What ageism looks like from where I sit

Well said. A friend commented the other day about how she was an ‘old marketer’ in terms of her offering. I replied that experience, skill and a strategic approach were never old.

Ageism appeared the moment accreditation died. It meant Agencies simply didn’t have the money to keep the experienced talent they and their clients had always relied on. Trust me, if agencies had the money, they would prefer more experienced people working on their clients business – because that’s certainly what clients want.
People like Anne 4.0, 5.0 or 6.0 – we need more of them, not fewer.

I blame young people, how dare they not recognise my brilliance.

Anne, Its an issue that has been around around for a while and clearly the industry feels no willingness to change at all. You and I have debated it from a few different sides and men and women experience it in different ways. I have even met women 40 plus who would prefer to work with men younger than them as they feel that all men over a certain age all fit into a certain stereotype of being against older women.This paints all older men as haters of older women. Sad really but unfortunately true.

When you come up against ageism in advertising it dawns on you that the industry really isn’t about producing the most effective ads. It’s about a whole lot of other shit, with the advertising almost as an afterthought.
And all that other shit is generated by you if you’re over 45? Just isn’t. Sorry.

Personally, at 61 I’m more creative now and than when I started out. But whose gonna believe that? Only way to prove it is by doing the work, anonymously. Go for it Anne!

Thumbs up!

In my 20s I was the whiz kid creative, becoming CD of a multi national at the age of 26. All my clients were old men. In my 30s, as an award winning ECD, I traveled the world as part of an ‘international creative directorate’ team (yes, that’s what we were called!) working for our multi national on our multi national accounts. All my clients were still old men, although some of the marketing people were in their 40s. In my 40s I started my own agency. All my clients were my age – younger men also in their 40s and some were even women! In my 50s I became a consultant. All my clients were now business owners and entrepreneurs in their 40s and 50s. In my 60s, I’m now the elder statesman, still creating and advising and passionate and loving it because I’m ‘very experienced’ as one of my younger clients in her 30s regularly observes! For me, ageism has never been an issue, although I do suffer from a bit of reverse ageism finding many ‘digitally entrenched’ younger creatives not very creative! But then I reckon I’ve earned the right to have an opinion.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fck-you-we-wrinkly-ninjas-lyndon-hale/

Thanks for the support everyone. Crazy amount of emails offline about this too. Thank you!

If you are top talent (age or gender is irrelevant), then please connect and share your folio with me! I think there are brands that want the value. Check out my maths on how it is more cost effective to use experienced talent and as a project based engagement rather than using time sheets here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ad-agency-model-broken-heres-why-anne-miles/

A couple of weeks ago some agencies would have been the exception to Bob Hoffman’s tirade. They had several creatives in their fifties. They were the most productive chaps and chapettes in the agency, and won the most awards.

Nevertheless, everyone over 40 was let go because clients wouldn’t pay for senior people any more. Translated, this means the management of that agency and their brethren have been unable to do their most basic task. Which is to manage the business so they make money.

They’ve had 20 years (since the death of media commissions) to fix this. And they’ve failed miserably.

The worst mistake, as eloquently addressed in Madison Ave Manslaughter, was moving to an hourly rate. Like a studio. This immediately said to clients that ideas are a commodity, not something transformative.

And when dealing with a commodity, you naturally try to get it as cheap as possible.

Consultants like McKinsey don’t say to clients that we’ll reinvent your business for $300 an hour and it will take 40 hours. They save we’ll reinvent your business for $2 million dollars.

And clients are happy to pay inspire of (or because of) the fact they are buying a chimera.

Truth be told, some clients don’t want or need what senior people provide. You don’t need someone with 20 years experience and lots of awards to create a content video no-one will watch.

But others do want them, and will pay for them.

The fact that agencies can’t work how to make a profit from this is, as I said, an indictment of their skills, and those of their holding company overlords.

Put it this way. Would Accenture have paid $60 million for The Monkeys if they didn’t see a gaping opportunity to make money?

I suspect not.

Well said Anne!!! Time to let the experience in our industry show that experience (Ageism) is not a negative tick to ROI. Under performing agencies who knowingly put out under par (crap) work for clients because of inexperienced talent should be given the red card immediately. Clients pay top dollar and should be given top dollar creatives with experience no matter the hair colour or shiny spot.

My career has been working in design and advertising agencies for nearly 30 years. However, I left agency life and have been recruiting for our communications industry for the past 3 years.
Our industry has a very vocal gender equality/diversity debate raging, but – frankly (and probably controversially) – I haven’t come across evidence of this after interviewing over 800 people and countless agency hiring managers! What I do see, on a unfortunately-regular basis, is ageism and ‘racial preference’.
The ageism I see usually affects women over 40 and men over 50. Those who tend to deny this reality are either at the top of their game in an agency; aged under 40; or self-employed.
Given that a person has to figure out how to fill their career from aged 50 to 70 years and retirement, that’s a daunting thought when you may have only ever had one career pathway.
I agree that there are multiple reasons why we see a lack of senior people in our agencies, and none of those reasons are particularly easy to solve.
All is not lost however…grey hair and wrinkles seem to be happily embraced by client-side companies and consultancies who care more about talent and value than how someone looks. Such a novel thought.

I run a team of +30 global designers and writers, all younger than me. At +5.0 I’ve been the oldest of the team for the last 6 years. My most reliable performers, who do the best work are consistently the oldest on the team. Their experience and dedication to precision work trumps the young “creatives” who too often can’t fully see the big picture and design to solve what’s in front of them at the moment rather than to achieve the broader mission.
Next week we have a new team member starting. SHE is older than me, and her extensive experience and sharp mind will be a welcome addition to the team.

Could not agree with you more! Love your view!

Interesting article. As an aspiring junior creative aged 35 it’s been impossible to find work regardless of education and internships. I hate to think how short my career would be if I were to be hired now.