Based on his consultancy’s 2023 survey, the very credible Jack Meyers reports that of the 10,000 professionals working in agency media departments and similar, only 20% have more than 15 years’ experience. With 65% having less than 8.

Color me semi-gobsmacked. At Finance signing off on the salaries commanded by those elderly 20%.

Still, to put it all in a spitball context, you need to figure that 8-in-10 have never worked in an industry not dominated by automated bidding, programmatic placement, and an explosive mobile-first universe of websites, apps, and podcasts. 

While big chunks of that 6-in-10 are likely less than halfway to Malcom Gladwell's "10,000 hours to become an expert in anything."

Bernbach forgive them, for they know not what they're missing. 

Including, as Meyers goes on to point out, what has historically been the media planner and buyer's most powerful tool — a relationship with the person and the media outlet they are buying from. 

As someone who utterly relies on what they do for the breath of life—without media, creative is just a silent scream into the void—I’d argue that’s more important than ever. Obvious: clients are far more likely to get a better deal, a bigger value-add, a problem solved when buyer and seller are on good terms.  

Less obvious: data can take us only so far and to make sense of a pond full of an infinite-and-growing number of shiny platform and channel objects, you need human intuition, fueled by experience-based judgement.

In a sense, Meyers is poking a giant hole in the “we hire digital natives because, well, digital and native” point you hear from every holding company c-suite. Media, creative, strategy, accounts, or HR, if you only know one way of thinking and doing, by damn, that's how you're going to think and do.

Worse yet, if all you’ve ever seen is a transactional approach to advertising—here one nano-second, gonzo the next—you’re going to be totally transactional.

So, not dissing either the 20% or their 65% juniors, at all. But if it’s my client’s multi-digit spend, I not only want to­, but absolutely do, rely on a media team with way more than a decade and a half of time on track.  

For the reason: (see above).

P.S. It seems a lot of us are beginning to get vocal about what the lack of senior experience is doing to the advertising industry, as a whole.  If you’ve got examples, I’d love to hear and share.  If you want to read Meyer’s report in full click here.