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Mark Twain once said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
And yet age seems to matter a lot in advertising these days, so if you’re reading this, be forewarned you might be approaching your expiration date.
As agencies struggle to make their margins, senior talent is getting cut like razor wire at the border. From a financial perspective, it’s understandable. When your hot air balloon starts losing altitude, the first thing out of the basket is the biggest object. At an advertising agency, that means anyone earning more than a mid-level account director, which includes everyone in creative, strategy or account with more than 15 years’ experience.
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That’s been the pattern for the past decade, and it’s accelerating at an alarming rate. It looks good on a spreadsheet and tricks holding company management into thinking they have a viable business model, but the consequence of this culling has been a constant state of chaos.
Shortened client tenure, erosion of agency culture, lack of mentorship and a visible loss of craft are just some of the consequences, but the real tragedy is how far downstream agencies have moved in their relationships with clients.
Wind the clock back and you’ll find agency founders talking to CEOs about their business problems, but today you’re more likely to hear anxious account executives listening to CMOs explain why they’re putting their business up for pitch.
To put this in perspective, download the annual report from any of the major holding companies and look for a pie chart visualizing staff demographics. The number of employees over 50 hovers around 5%, depending on the network, yet the percentage of consumers that age is well over 30%.
Ageism in advertising is as much a part of the diversity dilemma as race and gender, with representation more out of whack relative to the general population, yet it rarely gets discussed because of financial pressures that make it palatable to agency management.
Thanks for sharing this article.
Time to take the black ink out of our copy machine. These white hairs in my beard are gonna get me fired.
I was literally wondering those statistics yesterday. So reading this article literally confirms everything. I have been thinking about advertising ageism and loss of experience talent. I see more random Reddit posts with people asking why there's so many pointless commercials these days.
The article is absolutely spot on. As some who started in the late 90’s, it's been an uphill struggle to find work partners at agencies of 50 over the last 5 years. Pretty sad state,, as it robs younger talent of experience to learn from outside of just their craft skills. The human skills and relationship management for things like Pitching, handling clients and procurement has all but gone.
It’s like Logan’s Run. I got euthanised last year from an agency for being over 50 and being vocal about the poor decisions being made by the favoured younglings.