I was in a meeting with a nice bunch of clients the other day and they were showing me their vision of the future. All very stirring stuff - and quite frightening too. And all very much on the money.
One of the clips in their epic movie really stuck out. It was a picture of a fit looking, grey-haired dude in a skin tight wetsuit poised athletically on a surf board as he rode out a magnificent wave. All sinew and silver hair, this surfing sexagenarian was accompanied by the voice over: "Ninety will be the new sixty".
At first hearing, that sounded the wrong way round. It didn't seem to be elevating the age of sixty but rather advocating that we should all look forward to the final decade of our own personal centuries.
But when you think about it, it is right. When I was a kid and was playing football in a good, amateur team, there was a centre-forward that we unkindly referred to as "Dad" because he was 33 years old. He was a former professional who had been on the books of Notts County and he had a "Magnum PI" moustache and the most amazing ability to hang in the air. He smoked and drank like any good Nottingham lad brought up in the shadow of the Player's factory and he had teenage kids. The point was that we all thought it was amazing that he was still playing a decent level of football when he was that OLD.
But times have changed.
We are getting older younger and staying younger longer. That is not a new thought. It has been well documented that by 2025, more than 25% of Europe will be over the age of sixty. It also used to be said that they would also be very affluent. Not now that the credit crisis has stolen a third of their savings and their pensions but still, they will be active and they will have money and they may still be hanging in the air on the far edge of the six-yard box just like Dad.
It is a heartening thought that we will still be bright and active and smart when we are sixty - especially for me as I approach that age with a rapidity that still shocks me. I am looking forward to that.
But what made me think was the flip side. The fact that ninety is the new sixty. There will also be a huge increase in the proportion of the population that is ninety and these people will be old. Old like we used to think of sixty as being old. And while we all get excited about the prospect of seventy year-olds completing the Ironman triathlon, are we also stopping to think of what we will need to do as a society to look after the ninety year-olds?
I hope so. I intend to be one of those one day too.
We are so focused on youth and all the brilliance that that brings with it that we forget the richness of the old. Their knowledge, their wisdom, their strange hair and their mode of dress. I wonder how we harness all of this and how it will impact on the way that we develop marketing and advertising in the near future?
