Ageism in marketing

The CIM has published a paper about ageism in the marketing profession. I am afraid that this section from the report absolutely sums up the attitude of far too many marketers.

Prejudice about older employees is rife in the marketing profession, and it will be a long time before these deep routed opinions are challenged. It is widely believed that the young have a monopoly on dynamism and creativity, while the more seasoned employees have allowed cynicism and to snuff out any creative spark.

Similarly, with more and more marketing spend moving into the online environment, there is clearly a need to recruit people who are comfortable in this cyber-world, and it is often assumed that it is only the young, (who have grown up with technology), who will be sufficiently adept.

So what happens to older marketers? Where do they go after their 40th birthday? Nobody has ever really answered that question. Alien abduction? Dick Stroud