Making sense of ‘ambiguous ageism’: a multi-level perspective on age inequality in the advertising industry

Abstract

As recent statistics confirm, the advertising industry lives up to its image of being a preserve of the young: Less than 10% of all advertising practitioners in the US, UK and Australia are over the age of 45. But what are the social processes and discursive formations that create and sustain this skewed age profile? Based on 26 in-depth interviews with older advertising professionals and the thematic analysis of recent ageism-related coverage in advertising industry news media publications, we illustrate (1) how this age inequality is understood, represented and negotiated by practitioners and industry observers, and (2) how the dynamic interplay between individual identifications, organisational practices, and social structures (re)produces what we refer to as ‘ambiguous ageism’ – an entrenched and opaque marginalisation process which disadvantages older advertising practitioners, but in which they are also at the same time often complicit in. By conceptualising and applying a relational, multi-level perspective for investigating age inequality in the creative industries, we offer new insights into the empirical realities of creative work and provide a framework that can guide further research into the dialectics between ageing and organisational life in the creative industries and beyond.

Keywords:

• Advertising
• ageism
• age
• inequality
• creative industries
• diversity

Disclosure statement

The authors confirm that there are no potential conflicts of interest associated with this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Table 1. Participant characteristics.

Notes on contributor

Sven Brodmerkel (PhD, University of Vechta) is an Assistant Professor for Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communications at Bond University, Australia. His research focuses on the workplace sociology of the creative industries as well as on the critical study of new media technologies in the context of promotional communication. Sven is co-author of the book ‘Brand Machines, Sensory Media and Calculative Culture’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Richie Barker (PhD, Monash University) is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University, Australia. His research focuses on creative practice and digital media use in the professional communication industries of advertising and public relations. Richie’s most recent research explores the influence of algorithmic gatekeeping on the everyday creative research practices of advertising art directors and copywriters.

Notes

1 https://www.theagencycircle.com/

2 http://changingtheratio.com.au/

3 The other featured resources are two tools for managing workplace gender equality and one article on ‘Australian Stereotypes in TV ads’. See https://theagencycircle.com/resources/.