PR industry recognises importance of creativity, but lacks big ideas: study

Titled 'Creativity in PR: A Global Study', the report (available in PDF form, or below) is based on a worldwide survey of more than 600 people in 35 countries. Respondents included agency and in-house and a diverse a range of industries and sectors covering consumer, corporate, healthcare, technology, digital and public affairs practices. 

The report found that just 6 per cent of respondents labelled PR-industry creativity as "inspirational", while one in 10 described creativity as "unsatisfactory" and 6 per cent said it was "poor" or "non-existent".

The PR professionals surveyed acknowledged the importance of creativity (95 per cent) and consider themselves to be creative individuals (89 per cent). So why is the industry not delivering more creativity? Popular answers included a lack of time (65 per cent), overworked staff (37 per cent) and a lack of clear creative objectives that hampers personal and organisational creativity (33 per cent). 

Asia-Pacific respondents viewed the industry's creativity in a worse light than those in North America. Among Asia-Pacific respondents, only 37 per cent see PR creativity as "good’ or "inspirational", while 20 per cent find it "unsatisfactory" or worse. The corresponding numbers in North America were 51 per cent and 11 per cent. 

Other findings:

• 42 percent of businesses don’t reward or incentivise creativity.
• 35 percent don’t use any specific interview methods to assess creativity in potential employees.
• 40 percent of clients said their agencies could do better when it came to their creative capabilities.
• Just 16 percent were consistently happy with these capabilities
• 23 percent said they were not happy with their firm’s creative capabilities.