7 over 70. That caught my eye. Ad Age’s traditional 40 under 40 list of top up-and-coming adland executives has been released. But this year, the publication has launched a companion list, 7 over 70, Ad Age’s “recognition that good work is hardly just the province of youth”.

Yes, there are two decades’ worth of people that are still invisible to the industry. And it’s the value of that…it’s difficult to call them a group of adpeople when there are so few of them – let’s say smattering of adpeople, which the industry perhaps needs to begin to recognise, if only because so many of the people it talks to are getting older. It is unfathomable (perhaps only to me?…and if so, why?), that adland thinks someone who has never experienced being 50 or 60 can know anything about what it’s like to be that age. And unfathomable that brands don’t care.

Anyway, “recognition that good work is hardly just the province of youth,” is a start. Let’s hope that it’s the start of wider eyes and broader employment. Diversity of age, race, colour and religion is a fine and dandy goal for adland to achieve (eventually) but when did age not belong under that umbrella?

Ad Age’s 7 over 70 story is here.