older | Greyafro #50Notout

Spent much more of the last two weekends than I’d care to admit watching Tiger Woods on the comeback trail.

I have become a golf enthusiast over the last 10 years or so and have often wondered how much of what is now modern golf is directly attributable to TW. Undoubtedly prize money and broader interest can be attributed directly to the big cat.

Tiger is 42 and seemingly after some quite drastic surgery is heading back to the top of the game. All of which got me thinking about reinvention and longevity. When I started work I had a very much misguided view of retirement – get to 50 and kick back! Won’t be true for me and there will be many more people who will experience a lot worse in fact retirement will mean relative poverty with income down and costs likely rising/mortgages still to be repaid and high expectations being missed.

So who is actually reading the signs of what is to come? Healthcare looks ever less prepared, gurus abound telling us about the death of just about every traditional media source, automation is apparently going to make us all redundant and the list goes on.

So all of the (un)retirement chat looks like a decent bet even if it isn’t what many people actually want. Surely this leads to a raft of new services and products to address this change? Here is hoping but I’d put more money short term on lots of amazing new tech focused on solving non problems first!

Unless you are the boss the odds seem massively against you having a very long career in marketing.

This always struck me as odd – at the stage of your career/life where you can most help you are likely to be tossed aside if you haven’t been already. You have seen things and likely been through ups and downs and in all probability are well placed to call foul on anything that doesn’t make sense.

I don’t want to rant against younger folks getting on – I can just about remember those days. The challenge in your 20s is quite different though and likely always will be. Surely some of these young guns could benefit from the odd old head around to help with the more subtle parts of development? Not to say adding a bit of practical insight to any consumer over the age of 40.

At the heart of this is some fundamentally messed up thinking. My belief is that if you dropped a marketing team from 40 years ago into role today they would likely do a much better job than might be imagined the tools have changed but the basic challenge hasn’t altered much at all. Ultimately the effort needs to support a clear goal and somewhere pretty nearby is the need to make money and generate a great return.

All of this need to maintain a mix of experience levels in the marketing workplace further pushed me to start my journey. Many businesses probably have these thoughts but they don’t act on it. A starting point might be some interim or freelance help or bringing back someone to the workplace after a gap?

As always would welcome your thoughts and views. And if you need help with reaching the mature audience please do get in touch it will be worth your while!

Until next time

Julian

Return of the Big Cat

Where have they all gone? The mystery of the older marketer