Why marketing is more ageist than ever—and what experienced talent needs to know

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. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs 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. Now, don’t get me wrong, young talent is essential, and the openness and curiosity new hires bring are the kinetic energy of most agency cultures. But an industry that once venerated seasoned creative iconoclasts like Dan Wieden and John Hegarty seems so obsessed with youth these days that we can’t tell the difference between shaping culture or chasing it. And with younger employees so anxious over cancel culture that they routinely censor themselves, who besides a hardened pro—who doesn’t give a damn—can show them how to be outspoken, irreverent and contrarian? There is also a difference between an idea and an execution. Ideas can come from anyone, young and middle-aged alike, but a brilliant execution comes down to craft, and that takes experience. That’s why teams of junior talent working with veterans who amplify their ideas and show them the ropes have historically created the best work. Truly experienced creatives and strategists generate more ideas in an hour than their junior counterparts can in a month, because they see the angles more quickly and aren’t afraid of failure or throwing out a bad idea to find a good one. This is why independents like Mischief, L&C and others are gaining traction with clients—they offer the right mix of eager talent and experienced leadership who can solve problems quickly. To post-rationalize the ongoing defenestration of senior talent, agencies often claim youth is key to understanding culture. But who’s culture are we talking about, exactly? The culture of someone standing on line for the next sneaker drop, the culture of someone buying a house or maybe the culture of someone deciding between a Lexus and a Tesla? Let’s face it, culture is as multifaceted as the varied consumer segments targeted by brands, so why wouldn’t agencies want employees who bring personal experience and empathy to every engagement? Ironically, pop culture from the time when today’s 50-year-olds were teenagers has boomeranged back into fashion, with bands like Queen and The Rolling Stones bigger than ever, and brands like Stanley and Dunkin both timeless and trending. You’d think agencies would see the value of having talent who literally grew up with a brand to understand why it still resonates. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs As for commercial creativity and what’s considered cool, that is certainly not the dominion of the young. Just ask Wes Anderson, Guy Ritchie or Christopher Nolan—all over 50. Choose your favorite action star, whether Tom Cruise, Michelle Yeoh, Dwayne Johnson, Keanu Reeves or Vin Diesel. (They all made a recent list of Gen Z’s favorite celebrities—and, yes, their 50th birthdays are all in the rearview mirror.) The average age at consultancies is more than ten years older than most agencies, which explains their long-term, upstream relationships. Experience counts and wisdom is as rare as diamonds, which means you can charge more. By cutting senior talent, agencies make numbers work in the short-term but erode their value in the long-term. Clients are no longer renting expert talent, they are negotiating for deliverables. Welcome to “Logan’s Run.” For those of you not into cult science fiction movies, “Logan’s Run” is a 1976 film about a seemingly utopian city in which everyone is young and beautiful. The only catch is that when you reach the age of 30, you are sent to the Carousel, an arena where you take part in a spectacular ceremony of pyrotechnics that involves people levitating and exploding into atoms. In other words, this apparently perfect society turns out to be a dystopian nightmare where everyone is killed at age 30 to preserve the limited resources available. No one remembers how it came to this, and until our hero, Logan, escapes and runs away, nobody realizes there’s a better world beyond their own. Sound familiar? Ageless actress Sophia Loren said it best: “There is a fountain of youth. It is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” Let’s defeat age together by protecting our most valuable resource—skill honed over a lifetime—and make sure it doesn’t get lost.

Why marketing is more ageist than ever—and what experienced talent needs to know

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