Updated 10 Feb 2013 - It is an old blokes' world.
This piece was written in 2006. I have added some extra commentary at the end to reflect the growing current trend.
A
rticles in recent papers have alluded to the inescapable fact that it is very hard to find a job if you are a man over the age of 45. If you are over that age and have a job, keep it!I see in a recent Herald, that one of NZ’s larger retail companies has appointed a new brand/marketing, or similar trendy title, national manager. His photo suggests that he is about 22, but is probably near 30. All of the senior appointments on the same day featured men in their late 20s or early 30s. This is usually the case.
There is lots and lots of anecdotal evidence about men over 45 struggling, and failing to find useful jobs. Why is this? These men are all well qualified and experienced. From my extensive working knowledge of men of this age, they are also generally still 100% compos mentis, totally reliable and capable of doing a day’s work at least equal of that of younger men. Look at farmers as a case in point. Most farmers are over 45 and these are always the most successful as in farming, as all things, nothing counts for experience earned in the universities of life and trial and error.
There is a simple answer, and the brewery appointment shows it up neatly. Humans are creatures of habit. If at the age of 40, you drink XYZ beer, drive an Australian 6 cylinder car and have been in your present job for four or five years, you will probably own a house with a small mortgage and be pretty set in your ways. You are unlikely to change from eating Weetbix for breakfast and are very unlikely to be persuaded to buy a new type of boogie board, or change the brands you know and trust through finding the one which suits your needs best.
In short, you are unlikely to be swayed by some marketing campaign dreamt up by a graduate in his marketing thesis last year.
Younger people are as you were, far more impressionable. That is why young men get drunk and throw up, sow wild oats, go bungy jumping and say idiot things like "awesome" or "sweet as". Some older men still indulge in these fanciful pursuits, chasing their lost youth, but they don't really count.
It is simple therefore to take this to its obvious next step, that impressionable 23 year old bloke will try a new brand of beer, underpants etc. and will not want to be talked into it by some bloke his father’s age. At this age, a young man is still in rebellion against his parents to some degree and is just not going to listen.
Ok, those are the facts. How do we change things? The answer is just as obvious. Young people may be swayed by marketing campaigns, but we gents of older years own the world!
As soon as the generation of baby boomers realise that they actually have all the power through ownership of all the assets, we will be able to change the way the world thinks. Take a look at share ownership. The majority of shares are owned by institutions. The overwhelming majority of funds invested in these institutions is owned by people over 40, for the plain and simple reason that they have been investing for longer.
Add to this that the enormous majority of capital in real estate is owned by the same older generation and you will begin to get the picture. We own everything worth owning. Use your financial clout to insist that the world works differently. Change your shampoo, beer, supermarket, shaving cream, underpants brands.
By doing this, we would have the ability to totally change all those marketing graduates, because I can assure you, they don’t teach them how to sell to old dogs who do learn new tricks. If you are in business and a sales rep aged 22 comes to sell you something, ring his/her boss and say, "I’m sorry, I don’t believe that X has the maturity to be dealing with my business, do you have someone more experienced available?" And they don't, deal with a company which does.
Just imagine the consternation when yet another trendy marketing campaign for a new shaver starts and all of us old guys go out and buy the opposition brand! Each time some chain store has a brat as its frontperson, ring them up and tell them that you are going to shop at their competitor as you don’t believe that person has any credibility in your experienced eyes, then go and do it.
This type of behaviour would quickly restore the balance.
Go for it you old geezers, or are you all too set in your ways to even change things for your own good.
Just remember that George Foreman won the World Heavyweight title at 47. Mick Jagger still sells millions of records at 60+ and that even Bill Gates is over 50.
We're getting there!
Feb 2013.
I've been thinking about this thread a bit in recent times, because we older men have taken an even stronger hold on the planet. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, is in his 60s, Warren Buffett in his 80s, and Gates is near 60. The Rolling Stone is still the biggest band on the planet, despite all members being over 70, and even Barry Manilow is still wowing them at 70. Along with that, day after day, we see older men shaping the planet, wasting the bad guys and generally running the joint.
Copyright © Alan Charman