Since when was I not creative?

It happened again yesterday, in a conversation with a headhunter. 

I’d asked if it was worth my sending in a CV because I saw they were after freelancers. 

“Probably not,” she replied. “We only really deal with creatives.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, designers, web designers, artworkers. That sort of thing. Not copywriters.”

I first noticed this curious distinction creeping in at certain kind of DM agency four or five years ago. I’d get harassed Account Directors standing over my desk asking me to “come up with a couple of headlines and a para or two” so one of the ‘creatives’ could drop them into the layout.

Since then, it seems to have spread like a rash through the industry. 

Maybe the creative team is a thing of the past in a Project Managed, social media marketing age.

Or perhaps, like the lumbering land based ancestors of the whales, writers are actually de-evolving and sliding back into the warm, primeval waters of the copy pool.

Bernbach would be turning in his grave. 

Personally though, I’d rather take my chances in the swamp than a world in which any Mac monkey who can slap down a spread in the Screwfix catalogue is feted as  ‘creative’ while the wordsmiths don’t get a look in.