Nicole Marquis says the ingrained ageism at ad agencies isn’t just wrong, it’s bad business
When creative director Mark Gardiner decided to take a year off from his high-paying job at ad agency Muller + Company to pursue his dream of racing in the world’s oldest and most dangerous motorcycle race, it seemed like a really good idea. In his late 40s, he wanted to compete while he still could. So he quit his job, packed his bags and flew to the British Isles.
Competing in the Isle of Man TT was everything he expected it to be, but he returned home to find that landing his next creative director job was anything but easy. In turning 50, he had become invisible to ad agencies. He had aged out.
Hélène Côté, creative director at Red Cliff Marketing and the winner of multiple One Show pencils and Cannes Lions as well as an Emmy, lost similar ground when she left her creative director position in her 50s to care for her aging mother. When she was ready to take back the reins, she found that agencies weren’t willing to hand them over.
“Nobody ever says, ‘Hey, you’ve turned 50, we’re laying you off because you’re too old’—they’d be opening themselves to a massive discrimination suit,” says Gardiner. “But they find ways to get rid of you. And once you’re on the outside, they find ways to not let you back in.”
Advertising may be a glamorous and hip industry to work in, but it’s youth-obsessed. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that more than 59 percent of employees in the ad industry are between the age of 25 and 44 years old, with the median age being 38. And the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising in the United Kingdom says only 4 percent of employees in its member agencies are over 50.
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