Following the renowned Cannes Lions Festival, PR got blamed by the judges for a lack of ‘big ideas’ and ‘a failure of creativity’. Whilst it was acknowledged that Cannes did not recognise PR’s more subtle services such as stakeholder relations and crisis management, the world of advertising was deemed to hold a stronger reputation for creativity.
My personal feelings on this are that as an industry we need to be fighting against this perception that we have been tarnished with and demonstrate that we are as creative, indeed potentially more so due to the limited budgets we so often have to work with. In fact, according to PR Week (7th September issue), PR agencies deliver the best creative ideas most often, compared to advertising, digital and marketing teams. That’s according to the seventh annual PR Week/Brands2Life Comms Directors Survey which was carried out during July 2012.
As a PR and marketing agency we are continually working on developing our creative culture and as a business we understand the value of setting time aside for creativity. PR professionals are notoriously curious individuals and there is a real need to get out and experience things. Being in an environment which stimulates creativity is what often sparks creative ideas; everyone knows how difficult it is to continually come up with creative ideas if you are tied to your desk. While we don’t have the luxury to take time out of the office every day of the week, we do try to make sure every team member has time away from their desk and we always hold creative brainstorms in a relaxed environment.
A lack of creativity is often blamed on a lack of time and while this can have a big impact, it is down to PR professionals to make time. It could be taking 10 minutes out at the start of the day to think about a client’s needs before you open your emails or when you are making a round of tea, ask your colleagues to spare five minutes to input into a particular campaign or strategy you are working on, in return for a good brew. Creative thinking can be worked into the busiest of PR offices if we all think outside the box.
Without doubt PR professionals are expected to do a bit of everything in their roles and this is actually of huge benefit – dipping in and out of such a variety of different tasks, gives us a much wider understanding of the business and industry in question. Use these experiences as catalysts for creativity. Every task and problem we are presented with offers an opportunity to learn and develop our creativity.
Something that PR professionals need to do to ensure creativity is seen to be one of their strengths is to be braver about ideas and stop them from getting watered down. All too often PRs will come up with a number of creative suggestions which are just that little bit more daring than is often seen and when they present them to a client who doesn’t immediately take to the idea, they begin to water it down or change it, losing the power and strength of the concept.
While we are very open and encourage the discussion and moulding of our ideas with our client (this is usually when the best ideas solidify and can begin to be worked up), we always ensure we are 100% satisfied with the ideas we present and have taken the time to research how the idea would work and what results we could expect.
The ideas we present that initially can seem a little ‘wacky’ or ‘out of the box’ are in fact well thought out suggestions which will achieve business goals, increase awareness and influence customers. It is then at this stage when we can fine tune the ideas to ensure we are all in agreement and set to work on making these ideas realities.
One area we are currently working on as a PR and marketing agency is looking at how we can improve our presentation of ideas. Often PR agencies have the ideas but the time required to present these carefully thought up ideas isn’t considered. Mood boards are often used by advertising companies when presenting ideas and there is no reason why PR agencies shouldn’t use similar methods. With digital being a significant part of PR this too is a method worth considering and is significantly more impressive than yet another Powerpoint presentation.
Finally, to really prove that PR isn’t a failure of creativity, PR professionals must ensure that they challenge briefs presented to them by prospective clients that only talk about media coverage. Briefs that focus solely on obtaining column inches are incredibly limiting to the creativity of PRs and most notably, gaining column inches alone doesn’t always result in increasing leads and business.
To show the depth of creativity that PRs are capable of delivering, strategic planning, structured campaigns, building relationships, exploring new publicity avenues and an awareness and understanding of social media are essential. Gaining column inches is a very small part of what PRs should be providing for their clients and if we are to prove the judges at Cannes Lions Festival wrong, then we need to demonstrate this in each and every aspect of our roles.
