What pops into your mind when someone says “PR people”?
Plain shirt? Dark jacket? Trousers? High heels? (For the women, of course). Perhaps just your ordinary businesspeople.
Same old, boring, with thumbs up. Sometimes with heavy makeup. Picture belongs to 123rf.com
But what if I tell you that PR people are actually far from plain, and that we are creative people in disguise?
No, don’t roll those eyes. I’m being serious, here!
While it’s true that some (most) PR practitioners do their best to lay low, play it safe, avoiding controversial subjects and remarks (if that’s not boring, I don’t know what is), everything we do actually involves a creative process. Remember, there are thousands of brands out there and hundreds of media events held each day. How could we win a certain media’s attention if it’s not for our creative effort?
I’m not talking about the visually creative type of people because some of us clearly lack the skill when it comes to visual creation.
I’m talking about creativity in other forms of art: the art of human relations and the art of wordsmithing. Whether it’s sending out media invitations along with a set of superhero-decorated cupcakes, building relationship by sending out a motorcycle-shaped cake, or even taking our journalist friends to lunch with no reason at all (why most of our methods are related to food is a mystery in itself), I believe that all efforts made in creating a good relationship with each and every one, whether our journalist friends or our clients, are part of the creative process.
And it’s more than that. We do more than just making ourselves loved among our peers, clients, and journalists. If one picture can speak a thousand words, most of the time we only have words to play with. In our black-and-white world of paper and ink, we are the poets. We project our company’s (and client’s) thoughts on a single piece of paper. We clearly need creativity to be able to convey those messages well, considering the limited space, as well as the reader’s limited time and interest. Nobody has the time to read a self-boasting, irrelevant piece of sheet (pun intended).
Of course, there’s more to a PR job than being pretty, inviting and handling the media, and writing press releases. I’d love to talk more about this next time.
But, back to the question above, are PR people creative? I’d say yes and a thousand time yes.
