The advertising industry is amuck with Millennials, like myself. Yet, without age knowledge, can you find us in your sea of employees? In contract to my colleague Kelly Eidson's article regarding the advantages of youth, I feel a Millennial must blur her age to succeed. We live in an oxymoronic world wherein agencies value Millennials' ability to fuel digital advertising growth yet do not trust us with their strategic checkbook. Americans associate business intellect with age. The greater your age, the greater your business intellect and vice versa. As the oldest of my generation start to assume management positions, we feel our success depends upon our ability to appear to be young and uncharactically tech saavy Gen-X account manager rather than an old but slightly less managerially experienced Millennial.

Few people want to tell their client that a 26-year-old is manging their account, regardless of that persons' education and experience. We use Wizard of Oz tactics to conceal ourselves behind the veils of technology. It is more difficult to detect an account managers' age if they are never seen. Yet we cannot remain that way forever. Managers meet clients. Clients, colleagues, and classmates would almost always jokingly ask 'how old are you?' upon meeting me. Despite the positive financial/brand impact that Millennials' digital advertising skills brings, the age/experience correlation is a dial which will take much longer for the industry to change.

As a result, advertising agencies need to train us on how to position our youth to our clients. Advertising agencies also need to support us and push us into the spotlight. We aren't just any account managers. We are Millennial account managers. We are helping to drive a digital revolution and your advertising account checkbook and strategy couldn't be in more capable hands.