Advertising Age posted this week an article “Aging in Adland: The gray-hair phobia that’s hindering older execs.” and it hit a nerve. My Twitter feed was bursting with comments about the article and the comments a the bottom of the post are worth your time.

Rupal Parekh writes:

“Most shops won’t admit it readily, but gray-hair phobia is a reality in the digital era. With agencies continually restructuring and changing models to keep pace with the public’s media consumption habits, adland is right to be digitally obsessed. But most in the industry wrongly assume that the only people who grasp digital are fresh out of college.

That presumption has spawned an undercurrent of resentment as agencies refit themselves for the digital world – a process that often entails stripping out layers of longtime employees in favor of a newer breed of creatives and strategists believed to better grasp the increasingly complex media environment.”

It’s a bigger problem than just the digital revolution

When I started as a copywriter in advertising, people suddenly looked at me differently. Behind that cheap haircut and the non-cool clothes and appearance, there must be something cool about me, right? I didn’t know bands that were playing in a garage, ready to become underground hits. I didn’t go to hidden bars, I didn’t eat in a North Korean restaurant and I didn’t care about that cool movie from Sri Lanka. That average guy, how could he work in advertising?

Once you start working in the advertising industry, it looses its perceived coolness very quickly and turns into a grind of long hours, lost weekends and  endless defeats. (Still, the best profession on earth.) Advertising professionals should know about the lack of coolness in our profession but, somehow, the outside view of our industry has rubbed off on the industry itself in some kind of self-perpetuating cycle.

Focusing on coolness is a sure loser

Being hip and cool seems to be equated by our industry with youth, the general feeling seeming to be that if you’re over 39 years you can’t possible contribute anything valuable. Translated: If you’re not in an executive position by 39 and 364 days, you better look for a new job. You’ll never make it.

This makes no sense. Or to say it in a more diplomatic way: It’s beyond stupid.

The long hours, the lost weekends and overall lifestyle demands youthful amounts of energy and, sure, some agency types are done by the time they start a family, opting for 9-5 lifestyle. This is not a golden rule but agencies love to worship the fountain of youth (the current economic climate doesn’t help) and forget that they are missing out on a deep talent pool.

The industry not only misses out on 39+ executives from other industries who would be suicidal to make the jump into advertising, we’re also losing a lot of talented people inside our industry. Especially bewildering when you have to listen to endless complaints about the “lack of talent” in our industry. I have friends in the industry who were loved by all their clients and co-workers, who can talk more intelligently about emerging technologies than any SXSW attendee and who have an amazing track record of brilliant work who can’t get an interview. Why? Because they were born before 1973.

The industry should take a long, hard look in the mirror: We seem to hire the same cool folks, the same hip people, the same way of thinking. And we end up with similar ideas. Innovative thinking won’t happen when we habitualize our hiring policies.

We need to start recruiting more on attitude and aptitude and less on date of birth.

When I grew up, my favorite brand was Coca-Cola. I also loved McDonald’s and any cereal brand. The unhealthier sweeter, the better. Over time, I learned that Coke was nothing more than sugared water and McDonald’s peddled really crappy food by sourcing through really terrible methods. Well, and cereal was nothing more than sugar in milk. My love for these brands turned into cynicism. They still created great advertising but it’s hard to enjoy any commercial or online game when you have these videos of tortured chicken in your head.

Branding used to involve big budgets, flashy advertising, a lot of good looking people and promises that were never kept.

This branding era is about to end.

We are about to experience a branding renaissance

Branding doesn’t happen in brainstorming sessions, on TV screens or through false, beautiful worlds anymore.

Branding today entails:

- Focusing more on stakeholder value, less on shareholder value

- Social Currency is more important than immediate profitability

- Innovation more important than messages

- Customer experience is almost everything

- Delivering constant customer value is everything.

Advertising noise will continue to be part of branding. Over time, that noise will just lead to tone deafness and the return will be minimal. Companies that are doing it right will succeed over time. The others will fade away.

Your digital campaign represents your company, it’s the public face of your company. Just like your website, your store, your packaging, your employees, your phone tree (Let’s hope you have none.) Your digital campaign might be the first encounter of a prospect with your brand. Or it might be a visit with an old friend. Have you ever looked at the personality of your digital campaign?

All brands and their agencies design campaigns with best intentions. Sometimes they succeed. Often they fail and end up where they never wanted to go. I’ve been part of those and I’m not proud of my personal train wrecks. Advertising intends to motivate behavior change. Can you be motivated by an unlikeable person to change behavior? Shouldn’t we all try to be more likeable to customers?

Well, let me introduce you to a few of these people brands create every day.

The cheesy salesman

His perfume is cheap and strong, his clothes outdated and loud, and his pitch is annoying and even louder. Whenever you see him, you try to run away as fast as you can. He tries to sell and upsell anything, as long he profits from it: He doesn’t care.

That’s the digital campaign with huge “Buy” or “Click” buttons, takeovers, pop-unders, scams to make you”like” the brand: Any trick in the book is good to make you buy. Or at least to make you show some interest. That’s the least you can do to keep the cheesy salesman employed.

The creepy guy

You meet him at a party, have a brief chat with him and he believes you want to get married to him. Wherever you go, he’s there: At the gym, at work, in your home. He continues to ask the same question: “Why don’t we close the deal?” He’s the guy that makes you feel uncomfortable, a Big Brother always watching. If you could, you would punch him in the face but he might take that as a sign that you want to close the deal.

As a digital campaign, these are the re-targeting slaves. Yes, I showed interest in your airline 1 week ago but that doesn’t mean you need to remind me on every page I visit, thanks to your massive ad network/retargeting buy. A friend might have sent me a link to your offer, I checked it out and didn’t care. Make me care even less by retargeting me 5,012 times. Maybe it works at the 5,013th impression. Who knows?

Paris Hilton

Ok, she looks good. But, ask her what time it is and she needs an assistant because her brain is permanently turned off. Ask her to do anything and she’ll answer with a frozen smile. She’s stupid, she can’t do anything, the world adored her at one point. Oh, did I mention she’s pretty?

As a digital marketing campaign, that’s the flashturbation campaign. So much Rich Media, you can pay the global debt with it. Too bad it doesn’t work on all devices, crashes your computer and serves no conversion purpose. Oh, did I mention it looks pretty?

The cheerleader

Who doesn’t love cheerleaders? Your team sucks, no one in the stands, it’s raining, they ran out of beer and the cheerleader is still smiling, yelling: Go team. They don’t understand why you don’t like their team, why you don’t share the same level of enthusiasm. No matter, in their mind the own team will always be the best. Even though they haven’t won a game in 10 years.

As a digital campaign, this is the campaign that doesn’t get why you wouldn’t “like” their Facebook page even though there’s no reason for you to like it. No value proposition. Why wouldn’t you follow a Twitter stream brimming with promotional messages? Why do you need motivation to change your behavior? Isn’t our presence  motivation enough?

The cheapskate

He’s the guy occupying the parking lot of Best Buy the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He’s the guy that occupies the coffee shop for hours with an order of a miniature coffee. He’s the guy sitting next to toilet, the guy that gets the worst seat in the bar. He doesn’t care. As long as it’s cheap, he’s happy.

The digital campaign you don’t see. Cheap inventory equals invisibility. Banner ads below the fold on sites you don’t dare visiting because they look like malware-infested 1990 designs. The cheapskate loves the cheesy sales guy on the publisher site. It’s a mutual feeling: the sales guy sells garbage and the cheapskate sifts through it, filled with happiness.

I get this junk every day. ( I spared you the enlargement ads. I hope you don’t mind.) While I ignore this junk and all the dying people that send me millions of dollar, I think it represents fairly well what many clients expect from their agencies.

Brainwashing and hard-core selling.

Now, when you ask clients, they will talk about ‘emotional selling” and “branding experience”. But when procurement knocks on the door and the sales spread sheets show a lot of red, they want the sell: benefits, discounts, knock down the competition, buy now.

Don’t get me wrong: Advertising should be about sales. Period. Good advertising motivates people, encourages them to take action and take out their wallet. But it doesn’t put a gun to their head, screaming: “Hurry. Try now.” Good advertising is not a bully. Good advertising is a charming servant.

Everybody is selfish.

We all want things that are in our best interest. Good advertising connects the emotional desires/needs of people with the commercial desire/needs of brands. It shouldn’t be that hard to understand but more and more brands are pushing into the bullying mode, trying to force people to action.

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HURRY!
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Oh, ok. Since breasts are the important assets of a woman, once she enlarges them, her life will be like a dream. Happiness all around. Joy to the world. Take some pills and you’ll be happy.

Oh, ok. Who believes that garbage?

I’m sure this product doesn’t work but I know for sure the advertising achieves the opposite what the brand wants to happen.

You can’t force people to react. People will turn away. Run away.

Clients usually ask for the hard sell, the in-your-solution because they are afraid to risk anything. In reality, they’re risking everything by cramming 3 product benefits in one banner ad.