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The “Exit Plan” is a conversation I seem to be having with more and more of my peers these days. As in “what’s your Exit Plan" for when you’re deemed too old to work in advertising anymore?
It’s a real threat for anyone close to or over 40 and scares the living hell out of me. For at an age when executives in other industries are hitting their professional stride, advertising creatives are uniformly being tossed out and left for dead.
The story is familiar. We all seem to know someone who was a creative director at a big agency, making a comfortable six-figure salary. One day an account leaves, the CD loses his job and suddenly he can’t seem to find another.
He freelances, plays his connections. But all he can find are a succession of lower-paid jobs in less glamorous areas of the industry until he’s freelancing for a small medical agency in the ‘burbs and has the sell their house to put the kids through college.
Now there are plenty of reasons that advertising casts off its senior members. Overly inflated salaries. Inability to keep up with changing technology. Perceived unwillingness to put in the same 80 hour weeks as the 25-year-olds. But mostly it’s about prejudice: the notion that nothing new or interesting can come out of a 55-year-old mind and that even if it could, this person is not the face the agency wants to show to the world.
Or is he?
As the Baby Boom ages, there will suddenly be a giant cohort of seniors. None of whom particularly care about Facebook or Twitter. Their cultural references are to the Jackson 5, not Maroon 5. And yet there’s no reason to believe they’re going to suddenly stop buying the same high end and trendy gear they always have been. So who is going to advertise to them? Will there be any creatives left who can speak the same language?
Chances are there won’t be. As I’ve noted before, our industry is driven by a misguided belief that every ad needs to be judged by the standards of an, upscale 30-something white, male hipster And so ads aimed at Boomers will be written in accordance with an aesthetic that isn’t their own.
If an agency, somewhere, would discover the value of retaining senior creatives on anything other than the most unsexy pharma accounts, they’d probably discover they’d found a real market niche. That they were able to talk directly to the sweet spot of their target in a voice the target, the people actually buying the product, found both real and convincing. And that they were able to make themselves and their clients a lot of money doing so.
If.
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Comments
Toad,
What prevents an agency from understand that boomers represent the largest consumer group in America with the most expendable income? One would think that most advertising would be created for the group buying the most stuff. What am I missing?
Posted by: Lewis Green | 11.19.07
Perhaps the advertising agency world is slow to change, just like the insurance industry and many others. Is it possible that they're living in a time warp, relishing the heyday and glamor of their former selves?
Posted by: Elaine Fogel | 11.19.07
This is scary. And it leads me to ask key questions. What's the likely age range of senior management at an agency? Is this strictly a cost cutting scenario? Why don't clients demand their advertising agencies also create ads for people over 45? Even if older types don't care about Facebook/Twitter, shouldn't they still learn, learn, learn...and make themselves more marketable?
Posted by: Jonathan Trenn | 11.19.07
Yes, seniors will triple in the next 25--and a huge percentage (if not the majority) will be young seniors.
But do make your own exit plan dear. You're a marketer...go market yourself. Unless you really wanna be working in a big agency in 10 (you're too talented not to go out your own at some point).
Posted by: CK | 11.19.07
Toad, I could not agree more that this is one scary issue for marketers. Marketing is a creative profession and I have seen as i have aged the incredible bias toward older practioners. Although i have reinvented myself and did so three years ago by embracing social media and living it (i created and now host a show on social media called Marketing Voices) i still hear bias and prejudice by many toward baby boomer marketers. Some see how valuable my experience is but there is still a major and unspoken bias esepcially in silicon valley where i am based.
Posted by: jennifer jones | 11.19.07
maybe i'm unconscious, but i haven't seen this bias in my own business. I do social media marketing and while lots of people talk about it, only a handful have actual campaigns and stats to point to. that seems to help.
i do know tho, that whether they want to hire me or not, i'm not going to want to do this forever. I'll just do it as long as it's fun - which it is, big-time.
Posted by: B.L Ochman | 11.19.07
BL
You've always come off as someone who is young at heart and sense you're self-employed, you're likely to always have fun.
Posted by: Jonathan Trenn | 11.19.07
Great comments all.
I think the agency world is reflective of most creative industries in that youth is prized and valued. (TV and movie industry mimic this trend.)
Some of it is money- 20somethings are cheaper and work longer hours. Some of it is a "cultural" bias towards all things that are clever for a 30something white male hipster sensibility. Some of it is just that people like to identify with people younger than themselves- even in ads aimed at seniors, the models are always 50something or so.
In Adland, many of those in the generation before mine cashed out when agencies went public and were bought by the big holding companies.
No such luck for us.
@BL: I'm curious what did you do before this social media gig?
Posted by: Tangerine Toad | 11.19.07
The new markets are women and geezers. Mark my words in twenty years companies will be scrambling to employ sixty year old women.
Posted by: Timothy Coote | 11.20.07