Is creativity ageist?
An article originally published earlier this year on LinkedIn and circulated widely has piqued the interest of many in the industry, including veteran Perth creative director Vaughan Sutherland, who saw it in liquor industry magazine Drinks Trade and sent it to CBWA.
Written by Louis Loizou, it tackles the issue of ageism in advertising and design, where creative people are on borrowed time past the age of 40.
“One very experienced freelance copywriter I know looked after a luxury brand several months with huge success, only to be suddenly replaced by a junior team who pretty quickly realised they were out of their depth. If it aint broke…So my message to creative industry is relook at creatives who are over 40, even older, and think about what they can bring to the table beyond Werther’s Originals. You will get proven people who can bring experienced understanding and behavioural knowledge to your new technology – surely the perfect complement.”
Advertising has been a ‘young’ industry for several decades now, particularly in creative departments where the search for the next hot young talent is perennial. Younger aspirants seen as being keener, harder-working and of course, cheaper.
But are they better?
Commenting in AdNews, Trinity P3 founder Darren Woolley says cost is the principal reason behind advertising’s ageist attitude.
“Many older, more experienced agency professionals find themselves facing redundancy as they are replaced by lower cost, less experienced resources, willing to do the same job for a lower cost.”
But that not inconsiderable reason aside, when it comes to creativity there’s also the question of whether younger creatives are more creative?
Over the past year or so, the Perth industry has just seen a shuffle of creative departments with a distinct sense that a new generation is taking up the reins of leadership, so perhaps we’ll find out.
Or perhaps it’s a moot point. As we have observed several times recently, creativity doesn’t even rate a mention in ‘important’ discussions about the industry nowadays. It has been swamped by data analytics, programmatic media, content and strategy. Creative is just that stuff that fills the empty spaces.
3 Comments
Old people in advertising smell.
Creativity is as important as it’s ever been. There are just more people distracted by data, reach, personalisation etc.
Clever clients still embrace great ideas & that should be at the heart of any creative advertising. Behind those great ideas is sound, insightful strategy.
Arriving at clever strategic ideas is something you get better at after years of experience. But after years of experience you start earning more. Until your salary is pointed out on a spreadsheet and someone says ‘we could get 3 juniors for that’.
Accountants & managers at agencies don’t give a shit about creativity & will always choose to save money.
Ironically, of course, the junior creatives can’t always deliver & accounts/pitches are lost.
Dear Young Spunk,
Old people in advertising do indeed smell.
We smell the injustice of young people in advertising being used as slave labour to line the pockets of greedy agency owners.
Give it a few years and you’ll start to smell it too. The stench is commonly cloaked with manipulative language like, “This is a great opportunity to prove yourself, you don’t mind working late again (for free) do you?”