Oh to Be Young, Hot, and Cheap Again

Oh to Be Young, Hot, and Cheap Again

As if the ad industry doesn’t have enough problems 

With the programmaticization of the space (I totally made up that word) and the advertiser’s success contingent on Apple's mobile ad policies or Facebook’s algorithms, one can see why being an ad exec ain’t what it used to be. Those who have survived the industry have had to refashion themselves as product managers or data scientists. And digital ad sales reps, who used to expense spa days, golf rounds, and yacht parties in Cannes are now finding that they are like every other “vendor,” leaving lost messages on client cell phones: "Hey there… Miss you… Call me?” It seems the required skill sets have shifted and seasoned relationship builders are giving way to younger, cheaper SEO optimizers.

A friend who is an executive recruiter in the media sales industry bemoaned the end of martini lunches and seven-figure employment contracts. 

I know, it’s hard to feel bad for these people. 

But I do. For one thing, I was steeped in the ad business for years on the publisher side. And while I traded all my sheath dresses and high heels for branded T-shirts when I transitioned into emerging tech, I—like my former peers in the ad industry—are not getting any younger. And it would seem both industries take issue with those of us who watched Friends the first time the series aired.

In a recent interview the CEO of global ad giant WPP, Mark Read, made a troubling remark, when he observed last week that most of WPP’s staff were under 30, showing that the holding company’s staff “don’t hark back to the 1980s, luckily.”

Read later apologized for his remarks, which, given his age, were rather self-canceling. While I raised an eyebrow reading the comment I didn’t think he, and the ad industry by extension, is so much ageist as beleaguered and in transition; in need of new digital skill sets and unable to pay the salaries he used to for experience. 

I met Mark Read at an annual WPP conference when I was growing my startup. He’s actually quite lovely--a strong listener and interested in connecting people and ideas. And while it’s true that going to a WPP function feels a little bit like being the guest nun on The Real World: Ibiza; Read has addressed some of WPP’s diversity problems, recently hiring an experienced black media executive to lead ad-buying unit Group M North America.

But with his recent comments he threw salt on a long-festering wound in the ad world, around age and worth, pissing off industry Grand Dame and activist Cindy Gallop. 

The last time she got this angry was… well, Monday, but also back in 2016, when she called out marketing guru and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk for hosting a party that gave preference to attractive women (for which he profusely apologized). 

(Side note: We need more Cindy’s in the ad world, and I would argue the tech world, too: People with deep experience in the space, who inherently love it so much that they are willing to call out the ugly; career prospects be damned. People like Cindy have already run the calculus in their heads and will say, “It’s not a matter of ‘if’' you will experience bias; it’s a matter of ‘when’. Might as well spray yourself with bullshit repellent NOW."

Any way you look at this, the late forty-something in me just goes “Ick.” And I get very present with an existential dread, whispering to myself, was all that shucking and jiving, the countless hours on planes, speaking, writing, and ordering outfits on Gilt Groupe, for naught? With every passing year of experience do I dig myself further into a professional grave, with the epitaph: Here lies Jory. She built a really great company. But then she turned 45 …"

I think of the absurdity of the whole “Young is More” argument and imagine it’s similar to the rationale early-stage startup founders use: I can only afford to spend $X on talent, so I’ll take the calculated risk that this cheap-but-promising talent gives me more than I’m paying for and will grow into the role. For young startup talent it’s a good bet to take, as there are stock options and a fast track to senior roles if they succeed. The risk is not joining a unicorn and then working one’s way up another lower-paying ladder, which is usually mitigated by moving to another corporate or Pre-IPO ladder.

In advertising, the risk is turning 30. 

Remember this movie? You should if you ever watched movies on VHS. It’s about a post-apocalyptic utopia whose inhabitants are all under age 30. Those who turn 30 get killed off. You know your time is coming when the light embedded in your palm glows red.

Fortunately our world isn’t so uncharitable to mature adults. Rather, we get subtle, subcutaneous shocks to our system when we least expect them. When we’re off minding our 40-something-year-old business and we hear things:

• of friends who are years younger than us getting botox before a job interview;
• feedback from well-meaning mentors that we really don’t need to (or shouldn’t) list the first 10 years of our career experience on our resumes;
• exaggerated compliments from former colleagues we haven’t seen in a long time: “Oh my GOD you look EXACTLY the SAME!” which, by the way, means “You don’t look the same”;
• the replacement of terms like “entrepreneurial” that peers once used to describe your professional approach with terms like “batshit crazy."

All of these are proxies for the blinking red light, for career menopause at a time when (speaking for myself) I’ve never felt more strategically on-point or productively fertile. 

Sure, men deal with ageism, but women, particularly those in client-facing, media, or even leadership roles, shoulder an even heavier burden of ageism intersected by sexism, having to look some combination of younger, more professional, successful, hotter, or more serious and pay a “pink tax” to pull off the upkeep behind the proper formulation. Botox, Laboutins, and blowouts add up!

And those who say, "Screw it. Deal with my roots,” are perceived as not trying anymore. 

I’ve been holding my own professional detox of sorts--initially induced by the Coronavirus lockdown--involving not cutting or dyeing my hair, no mani-pedis, no new cosmetics, no new clothes, no waxing or hair removal. I work out by hiking; no professional training. I still do yoga, but virtually, and I meditate more than I did. I’m proud to report people still recognize me. And professionally, I feel like I’m 22 again.

Non-Essential Guilt

Thank you Douglas Rushkoff for calling out something that has been sticking in my craw during this pandemic: Our isolationist tendencies, made worse by our relative tech privilege. 

I have not been on public transportation, nor have I needed to be, for six months. I haven’t had to take my kids to the doctor, or fretted over who would take care of them while I work; I have access to both health and child care. I haven’t had to work outside the home to make ends meet. And yet I've bemoaned the skipped vacations, cancelled massage appointments, screwy internet bandwidth and lack of two-ply toilet paper at my local CVS. 

But during moments of contemplation I know I’m fortunate. I know that others are suffering, and that makes me suffer. Still, some can hermetically seal themselves from despair, enabled by tech to live the most oblivious lives that money can buy. Rushkoff says, 

Our Covid-19 isolation is giving us a rare opportunity to see where this road takes us and to choose to use our technologies to take a very different one.

Before You Vote...

On Sundays I indulge in the Lit Major Special: I read most of The New York Times over coffee, take a virtual yoga class, and then read Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings, a newsletter and website featuring the essays, art, and ponderings of some of the greatest minds in philosophy, science, and letters. Popova provides a guided tour of insightful, often groundbreaking work, dusting off brilliant gems we’re too preoccupied to notice ourselves. I always come away amazed at how thinkers who lived dozens or even centuries ago can describe humanity in a way that still resonates.

In "Octavia Butler on How (Not) to Choose Our Leaders,” Popova writes about the 20th Century science fiction writer's two-part series set in the 2020s: Parable of the Sower (public library) and Parable of the Talents (public library). In these works, Popova writes, Butler "straddled the timeless and the prophetic." Though Butler died in 2006, her work is perfectly relevant now when we consider our choices for public office in the United States.

A verse from the second book:

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.

To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

Tweet of the Week: Addressing the Catch22 in Venture Capital

Cheers to Serena Williams for recognizing the importance of this seemingly obscure change in SEC guidelines defining "Accredited Investors". While anyone can open up a Crypto Account or start day trading, it's actually much more difficult becoming accredited as a Limited Partner, or LP, in a venture fund. Usually the minimum required investment is a non-starter for amateur investors, as are requirements around minimum gross income and owned assets.

Basically, you need to be rich to get richer.

But this new inclusion will enable professionals who enter into investing professions to automatically qualify as accredited investors. In essence the SEC is giving investors a pathway to experience.

After all, great investors are made, not born.

Happy Long Weekend!