• by Jack Feuer , March 17, 2009

Folks, it is way past time that media agencies hire creatives, make their scribbling and sketching a secondary part of the agency offering, lock them in the back of the office and joke with clients during communications planning meetings that "there's five minutes left, do you want to go to lunch or look at the creative?"

Yes, this is that column.

I was going to riff on my Gen X colleague complaining about Facebook -- "I don't want to throw sheep at you" -- or write a wild-eyed, nasty screed about yesterday's obscene "Twitterview" between George Stephanopoulos and John McCain. But then I read an interview with a big-agency creative team. Doesn't matter who they are or which shop they're at, if you read enough of these things -- by Crom, I have -- they all sound the same.

I expected arch jokes and false modesty designed to showcase the duo's wonderfulness, and there was plenty o' that. But then I came to the part where they claim there's nothing creative about media, compared to the immortal art they produce.

You know, I'd have been surprised if I hadn't read that, since I've heard it so often. Maybe this was just the snark that broke the camel's back. For whatever reason, though, I lost it.

Like a creative knows how a media plan is put together or how it's activated. Creatives don't know anything about anything except typefaces, taglines and trashing their office.

There are many reasons why these walking, talking affectations have become water-carriers for brighter members of the marketing communications community. But their failure to appreciate or respect any other aspect of the business, let alone learn about it and how it relates to what they provide (despite their tiresome claims that they do), is the biggest.

Your typical creative director is like Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, sitting high in the saddle like a Latino Lee Garfinkel, serene in his fabulousness, as his troops assemble outside the Alamo.

The Napoleon of the West will win the battle in a little over an hour. But he'll lose the war. And he will be bitch-slapped by history, which will be written by the Texicans who defeat him -- the media agencies in this tortured analogy.

These are the same creatives who, 10 years after losing the unbundling war, still crankily contend that they should control strategic media planning -- at least. Good luck with that.

Mexico isn't getting the Alamo back, kids.

Media agency executives should be doing interviews where they observe that a fourth-grader could write a sandwich commercial, but it takes real talent to craft a communications plan. I mean a real plan, not a gimmick like putting your little car on top of a bigger car and paying someone to drive it around.

Or they could note that any schmuck can shoot a Web ad, but you need real creative firepower to develop a media buy that nimbly navigates a landscape that's more minefield than marketplace. And no, paying someone to sit on a bar stool and boost your beer doesn't count.

People, you won the war. Seize the spoils.

Convince your clients it's time you took control of -- at a minimum -- digital creative. Then fight to steadily add more messaging responsibilities.

And remember the Alamo.