Finally, finally, the advertising mooncalves catch up with reality

The New York Times has a slogan, “All the news that’s fit to print”, and they aren’t kidding. The paper is a literary expression of the world’s most overweight society. You need a forklift truck to pick it up.


(We’re number two in the obesity stakes, by the way, and our Sunday Times could do with shedding a few ounces)


Anyway a friend just sent an extract from the NYT which begins:

“After 40 years of catering to younger consumers, advertisers and media executives are coming to a different realization: older people aren’t so bad, after all.


Marketers like Kellogg’s, Skechers and 5-Hour Energy drink are broadening their focus to those 55 and up, who were largely ignored in most of their media plans until recently. “

Then it descends further into cliché:

“During next week’s upfront announcements, the annual preview of the fall television season, network executives are planning to introduce shows created to have broad appeal, including to older viewers, and the ad dollars they represent.”


For a good twenty years I’ve been commenting on the way the little fuckwits in Adland create stuff written for themselves and then aim it at themselves, utterly sidelining the folks who have the money.

It’s really a form of business masturbation. The only people who get any pleasure are those doing it.

The NYT piece has some interesting statistics.

“The most recent unemployment rate for those 20 to 24 years old is 14.2 percent; for those 25 to 34, it is 9.4 percent. The rate for people aged 55 to 64 is only 6.2 percent.

People aged 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 had the highest median weekly earnings of any age segment in the United States: $844 and $860, respectively. Those 20 to 24 had weekly earnings of only $454. Those who are 25 to 34 earned $682.

The funniest thing in the piece was from Stephanie Pappas, a senior planner for BBDO NY.

She said there was “now good reason for ad clients to seek the mature audience.

“In some ways, they are the ideal consumer. They have money, they consume loads of media, and they remain optimistic.” she said.

What can she possibly mean, “now good reason”. There has been good reason for as long as I can remember, and the brainless duds in planning departments have ignored it.

This confirms my fervent belief, held right from the moment they were introduced to a gullible marketing world, that agency planners are only necessary if the account handlers can’t think and the creative people don’t understand people.


Fire the lot, lower your costs and get real.

P. S. For those interested. By the end of today I must decide whether to get a bigger room for my June 20th Bristol copy seminar.

There will be some interesting people there by the way, including some from Hargreaves Lansdown – surely the best marketers of financial services in the country.

Also, a surprise extra speaker. Well, a surprise to me anyhow, because some people rated him better than me at an event not long ago. I really must try harder.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

3 Comments

  1. Tony Richardson

     Peek into any sports car. 9 out of 10 drivers will be oldies.

    Reply
  2. Rupert Suren

    If BBDO NY employ a half witted Flibbertigibbet senior planner who has only just discovered the 'grey dollar' then they and their vacuous client's media buyers deserve each other.

    An Australian agency recently put up a YouTube recruitment video of exactly the type of people they did not want;
    http://adage.com/article/adages/australian-agency-establishes-wanker-free-office/149275/

    Reply
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