Location, location, location, they say. Well, some folks are currently located on my lawn and need to move.
Also, this week, I moved from the interior pages of Advertising Age, where I reviewed ad campaigns, to the primo real estate on the back page, where I can write about a broader range of topics. (I also got a cover line.) This is both exciting (for me) and frightening (for everyone else involved).
The back page! I’m a back-pager. When I do pick up print magazines these days (yes, I’m part of the problem), the back page is the first page I turn to. It tells me a lot of things about a magazine — and it’s often where they’ll put the funny or weird or interesting stuff. Outdoor Life, for example, had Pat McManus there for decades (maybe they still do). EW puts its bulls-eye there. Runners World has been putting “Why I run” interviews with celebrities and politicians and interesting professionals (but lately seems to have decided on random person that a staffer in New York thought was cool). The Atlantic had a funny word column for a long time, then a funny advice column. Now it’s got an unfunny and mostly ridiculous “One Question” (What was the most important book of all time?) answered by luminaries and academics.
Simon “The Media Guy” Dumenco was nailing down that Ad Age page for the last few years but he got promoted right out of the job and into meetings 24 hours a day. So I get it.
My first topic? Millennials. I didn’t plan on that. God knows the world doesn’t need one more word on the topic. But it was also our 40 Under 40 issue, so I figured I’d do something about the yewts. And I came up with a point of view that anyone who reads me regularly might find surprising.
Millennials are getting older. They’re getting married, having babies and moving out of mommy’s house. And it turns out they’re just people.
Read it! Don’t read it! See if I care!
KEN WHEATON 