If you haven’t noticed already, let me tell you something you may or may not choose to take on board. Experience is worth nothing. And by nothing I mean experience is worth nothing financially. This begins to happen once you cross the line into your 40s, but your experience is devalued even more once you hit 50. You know this is true because you’ve seen the ads, the movies that point out what matters, what’s worthy is being younger.
According to Ryan Wallman at Marketing Week, Ad land’s obsession with youth will come at a cost. Wallman notes the discriminatory practice of hiring younger employees while ignoring older, more experiences employees,
“A paucity of older people in advertising leads to a poorer output and a missed opportunity for brands.”
I’m not in marketing or advertising but I am ‘of a certain age,’ and I am savvy enough to know that entertainment, advertising, and marketing that is aimed in my direction frequently MISSES the mark (see My previous post about the film POMS). It also misses an opportunity. How many studies do there have to be to demonstrate the spending power of people over 50? As a consumer, a writer, and author in an industry that does not at all favour women who are over the age of 40 (some will say 30), I get pretty cheesed off by anything that imprisons me with a fate I must dread after turning 40, and then dread my existence even more after 50 because, rather than putting the goddamned spotlight on LIVING, life after 50 is nothing but constant decline–dentures, wrinkles, walkers, adult diapers, and the inevitably of death.
The missed opportunity of gearing products to me and others middle-aged and beyond, products that tell me–to borrow and twist a line from from The Shawshank Redemption–to “get busy dyin”’ rather than to “get busy livin’ ” is also a slap in the face that utterly devalues my actual life experience.
In another Marketing Week article (the publication is often spot on with its studies of ageism and sexism in advertising and beyond), Sarah Vizard notes that,
“78% of those aged 50 or over feel under-represented or misrepresented by advertising, with 49% saying they actively avoid brands who ignore them. Plus 69% suggest they would be more receptive to brands if their advertising represented over-50s more accurately.”
Yeah, the paucity of older people, missing opportunity, and feeling under- and misrepresented as a stereotype is EXACTLY what I have been saying about the romance publishing industry shutting out older female leads, refusing to see them as viable main characters, and ignoring the older (or even younger) reader who WANTS to see better representation of themselves across an age spectrum. If our life experience counts for nothing, then our power to spend is a loss to big businesses, like the struggling publishing industry.
I quite like Waller’s article cautioning the advertising industry. If you didn’t read it, it’s about the younger age demographic of those employed in the tone-deaf, one denture-wearing, diapered older person-with-a-walker-and-funeral-insurance fits all advertising industry, which, he says doesn’t value the experience of older employees any more than it values the older consumer.
“The demographic make-up of the advertising industry sends a pretty clear message to people who have the gall to a) stay alive and b) keep working past the age of 30. And that message is: ‘Fuck you and the mobility scooter you rode in on.'”
Waller’s quote makes me want to say, “Wake the fuck up to this mother-fucking GOLD MINE” to the historically female-centric romance fiction industry. Women over 40 have money to spend and the world of romance fiction is, with very few exceptions, ignoring them and their money. Readers are saying they are receptive to romance novels that represent over-40s (and beyond) more accurately, as LEAD characters. Yet, as with advertising, these readers are still getting a “Fuck you and the mobility scooter you rode in on” from an industry that employs mostly women who will one day be over the age of 40, 50 and beyond.
Vizard, S. (2019). Brands should stop seeing age as a defining feature of the over-50s. Marketing Week. https://bit.ly/2yI0JgA
Wallman, R. (2019). Adland’s obsession with youth will come at a cost. Marketing Week. https://bit.ly/2XajNz6
Wielding my Shield of Smartass
to the historically female-centric romance fiction industry. Women over 40 have money to spend and the world of romance fiction is, with very few exceptions, ignoring them and their money. Readers are saying they are receptive to romance novels that represent over-40s (and beyond) more accurately, as LEAD characters. Yet, as with advertising, these readers are still getting a “Fuck you and the mobility scooter you rode in on” from an industry that employs mostly women who will one day be over the age of 40, 50 and beyond.