{"id":1064,"date":"2020-12-08T11:18:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T17:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2020-12-08T11:18:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T17:18:34","slug":"gettin-on-up-there-ageism-in-advertising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/gettin-on-up-there-ageism-in-advertising\/","title":{"rendered":"Gettin\u2019 on up there: Ageism in advertising"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
“Oh, so it’s like Quark Express, but with all these clicky things. … No, slow down.”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I had a fun post planned for this week, in observance of my birthday on Sunday. I was going to throw way back to my own times as a baby creative and open up the archives. But today, I\u2019m going to self-indulge in a different way, because something else came up. And that something<\/em> was an injection for a chronic back problem I have, during which the doctor used the dreaded A-word \u2014 arthritis \u2014 which was medically accurate but also not a word he\u2019d used with me before. And it just served as a reminder that the birthday I\u2019m having on Sunday is my 40th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always been a pretty confident age-is-just-a-number type, but I\u2019ll confess that the arrival of a new decade has tended to throw me a little. And the approach of this one seems to be hitting me particularly hard \u2014 I haven\u2019t been to a gym since March, I have a couple of pores you could store your car keys in, I\u2019m writing this from flat on my back on doctor\u2019s orders, and people seem to think it\u2019s hilarious to remind you that you\u2019re approaching an age of perceived obsolescence. But there\u2019s something else, too, and that\u2019s the fact that the advertising industry is pretty enthusiastic about getting creatives on their ice floe as they get on in years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admittedly, it feels kind of weird to focus on this particular -ism when issues like racism and sexism remain so pervasive. But it\u2019s still an issue, and it\u2019s one that affects people\u2019s careers and livelihoods based on something they\u2019re unable to control. In 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 63 percent of people in advertising and advertising-adjacent industries are under 45, and the median age is 39.2 \u2014 numbers that hadn\u2019t changed much in the preceding decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(And if you really want to see this in action, this summer WPP\u2019s Mark Drum was happy to say the quiet part out loud<\/a> by bragging, \u201cWe have a very broad range of skills, and if you look at our people \u2013 the average age of someone who works at WPP is less than 30 \u2013 they don\u2019t hark back to the 1980s, luckily.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dude.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rationalizations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A lot of lip service is given to the importance of knowledge and experience in doing advertising right (see, for instance, Drum\u2019s No, for real, we love our Peepaw creatives<\/em> tweets in the wake of his gaffe), but it\u2019s frequently accompanied by some beloved dog whistles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need someone who can keep up with emerging technology,\u201d<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

they say, and who understand all the arising social media platforms. And yes, grown adults tend to favor platforms like Facebook and Twitter more than newbies like TikTok. But just as a younger creative should be expected to come up with commercials for broadcast even though they don\u2019t do anything but stream, older creatives can still grasp the ins and outs of Snapchat advertising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re not talking about the stereotypical TV mom who can\u2019t figure out how to use her fancy new smartphone here \u2014 the industry is increasingly pervaded with digital natives who grew up or quickly adopted the technology that forms a base for the advances we\u2019re seeing now. We\u2019re not struggling to figure out what all these buttons do as junior creatives run TikTok circles around us, and the idea that aging stands in the way of technological progress is, in and of itself, outdated and conceived with a poor understanding of how advances in digital advertising work these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore experienced creatives are more expensive<\/em>,\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

they say, and they\u2019re damned right. That experience and absorbed knowledge \u2014 and adaptability \u2014 were developed over a matter of years and not at minor cost. But it\u2019s a cost a lot of agencies and clients are reluctant to pay. As someone who spends a lot of her work hours hunting up new projects, I\u2019m seeing more and more contract and full-time listings asking for \u201c2+ years of industry experience\u201d and offering comparatively low rates for work demands that, realistically, call for more time in grade than is specified. But it\u2019s easy to find someone who isn\u2019t technically up to the job and doesn\u2019t have enough experience to recognize that they aren\u2019t really up to the job. And I have to say, that\u2019s kind of exploitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of agencies being reluctant to sign up for higher salaries, they\u2019re frequently quicker to unload the more experienced (and thus higher-salaried) creatives they already have when finances get tight. (Like, for instance, during an economic downturn caused by a global pandemic.) It\u2019s hard to tell agencies, \u201cHey, don\u2019t do that,\u201d when undeniable financial pressures are undeniable. But, like\u2026 don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of Picasso<\/a> asking $10,000 for a napkin sketch may be apocryphal, but it\u2019s also illustrative \u2014 the supposed art buyer wasn\u2019t paying for a thirty-second doodling but for forty years of experience. I don\u2019t know what the equivalent of Picasso would be in the advertising world \u2014 not me, certainly \u2014 but the allegory is a good one. Agencies get what they pay for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I\u2019ll highlight a quote from former Ogilvy ECD and copy chief George Tannenbaum: \u201cI am not expecting clients to trust their billion-dollar brands to a holding company whose CEO discriminates by saying \u2018the average age of someone who works at WPP is less than 30 \u2013 they don\u2019t hark back to the 1980s.\u2019 That is, they don\u2019t know Bernbach, Ogilvy, Gossage, Abbott, Hegarty, Riney etc. Meanwhile they seek to \u2018transform\u2019 your business while suffering double-digit losses virtually every year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Crusaders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The problem of ageism has been getting better over the years, but like an arthritic facet joint, it isn\u2019t moving as quickly as one would want. And what progress is happening isn\u2019t coming without targeted effort. Luckily, people are making that effort so that others of us don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seasoned agency professional Cindy Gallop<\/strong> founded If We Ran with World<\/a>, a site dedicated to helping individuals and entrepreneurs manifest their values and passions in action. For herself, she\u2019s passionately acting toward the goal of drawing attention to and fighting ageism in the advertising industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of her mission there, she\u2019s said, is informed by the number of industry professionals being forced onto their own ice floe as early as their mid-thirties. She\u2019s worked with industry leaders and senior creatives at top levels to determine where the problems lie and what can be done about them, offering specific and relatively easy action items<\/a> to help combat the issue. And, just as she\u2019s working on ageism in hiring, she\u2019s also working on the consumer side of the creative we create, both in looking at the older end of the spectrum as a target market and depicting them in a more diverse and realistic way. She\u2019s currently working with the AARP on their Disrupt Aging campaign to help make that happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indie agency Oberland<\/strong> has taken on the fight against all kinds of bias in our industry with their \u201cNothing Changes if We Don\u2019t<\/a>\u201d campaign. Their campaign sprang out<\/a> of agency ECD\u2019s discussion with the Southern Poverty Law Center about racial microaggressions, but it grew into a consideration of how that and other form of bias can invade our field. Ageism is a part of this, and Oberland\u2019s campaign includes videos like this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n