Call for collaborative creativity
pharmafile | November 14, 2011 | Feature | Medical Communications |
Ever since clients started contracting work out to consultancies, marketing professionals on both sides of the arrangement have been seeking creativity and innovation.
The desire to do something a bit different, a bit clever and attention-grabbing goes back to the pioneer of public relations Edward Bernays who used an early version of flash-mobbing to attract women customers to buy Lucky Strike cigarettes in 1920s New York.
Permission to engage in such a creative fashion was as hard to get then as it is now, but arguably such innovation is more important currently in healthcare communications than ever before.
Our clients, whether they are pharmaceutical companies communicating to healthcare professionals or consumer companies communicating directly to the public, work in a highly-competitive, fast-changing market place which is becoming increasingly tough.
Our audiences have seen more, understand more and expect more. It is no longer enough to be better; companies have to be different.
Innovation is now seen as the key to organisations’ health and survival. Communications plays a vital role in creating and implementing innovative programmes, which differentiate brands and companies and benefit stakeholders.
For consultancies, the competition is also strong and therefore the same principle applies – we have to find new ways of addressing the changing needs of our clients.
Of course there’s always a danger of agencies being creative for creativity’s sake. There has to be a clear return. In certain situations, a tried and tested approach may well do the job. But without innovation, we’ll never see how we can improve the approach and enhance the results.
It is important to create an environment that encourages well thought-through experiments – to aid the learning process, and confidence to acknowledge if something isn’t working and quickly change approach.
At the same time it’s important to keep a firm eye on costs – too often the creative `blue sky’ idea is also the most expensive and so is dismissed quickly on these grounds alone. Sometimes it’s a question of looking beyond the activity to the wider effects of the programme and calculating – in real terms – the value of what we are doing. As well as asking the question: what happens if we do this? It is also worth considering the question: what happens if we don’t?
So how do you balance creativity with risk management especially in the highly-regulated environment of pharmaceutical PR? There are two ways to achieve this firstly through genuine collaboration; and secondly by coaching individuals to think through the benefit to risk ratio of each idea and situation for themselves.
By creating an environment in which people feel their ideas are valued and that creativity is worth pursuing you empower people to challenge assumptions which can be a major barrier to success and growth.
This approach was summarised by Ed Catmull, President, Pixar Animation Studios, in a Harvard Business Review article on values. All Pixar’s stories and characters are created internally by their community of artists. They never buy ideas from outside the company.
“While I’m not foolish enough to predict that we will never have a flop, I don’t think our success is largely luck. Rather, I believe our adherence to a set of principles and practices for managing creative talent and risk is responsible. Pixar is a community in the true sense of the word. We think that lasting relationships matter, and we share some basic beliefs: Talent is rare. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur. It must be safe to tell the truth. We must constantly challenge all of our assumptions and search for the flaws that could destroy our culture.”
Collaboration means that individuals work as part of effective teams to ensure any risk is fully understood and the most beneficial, ethical course of action is taken. And while this approach can be adopted internally in consultancies it is at its most effective when the in-house client team and their external agencies work as one.
Well thought-through, creative communications programmes can help unlock the potential of any situation. By taking this collaborative approach to creativity, agencies develop individuals who are both able to think for themselves, as well as work within a team to ensure that excellence is delivered every time.
By Catherine Oliver, Managing Director of the Red Door Communications
Catherine Oliver is managing director of Red Door Communications and can be contacted at coliver@rdcomms.com or see our company profile here
