Even when persistent overuse and empty application conspire to rob you of all meaning, the transformative impact of genuine business creativity has never been more important. It’s the difference between cutting-edge campaigns and humdrum marketing, between genuine innovation and copycat mediocrity. In short, it’s the not-so-secret ingredient behind every great marketing and PR initiative.
Three years ago, the ‘Holmes Report’ and ‘Now Go Create’ set out to explore whether the public relations industry is truly creative enough to meet the demands of the 21st century. Our findings have shown a significant gap between rhetoric and reality, among an industry that often talks about creativity, but has struggled to make sure it’s paying more attention to the idea.
Encouragingly, the 2015 “PR Creativity” study suggests that things are changing rapidly. The findings indicate that creativity is increasingly seen as a central element in organizational culture, rather than being seen solely in terms of creative output. More resources are being devoted to creativity. Creative confidence is high.
And clients are more likely than ever to turn to PR agencies for great branding ideas. These demands are clear across the board, with many of the respondents noting that consumer brands typically place the highest priority on creativity.
What drives great work?
There are great case studies that validate that creative ideas are more effective; Volvo Trucks’ ‘Epic Split’ campaign won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Effectiveness or Always #LikeAGirl, the year’s most awarded PR campaign, generating measurable sales results for P&G.
And when it comes to what drives great work, integrated content and ideas are emerging as two of the key areas where the PR industry needs to step up its game. While there is considerable change in customer demand for creativity, some themes are clear, specifically a demand for better creativity applied to content (19%), embedded ideas (17%), knowledge/planning (16%) and storytelling (15%).
Storytelling (83.5%) continues to rank as the biggest influencer on creative PR work, but brand transparency (53%) and visual communication (52%) have made significant gains compared to last year. Social good (49%) also emerges as an important influence, even as digital-driven trends like wearable technology appear to be losing importance.
Storytelling (71%) also retains its top position as a driver of great PR work, ahead of insight/planning (57%), emotional resonance (47%) and content creation (38%). ). The increases by purpose (21%) and results (14%) stand out.
Investment concerns and talent challenges, but all is not rosy in the garden of PR creativity. Concerns still persist. Techniques for generating and evaluating creative ideas are still evolving and, perhaps most importantly, the challenge of creative talent remains the thorniest of all.
Respondents were also asked to compare the quality of creativity in the public relations industry with other disciplines. Interestingly, clients seem optimistic: More than 30% think that the PR industry’s creativity is better than that of ad agencies, and similar positive results were also recorded against digital, media, experiential and experience agencies. contents.
Budget remains the biggest barrier to creativity in PR, ahead of customer feedback or risk aversion. Meanwhile, when asked about three things that would help them be more creative, respondents again noted “improved use of perception,” rising from 33% to 40% this year. Almost as important is the ‘ability to take more risks’ (38%). ‘More budget’ and ‘educating customers’ rank the same third, while clearer customer summaries are also important.
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