An earnest, 20-something American woman leans into the camera, saying she made her parents sign up for Facebook accounts because she read an article suggesting that older adults often become “anti-social”. The camera cuts away to show a Toyota

Venza speeding through the countryside with mountain bikes on the roof and an older couple laughing and chatting. As the young woman disdainfully notes that her parents have only 19 Facebook friends, the couple lift the bikes down and speed through the woods with another couple. “I have 637 friends,” the woman tells the camera. “This is living.”

Dick Stroud, founder of 20Plus30, a consultancy specialising in marketing to the over-50s, says the ad, which contrasts the active, engaged older couples with their disconnected daughter behind her laptop, encapsulates today’s greatest marketing challenge: how to sell to older adults, whose number are growing while younger age groups contract.