that an older person needs to look younger to stay relevant.
The idea that experience belongs to the past.
And, above all, the idea that we can build the future by separating generations.
We need to tear down age barriers to truly practice intergenerationality.
Not as a nice word in a report.
But as practice.
In creation.
At work.
In cities.
In relationships.
Because perhaps one of the greatest riches of a long-lived society is precisely this: having more generations available at the same time to create the future.
This reflection reminded me of a process I experienced closely through UP Lab: building the brand platform of the LABoo Movement (formerly Lab60+).
Brand Impact is our co-creation methodology, which brought together Lab60+ members and people from multiple generations, putting different experiences, repertoires and perspectives in dialogue.
And one of the things that moved me most was realizing that it wasn't about abandoning what Lab60+ had built.
It was exactly the opposite.
It was about honoring what came before in order to see what could still come.
Perhaps this is one of the best metaphors for longevity.
Regenerating is not erasing.
It is recognizing what exists, understanding what brought us here and, from there, creating new possibilities.
The 8th edition of the Longevity Forum & Festival itself seemed to embody this: a new chapter of a movement that has been broadening its proposal to connect content, experiences, business, community and intelligence about the future of a longer-lived society.
One of the experiences that most caught my attention at the Biennial was Reimagining Futures, conceived by Fred Luz and produced in partnership with Edu Maluf.
Using generative AI tools, it invited us to imagine what we will be like in the coming decades, including the possibility of reaching 100.
But the question that stayed with me wasn't exactly about reaching 100.
It was another one: what are we willing to give up to add more life to our days, instead of simply adding more days to our life?
That difference is enormous.
Because longevity shouldn't be just an equation of quantity.
More years don't necessarily mean more life.
We can live longer within the same prejudices, the same inequalities, the same ill-prepared cities, the same work relationships, the same consumption patterns and the same imaginaries.
Or we can use the additional time as an opportunity to reimagine life itself.
And here an important provocation also emerged from the AI experience: however impressive the tools are, we still need the human eye to contextualize, question, edit and give meaning to what they produce.
Especially when we talk about the future.
Technology still carries cultural, ethical, aesthetic and creative frameworks strongly shaped by contexts in the United States and Europe. Without repertoire, diversity and human presence, we risk automating not only processes but also the biases we already carry.
At UP Lab, we increasingly prefer to talk about regeneration.
Because sustainability often still starts from the question: How do we cause less harm?
Regeneration adds another: How do we increase the capacity for life?
Perhaps this is exactly the question longevity offers us.
How do we increase a person's capacity for life at 50, 70, 90, 100?
How do we increase the capacity for life of an aging city?
Of an organization?
Of a community?
Of an entire society?
And perhaps the answer lies in something seemingly simple but deeply transformative: stop treating age as a barrier and start treating it as repertoire.
A 30-year-old carries something a 70-year-old doesn't.
A 70-year-old carries something a 30-year-old hasn't yet had time to live.
A 90-year-old carries a perspective that no artificial intelligence can simply manufacture.
And when these repertoires meet — without ranking one above the other — something new can be born.
Perhaps this is the restlessness I take with me after these gatherings.
I don't want a longevity that merely prolongs individuals.
I want a longevity that expands possibilities.
That tears down barriers between generations.
That recognizes experience without turning it into nostalgia.
That allows older people to be the protagonists of their own narratives.
That makes advertising and communication see real people, in all their diversity.
That allows technology to meet different cultures, territories and repertoires.
That helps us swap the question “how do I look young for longer?” for far more interesting questions:
What do I still want to learn?
What do I still want to create?
What do I still want to transform?
Who do I want to do this with?
And what world do I want to find when I get there?
Because perhaps the real future of longevity isn't about discovering how to live to 100.
Perhaps it's about discovering how to make those 100 years fit within a society that also knows how to age.
And for that, we will need every generation.
Not just to live longer.
But to imagine — and regenerate — our own universes, together.
