We need data in PR

If creativity lets the PR industry down, then perhaps it’s time to bring data into the equation.

A study in The Holmes Report indicated that the PR industry isn’t as creative as we’d like to think; at Hotwire, we argue that data is the answer.

Does data have a negative impact on creativity in PR? Is it needed at all? What do we even mean by data?

It’s a debate that has been raised at multiple times across other sectors. In PR, however, the data concept is still relatively fresh.

Yet, over the past year, the number of senior appointments into related positions has been on the rise. With each month, there seems to be a new head of data, VP of insights and analytics, or director of data-driven strategy.

But what are we really talking about here? Are these senior hires — typically from customer insights roles at major corporations — the future or just a few figurehead positions until we work out what’s going on?

And let us not forget: aren’t we a creative industry at heart? We’re people-people; we don’t spend our days looking at numbers in darkened rooms.

At Hotwire, we wanted to explore the subject in its depth. We asked our friends, we spoke to people online, and we read relentlessly on the subject. This all came to a head with a debate we hosted, chaired by our very own Andy West, on what was more important: data or creativity.

Defining data and creativity

Mentions of big data in PR continue to grow, but for many, the references seem meaningless.

When Nate Silver announced the launch of FiveThirtyEight, he said that “big data has not yet translated into widespread gains in economic conditions, human welfare or technological growth.”

This doesn’t surprise me.

In fact, I would venture a guess that for most people, big data is still an abstract term, and why wouldn’t it be?

Forget the big part. Even ‘data’ is a term that seems to be open to different interpretations. Many see it in mathematical or scientific senses. Some see it in terms of numbers.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who see data as all information. Whether that’s a memory you have of a story you were once told, or it’s the results of a survey.

With all decisions we make or creative sparks we have, we factor in all those past experiences, as one of our debate’s participants and Brandwatch CMO Will McInnes alluded.

He’s not alone in this thinking:

“Each tree, drop of rain, and the path of each grain of sand, both responds to and creates millions of data points, even on a short journey. Nature is the original algorithm, the most efficient and powerful.” — Michael Pepi.

And if that’s how we are to define data, then the idea of creativity without data is impossible — for every experience that we’ve ever had, data will factor into the creative process.

Having thousands of collected experiences, handfuls of memories, and a few stats about what people like is one thing. But bringing those things together for any purpose requires creativity.

For many, there is an understanding that creativity holds close ties to art, whether that’s a painter, a songwriter, a novelist or a sculptor.

The issue with this is it helps reinforce the idea that there are “creative people.”

In my opening remarks in our debate, I retold a story that I had read in Jonah Lehrer’s Imagine: How Creativity Works. It was about Arthur Fry, who experienced a ‘eureka’ moment in coming up with the idea for the Post-it Note.

Creativity is achieved through many different ways by all types of people. When an idea comes to you, that idea comes as a result of all of your experiences until that point — which by Pepi’s definition would all be data.

Creativity is the ability to connect the dots between all the data you have access to.

These definitions may well be broad, but I think they are helpful when considering the use of data in PR.

For the beliefs of what a ‘creative person’ is, there is also the idea of a data person.

Prime Research CEO Richard Bagnall, who joined Will McInnes on the data side of our debate, explained these preconceptions during his opening remarks.

The differences, he said, have long been discussed. It’s the difference between the right brain and the left brain; the Type A and the Type B.

There is of course a minimum skill level required for data analysis — and those skills are likely to be favoured by the left brain people. Being able to use that data, however, does not require the same skill.

In the same way, I think it is dangerous to not separate the technical aspect of data and the use of it in day-to-day life.

There are the data gatherers and there are those who use it.

Learning from data use in other industries

In journalism, Nate Silver is attempting to blur the lines: bringing data people who can write well into the forefront with his publication, yet this has its problems. Timothy Egan’s recent New York Times op-ed talked through these problems in depth.

Egan also related to other industries and their over-reliance on data, talking about filmmaking:

“Nor could they produce an original film. Sure, they’ve tried. Most of Hollywood’s big budget, so-called tent-pole openings are the net result of exhaustive crunching of the elements of a hit. A robot can write a screenplay — about robots fighting one another! — that is just as effective at the box office as the fart-joke formula of an Adam Sandler movie. Before a major release, audiences are tested and polled, and producers fix and calibrate.”

In advertising, an industry which has used data for decades already, senior officials are now reporting a ‘creative deficit’ as a result of the over-reliance on data.

Our digital head, Peter Sigrist, who joined myself on the pro-creativity side of the debate, agreed with this problem in relying on data citing the development of the first digital camera.

Kodak created it in 1975, yet their data and research showed that they shouldn’t go ahead with it — in fear of hurting their film business. That data-informed decision cost them a lot.

And of course, the oft-quoted Henry Ford quote about faster horses springs to mind.

Yet the concept of ‘data’ here is being spoken of in a specific way: the explicit research that could have gone into product development, and not Pepi’s idea that data is everything.

Data and creativity in the PR industry

While there is a belief that data is everything, we haven’t been making use of it so far. For the most part, data in the PR industry is employed during the measurement process.

Thanks to the work of AMEC, the founding Barcelona Principles and the subsequent Valid Metrics Methodology, we’ve done well to start effectively measuring PR work.

Indeed the use of data to help define and measure against business outcomes is a significant step, compared to our ill-fated history with AVE. Yet, there is still a long way to go.

If data can be used to show the value of a particular PR campaign, then why on earth aren’t we using that data to a) inform strategy and b) see what else we can do with it?

Data-driven insight is going to put us in the position to do that, in the same way that advertising planners have done for decades. This is not the only possibility, and the future holds the potential for big data insights, where we target and segment audiences to the nth degree, providing each audience with exactly what they want.

Our instincts tells us that creativity is rooted in PR. Towards the end of 2013, however, The Holmes Report commissioned a global survey of PR people on the subject.

While 87% of in-house PR teams look for creativity, the industry doesn’t seem to be measuring up.

60% believe that the PR industry lacks big ideas.

74% don’t see an increase in creative output year-on-year.

And 47% believe our creativity to be “ordinary” with just 34% considering it to be “good”.

While advertising agencies were ranked five out of five for creativity, PR was ranked just above three.

The advertising comparison should be no surprise. At the Cannes Lions each year, we have always under-performed compared to our advertising counterparts. And yet so frequently have I overheard conversations, thinking that such judgements are unjust.

Is it that perhaps we’re not as creative as we like to think we are? And if that’s the case, where does that leave us with data?

The future

I believe that we are as creative as our instinct tells us. I also believe that data is absolutely critical to the future of this industry.

Might I posit that the reason our creativity lets us down is because we aren’t using enough data?

Our ideas are only as good as information and data we have experienced until that point. And so we should do everything we can to bring more experience into the fold.

The separate personality types and skillsets are an easy problem to solve. Having a team of specialists that look after insights feeding into the creative brainstorm is surely the future.

Our audience at our debate was roughly split 50:50 in picking a side between creativity and data. There was no vocal disagreement with the conclusion, however: that we need both to create the best work.

If data is every possible experience or moment that’s ever happened, then the analysis of that data will provide the backdrop for our creative work to blossom.

I welcome the moment in a few decades time when a senior figure has to voice their concern about our own over-reliance on data — because it is better than an alternative when we ignore it altogether.

Written by Joshua Lachkovic.

If you would like to find out more about what we do, you can visit our website or drop us an email — we’d love to hear from you.