The art of ageless advertising

There's hardly ever a time when I feel the urge to praise people in advertising, mainly because I also do advertising and I seldom feel I do worthwhile things. But today something I witnessed got me thinking about one essential quality that good advertising people should possess and which makes them truly remarkable: AGELESSNESS.

Think about this: as you grow older, your most inherent tendency is to derive insights from what is most familiar to yourself, not necessarily things like gender, but most likely things like age, marital status, kids or no kids, your circle of friends, your interests. It stands to reason that not having had a kid will make it difficult for you to relate to mother with kids and it also stands to reason that as you move around in an environment more than in another you will more often draw inspiration from the more familiar one.

And now, imagine a 40 yo creative faced with the challenge of talking to 15 yo and having access to true and original insights. And when I mean original, i mean NOT something that he himself has gone through as a 15yo but rather something which is contextually and temporally relevant to this 15yo. They will both have liked candy given out by a nice smelling mother, but can the 40yo relate to the lifestyle brought about by incessant texting? continuous contact via YM? In Romania more than anywhere, some generations have different lifestyles both socially and historically.

So, I tip my hat off to ageless advertising people. I think it takes an excessively flexible mind, like that of an excellent actor who can not only play himself in all the parts but rather play every part like it was a different person, to be able to stay tuned to the all generations we have to deliver adverts to.