A Brand Embracing Age

Starting a brand from a blank page isn’t an easy feat—just ask a seasoned entrepreneur to tell you their story. Building a brand with an authentic purpose is even more difficult. 

Caddis is a brand born from an authentic passion to fulfill a need in the world while sending an important message to embrace aging. A sort of anti-marketing strategy. Tim Parr, the founder of Caddis, realized he needed reading glasses, but when he went looking for a solution he felt that nothing existed that suited his needs. “It was either buy $20 drugstore granny glasses, or spend $200+ at an optical store”, Needless to say, he didn’t relate to either option and thought that he couldn’t be the only one thinking that the glasses-buying consumer experience was in need of an overhaul.

After digging deeper he found that 90% of people over age 40 develop Presbyopia—blurry vision at close distances. The problem is that lifestyle brands fail at directly targeting people over 40 and as Tim reminds us “buying reading glasses sucks because of it”. Age should not exclude audiences from relevant product experiences.

“Socially and culturally we have a twisted point of view on aging. Caddis is going to change that.” -Tim Parr

Caddis is the anti- anti-aging brand, that’s their stance. They are on a mission to initiate open and honest conversations about how absolutely right it is to be the age you are, right here and now. “In spite of the fact that the entire world seems hell-bent on marketing to our long-gone teen vanities or trying to scare us into an early grave.” says Tim.

Here are a few inspiring principles Tim uses to run his company.

Blow your own damn mind
While researching what he wanted this brand to be, he and his team heard repeatedly that reading glasses need to be small, lightweight, foldable, have hundreds of styles, be inexpensive and available in lots of colors…. so they did the exact opposite. This complete disregard to the status quo drives how they approach design and innovation.

Design is a business strategy
Knowing that their audience has a high level of design sensibility and expectations, they drive visual beauty into everything that they do.

Talk the walk
Caddis embraces age well beyond simply providing a product. They’ve created an entire platform dedicated to life beyond the age of 40. “It’s where we want to tell a more complicated and more accurate story about people.” Tim explains. Caddis has partnered with musicians and celebrities over 40 to share this message with songs like Change is Good by Donavon Frankenreiter and Taylor & Sybil Steele talking about Looking Forward.

Kill the ego
We all get older. Tim says that too often people fear looking dumb or being judged. “It drives me crazy when I hear an adult talk about how they tried something new but they’re no good at it, so they quit after a few false starts. Watch third grade kids learn a musical instrument and see how little they care about what you think and how they sound. But no matter what, they show up the next day and keep at it. It’s awesome. Learn from grade school kids.”

Photo: Caddis