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| Source - upload.wikimedia.org |
Imagine
you’re competing in a dance competition. You have practiced all the new moves
you choreographed, thinking that it would definitely ‘wow’ the judges. You focused
on creativity for your training throughout, thinking less about the purpose of
you competing in the first place – to get to first place.
Now,
to get first place, creativity wouldn’t suffice. Getting first place depends on
a number of factors, namely your entry into the competition, the fee you have
to pay, the rules and regulations, terms and conditions, etiquette on stage,
sportsmanship, and your presentation as a whole. If you wowed the judges with
your creative moves but ended up being turned down, what does this suggest? You
might have omitted something crucial in regards to entering the competition;
you might have wrongly addressed the judges, or the judges might have realised
a certain criteria you failed to meet, or others were simply better? Due to
these, you ended up giving a superb performance but failed to reach the main outcome
you want – winning. What’s more, you have invested a lot of time and energy to
develop your moves but wind up not getting anything in return except for a
short moment of fame. In business terms, you failed to get return on investment
(ROI).
.
Creativity is
great, but ROI comes from results – Hemant Batra
Hemant
Batra of Campaign Asia recently gave interesting insights on creativity in PR,
and how it relates to ROI. He highlighted that traditionally, PR has been
associated with media coverage, with some of today’s senior PR practitioners
considering PR as 80 percent media coverage and 20 percent non-media
activities.
The
concept of PR has evolved over the last decade said Hermant. PR consultants nowadays
discuss about the differences among earned, owned and paid media, and the
importance of having an integrated campaign to amplify earned media so as to
maximise ROI.
The
definition of earned media has expanded to creative content creation. In the same
way an appropriate piece of content can reach audience because of its viral
elements, those same elements can also be found in other mode of communication,
be it in an advert, video, game, or social media post. With this, PR agencies
are somehow being threatened by advertising agencies, in view of the fact that
adverts with interesting concepts are actually capable of ‘earning media’; which
consequently allow them to get a ROI much beyond the amount spent. Earned
media, to say it subtly, is not exclusive to PR anymore.
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| Source - www.threegirlsmedia.com |
In
the PR world, creativity is perceived in high regards regardless, but it only
serves as a means to an end, not an overall approach. In undertaking PR works,
the aim should be to achieve client objectives through effective communications,
and not solely through creativity, or else a case like the figurative dance
competition above would transpire. In the words of Hemant, to achieve the objectives,
many times we have to undertake a lot of routine work – formulating an
effective message, identifying new angles, finalising an appropriate delivery
channel to the reach the target audience and achieve brilliant outcomes. The
routine tools, I wish to highlight, are the very elements we should focus on as
it would help us reach the end goal, and the best PR campaign is the one which
has both ingredients: a good creative idea with a strong focus on achieving the
required outcome.
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