Creativity is a concept which is considered as fundamental in strategic communication, but is this taken into account within the research and practice of PR?
It’s not easy for me to define the concept “creativity” (original, novel, different, uncommon…?) Isn’t it an ability that all human beings have? We are all probably creative in some aspect of our life, simply because of the fact of thinking: experimenting with new ingredients for a dish, decorating our bedroom in an unique way, trying to surprise our partner… all our knowledge mixed with a little of inventiveness, as we all know, could conclude in astonishing results (as long as it satisfies what we actually desire). Authors such as Guilford tries to define the concept in the best way they can.
Connecting advertising with creativity is logical: the client raises a problem to an advertising agency and the agency, with its department and creative professionals, give him a solution that must be creative because of two principal reasons:
- An audience that is overwhelm because of the quantity of information
- Media full of competitors that try to communicate its products and services
What happens with PR? Aren’t we having the same problems when we plan the communication campaigns? Of course! The connection between creativity and the PR professional isn’t obvious at first. This is because before being trained in psychology, social or human sciences, he or she is considered as a strategist and expert in theories, structures or business models.
From my point of view, creativity has to be considered a fundamental factor in the planning of tactics. News releases and hosting events, such as dinners, are no longer relevant due to saturation and competition being so intense. However, several successful examples of the use of creativity in PR can be found. For instance: the winner of the new category of “Best PR Campaign” in the Cannes Lions 2009 competition: Tourism Queensland, “The Best job in the World".
I agree that creativity is a vital skill for PR students and practitioners to do their tasks successfully. This is why PR practitioners tend to be forced on solving their tasks with either low budgets or limited resources. As we have learned, when we write news releases, the information must contain “news”. Creating news is not as easy as we think.
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ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDelete“Advertising is Uncreative. PR is creative.” This is the name of a chapter in the book: “The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR” by Al and Laura Ries.
According to them, “creativity does not belong in the advertising department; creativity belongs in the PR department. PR needs to be original in the sense that it needs to position products or services as new and different. ‘All News that’s fit to print’, as claimed by the New York Times.
“The Times, along with other media outlets, doesn’t want to write about better products or services. They want to write about “what’s new”. This means, what is original, what’s different, what’s creative.
“The task of PR is to take the latest product improvement and with a generous dose of creativity turn it into something really new and different.”
(I also quoted The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR by Al and Laura Ries in my blog, “When the photo becomes the story.”)