PR Doesn’t Have a Creativity Problem

It has a fear problem

One of the most common laments about the PR industry is that we’re creatively dry. But, that’s not our problem.

There’s enough talent around to provide ideas for every client who ever wants them. What we have is a fear problem.

We rule out boundary pushing ideas before they even make it to the client. Why? Because we’re scared they’ll be rejected.

Experience bears this out. We’ve lost more pitches than I care to count over the last 18 months where prospects could find nothing to criticise.

We lost them because the client is looking for something safe. Our approach is rejected as “too creative”.

Whenever this happens our instinct next time is to deliver what we think the client wants to hear — something they’ll find comfortable.

Every time we do this we dig our grave a tiny bit deeper.

I’m lucky enough to be working with a few clients who aren’t afraid to try something new. In the the words of one they’re looking for “ideas which make them feel sick”.

But, these are still by and large rare, so whose fault is this creative monotony?

Clients who say they want to be pushed creatively, but then feedback that you lost a pitch because they opted for the safe option? Or who say they love your ideas, but their boss just wants another whitepaper.

Or agencies, who allow ourselves to self-censor and only ever end up offering our clients more of the same.

The clichéd, easy response would be to say don’t work with clients who don’t want creative work.

But, that’s just passing the buck.

The only way the PR industry will thrive in a creative sense is if we get better at proving the impact of creative work. All the ideas in the world won’t save us if we can’t.

And that needs to be an impact beyond pieces of coverage. We need to prove tangible outcomes — ideally leads or sales. Failing that, we need to learn from advertising and showcase our impact on brand recognition or affinity.

Every creative idea we pitch should be accompanied by the impact we expect it to have and how we’ll achieve it.

We don’t right now because we’re afraid of doing something different and even more scared of being held accountable for it.

Until we get over this fear we’ll always appear to have a creativity problem. The challenge for everyone working in PR is simple — how do we marry creativity with measurable results? Answer that and we’ll never complain about the industry lacking creativity again.