by Jed Mowat (@joepublicunited) Walking into work often feels as if I’ve stepped onto the set of one of those beer ads shot in Braamfontein. Yet, as wonderfully diverse as we are, there is one group that has recently stood out for me as missing and that’s the silver-haired varietal, especially on the ground in the creative department.
#woke and diverse
I’m going to go against the wave of self-deprecation we so enjoy in this industry and just say it: I love working in advertising. I love solving problems, coming up with ideas; I love how each day brings new challenges, products, markets and even the mind-bending obscurities that require mental gymnastics to solve. But, above all else, what I enjoy is the honour of doing it with a group of professionals that are more #woke (excuse the millennialism) and diverse than you would find anywhere else.
Having just slipped into my 30s like a comfortable pair of slippers, I’ve started to look at the industry with fresh, albeit aging, eyes and struggled to find examples of me but in 15 years’ time. Where are all the old people in advertising? Is the runway for my chosen career shorter than the next sentence? If so — that’s terrifying.
If you want to last in the advertising game, it seems you need to rock-star your way into a senior position until life’s ceaseless metronomic tick-tock renders you redundant. The thing is, when talking strictly about established agencies with blue-chip clients (excuse the recruiter speak), not everyone on the ground can break through to the top tier. It’s not defeatist to think this way; it’s maths.
A few articles have tackled the issue of the aged (or the lack thereof) doing ads over the years. Dave Trott uses the example of Sir Alex Ferguson to demonstrate how thinking gets better as you age and not worse, and asks industry players to judge on merit alone. Alex Murrell, meanwhile, points to a string of Oscar-winning directors and Nobel Prize laureates to demonstrate that creativity gets better as one ages.
So, what’s happening in advertising?
Many things. From tightening budgets and demanding schedules on agency side, to those who grow older struggling to adapt or keep their finger on today’s blindingly fast-changing zeitgeist, or maybe it’s a case of just not knowing how to leverage one’s accumulated years of experience. But what’s undeniable is, as an industry, we have a tendency to overvalue youth, not only in our staff complement but also when it comes to our target markets. It makes sense: youth is the ideal, it’s sexy, which is why you see it more often in our ads, and who better to talk to the youth, than the youth? This approach, however, is incongruent with a world that’s growing older as age expectancy rises across the globe. As an industry we need to be cognisant of just how enchanted we are with the baby-faced siren.
That said, could the elderly be the key to unlocking the youth?
If you’re a family who now finally have the opportunity or means to provide your first generation (thanks, mom) with tertiary education, would you not try your damnedest to steer your child away from a career that comes with a short shelf life? If we are to succeed in our endeavour of bringing more diversity into advertising and encouraging people from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter this game, then we need more shining examples of those in the industry who’ve enjoyed a long enriching career and not just the few we currently have at the top.
As an industry, let’s continue to celebrate the youth but, at the same time, not forget those who were young once, too.
Jed Mowat is a senior copywriter at Joe Public Connect. After graduating from Vega, he started his career in advertising in a small warehouse in Durban in 2010 before joining TBWA\ Durban and eventually moving to Johannesburg. He has won awards and has come to realise just how unremarkable his corporate profile sounds, thanks to this bio.
“Motive” is a by-invitation-only column on MarkLives.com. Contributors are picked by the editors but generally don’t form part of our regular columnist lineup, unless the topic is off-column.
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This is a huge global trend and one the agency world is placing on itself without merit.
Looking at the winners of other global creative awards, and we find the winners to be overwhelmingly older.
For 2019, Remi Malek at 38 (Best Actor Winner) was the youngest winner of one of the “Big Four” Oscar titles. The other winners were Alfonso Cuaron, (57, Best Director), Greenbook directed by Peter Farrelly (62, Best Picture) and Olivia Coleman (45, Best Actress).
Looking at the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the last 10 winners won at an the average age of 70! (The youngest, Herta Muller, was 55).
David Ogilvy & David Droga both founded their agencies in their late 30s.
The signs all point to success, credibility and creativity skills growing as we mature, yet the advertising industry seems hell-bent on driving people out long before they turn 50.
This is a worrying trend that we, as the marketing and agency world, would do well to look at, especially considering our currently business pressures.
Dear Jed – well written piece with good insights. As many Millennials with their culture of sharing and non-ownership are (and probably will always remain) dependent on their greying parents for money and security, the buying power will probably remain with the grey haired people (they are also able to live longer).
So at AdMakers we love employing the grey haired variety – in fact – the entire Senior Team at AdMakers is well over 40 – many pushing 60 already and they have been here for an average of two decades already – looking forward to coming to work with their AdMakers family of clients every day.
We aim to (by the Grace of God) one day have the oldest median employee age of any agency in the world!
So if you feel like a change when you turn 40 – 50 (hopefully we will all still be here, healthy and in business), give us a call.
Warm regards
Duan
Could it be because of clients pushing to stay “on trend” with their millenial messaging? They might consider older creatives to be out of touch. I have also noticed that most ads speak to this audience nowadays. Maybe the short term focus on trendy and everything digital, is pushing the older generation out – leading to many starting their own agencies and hiring younger talent just to survive. Vicious cycle.
Such a great read!