Give toadies and hacks a chance
Advertising is a young business populated by young people. Since most advertisers want to recruit the next generation of consumers, it stands to reason that they hire youthful agencies.
So Ogilvy’s Young Turks program, announced today, makes sense. And Ogilvy has always had a good reputation for training, and wants to continue to attract and retain the best young talent. Fair enough. But a recruiter recently pointed out that one of the biggest problems with our industry is that it is too youth focused.
Older creatives, planners and suits are often overlooked for roles seen as the divine right of youth. Yes, youth development schemes are laudable. But what are agencies doing to ensure that talent of all ages is valued and nurtured? Was David Ogilvy’s hiring policy shockingly ageist when he, on launching his agency in 1948, wrote: “I have no use for toadies or hacks.”
Ogilvy’s 52-year old chairman Tom Moult argues that the business is, in fact, getting better at valuing older talent. When he started out in 1976, he often got asked: “What are you doing after you’re 30? Because you won’t be working in advertising anymore.”
In a recent Mumbo Report interview, Moult said he wants “radiators not drains” at the agency he was appointed in November to run. I’ve heard that said about ad folk before – of the need for positive people – and I’m pretty sure age has little to do with positive energy.
Dave McCaughan, McCann’s Asia Pacific strategy director who will be talking about baby boomers at Mumbrella360, says that in the Tokyo office where he works, one of the agency’s best creatives is knocking on for 70 and is the go-to guy for how to reach Japan’s ageing population.
Australia is ageing too. And as understandable as it is for agencies to want to clear out ‘dead wood’, it increasingly makes sense to hang on to, and nurture, older talent. The chances are that the ‘dinosaur’ down the corridor is more in tune with what more consumers are thinking and feeling than the bright young thing who’s just started.
Robin Hicks
Let’s get all the big agency creatives who are over 45 and not CDs and have a party in the local phone booth.
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I hope you will be reporting on Dave McCaughan’s seminar later on.
I think an occasional grey-hair creative is useful in a company.
Number one is that they will have a much broader and better big picture capacity
and a great deal more people experience.
Also someone who had a different style of education back then may just have crank out a left-fielder that sticks..
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Age has nothing to do with it. Creativity, and I mean real lateral thinking, comes from someone who is willing to challenge current thinking and do something different – regardless of how old they are. What I think happens often with older agency folk (and I’m one of them), is that they get baggage and tired. It’s inevitable. But it’s avoidable. It’s bloody hard work to keep fresh and keep positive when great thinking and great ideas struggle to see the light of day for any number of reasons, BUT stop trying and you should head off and do something else.
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Im a marketing student. The whole idea of advertising/marketing is to reach your target audience no matter what their demographic. For example a product that needs to market to parents with pre-schoolers an advertising person who is a mum/dad with said age child would have a better understanding than say for example a 20 yr old who has no experience with a preschooler. Though of course that is not always the case….but it helps!
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Whatever age you are please remember “Brevity is the soul of Wit”.
I just think some people have acquired the knack of making things sing in a vibrant climate of desire. Hopefully this is a quality that is nurtured at Uni, along with decent sentence construction.
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David Ogilvy was 38, unemployed and had dropped out of college when he started his advertisng career. He had been a cook, a salesman and a farmer.
Do you think he would have a chance at getting a job in advertsing today?
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Jean cave can you pls inform me how to “acquire the knack of making things sing in a vibrant climate of desire”. it sounds fun and sleazy.
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What an interesting story!! Age vs Talent?? I wonder in the real land of creativity weather this would have been an issue – would u have queried the value of of an over 30 and their talent – Picasso, Dahli, David Hockney, Quentin Tarintino, David Lynch, Tim Burton. If being under 30 is the criteria for new ideas then it’s gonna be a bare pickings.
If you use age as the guideline to creativity and the connection point to understanding how to connect with consumers of ALL AGES …Oh well we are done!!!
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I think this is more to do with young people connecting with young people…no matter how much you try and read up, keep tabs and think you know what’s going on it’s the Gen Z who are creating the new social dialogue, the innovative ways to communicate and i’m sorry the older generation (me included) can’t hope to keep up…with all the growing old stuff we’ve got to do during the day!
I think it’s a good innative and given the right mix with youth and experience i think something good can come from this….those who are worried might be trying too hard to justify their role….embrace it and you might learn something new….plus you might learn how the next generation is using mobile, digital and social media to engage with brands that you can talk to your clients about when they insist on have a Facebook page…just because they want to be on Facebook….?
It’ll be a nice change to all the old hacks and their overly critical view of everyone else’s advertising who comment on this site daily….
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I’m a 62 year old, semi-retired journalist-writer with a lot of hard-earned money I’m willing to spend, but I don’t see anything in today’s advertising that has me running out the door to empty my pockets. Australian advertising has no idea how to reach people of my age and the “bright young things” with their floppy hair and skinny jeans see me only as a fuddy-duddy to be shipped off to the nearest retirement home to die. That’s if they see me at all.
The reality is I’ve just come back from the latest of what’s become regular surfing trips to Hawaii while today I went for a 50 kilometre ride on a new bike and recently I’ve invested in a couple of guitars – total cost $5000 – and the purchases of said guitars and bike had nothing to do with any sort of advertising. Sure, I’m set in my ways- I know what I I like and what works for me – but I’m always open to suggestion. However, you lot never suggest anything but a nice bus trip to the Blue Mountains with the local senior citizens club.
C’mon bright young things – is that the best you can do?. Or are you too busy making easy sells to your own generation who you know will buy this week’s whim before throwing it away for next week’s whim?
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