With January finally coming to a close we can begin to feel the promise and sunshine of spring. As the seasons change I have been thinking a lot about the comparison between the shifting seasons and how we feel about age and the seasons of our life.

Consider, for example, the difference in the way Halloween is celebrated in the UK, compared to the Day of the Dead in countries such as Mexico. During the Day of the Dead, skulls adorn anything from fabric to sugared sculptures - they represent the passing of souls and are indicative of the ephemeral nature of life. It feels more of a vibrant celebration of life and afterlife than that of our modern-day Halloween, which, although has more than its fair share of skulls, is marked with more fear of death and withering away - and costumes depicting devils, witches, zombies and demons are a reflection of this.

As I head into my 40s, I have started to consider the way we view age and how we could do more, both internally and externally, to energise and celebrate the ‘age’ component of the diversity agenda within the media industry.  When I entered it at the age of 23, I wondered where all those over 40, not to mention those over 50, went. This was the marker for the end of your time in this neotenic industry, one where you withered off zombie-like into the abyss. This was and probably still is commonplace - according to the IPA Census 2019  44.8% of the employed base at IPA member agencies was aged 30 or under,  while 6.3% were aged 50 or over.

And there’s no denying that the media world is one of the new, and of the young. In her essay ‘Harnessing the Power of Late-Stage Radicals’, Olivia Stubbings questions why advertising is the only creative industry that equates youth with creativity. She wants to challenge the conceit that advertising is a young person’s game. This is a received wisdom based on short-sighted cost saving, and systematic and subconscious biases.

One could argue, in fact, that we’re an industry so obsessed with eternal youth that we exist in a perma-Neverland. Internally, in many ways the costume and robes of our industry embody ‘childlike’. We dress differently to the corporate world, bouncing around in our playful crimson and electric blue plimsolls. We ‘colour in’ and we have parties where we drink punch - and pre-pandemic we used to dine out on Fridays at play dates. The language we use is playful, we bounce around on balls and bean bags, create ‘scamps’ and have ‘buddies’. All possible characters and set for a morning of Children’s TV.

And then there is the external face of the industry. We quite rightly celebrate great achievements, but often the accolade is hitting the pinnacle of a career at a young age. The industry wide ‘30 under 30’ lists are a great example of this - it can feel like it’s a race to the top. I am not knocking success but, in reality, 30 is young and seven to nine years in the industry is certainly not a lifetime. As a result, it can often mean that older people are regarded as just ‘legacy’ or past it. 

The negative opinions on age are not new - gerontology (philosophy of ageing) has been discussed a plenty. In fact, Aristotle believed that age was ‘a cowardice’, ‘they are cowardly, and are always anticipating danger; unlike that of the young, who are warm-blooded’. 

Decades on and the negative perceptions surrounding age are arguably getting worse. It is something that is being faced by most of the world, not just our industry as we live in a faster age and an era of cultural acceleration. In fact, Jan Baars notes in his book Aging and the Art of Living, two paradoxes emerge: (a) “premature cultural senescing” in which individuals live longer but are called old at earlier ages; and (b) the desire to stay young but grow older, which is the cultural creation of a huge anti-aging industry in medicine and in commercial products that promise to maintain youth. So, in a sense, we’re all speeding towards old age faster, and becoming out of date quicker.

It would be fair to say that there are promising signs from the media industry such as WPP’s scheme to bring returners back into work and addressing the internal issues and perceptions surrounding age. But there is so much more that must be done.

Internally, the media industry must embrace age as a blend. We must cease fanning the flames of the ‘boomer vs millennial’ narrative around competition for resources or inciting general inter-generational conflict. Instead, a good start would be to find ways to use a blended broad age range in all our work and planning. Research from Harvard Business Review research suggests that putting older and young workers together helps both groups perform better. ‘They make good allies in part because of their similar interests, but because of their different stages of life, they are less competitive with each other than workers in the same age cohort might be. That means that they are more likely to help each other and to form good teams.’

Then thinking of age across all agency communications when it comes to diversity - invite everyone to the wedding - be it the choice of panellists for events and putting together pitch teams. Don’t only think only of gender and ethnicity for diversity, think of age too. 

And finally work by attitude and mindset – Just as we do the audiences we target. Reaching beyond age and demographic profile. Celebrating that age isn’t a number mentality and that it’s a mindset - and embracing our playful industry and all its ages. 

Think of all those ageing people who still don’t know what they want to be when they grow up. To quote Salvador Dali ‘At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.’ And at 40, I may have achieved a great deal in my career, but I am not done. I am still learning and look forward to embracing whatever comes next.

We are a highly visible industry with the power to not only hold a mirror up to society but to change and shape it and set new moral codes. It’s our duty to re-write our language, reimagine what society thinks and feels about an ageing population both within our walls and outside. And ultimately being responsible for ensuring that age does not become the dying component of the diversity agenda.