PR: creativity is fundamental

For many years, creativity was reserved for advertising and advertising agencies. It took a while for creative-centric festivals such as Cannes Lions or ADC to introduce a category specifically for PR projects and campaigns. Why creativity is fundamental in PR is explained by Achtung! CEO and Founder Mirko Kaminski in this interview.

First off: how important does it continue to be for an agency today to win awards for their work?

Well, it’s more important than ever! In Germany, there are around 30,000 agencies. Yes, 30,000!!! As an agency, you have to stand out, be eye-catching and unique if you want to be noticed by potential clients and possible recruits and ever have a chance. Awards are helpful in this respect. They attest to the creativity of an agency and its ability to perform. The TÜV label is not much different. After all, juries are also independent and objective like TÜV. And another thing: hardly anything else is able to bring together an agency team and the respective client’s team as much as the moment when they are on the stage together to accept an award for a successful joint project. This leads to the client then asking: “So, what’s next?” And this is extremely valuable for the customer relationship and its development.

Achtung! is an agency family with a PR DNA. Which role does creativity play in PR today?

The answer is clear: a leading role! The competition to gain attention has grown immensely. Only the things that are special, surprising and inventive will ever actually be noticed by people. Regardless of internal communication, external communication, employer branding or, for instance, sustainability communication – you always have to ask how you can communicate your cause in a remarkable way. If it doesn’t stand out, it won’t get noticed. People scroll hundreds of metres using their thumb and on their smartphone every day – and sometimes even kilometres across channels, media and content today. Only something special leads to the thumb taking a pause. And this is the task of us agencies: to create scroll stoppers – not only reaching people on behalf of companies and brands, but also to move and mobilise them. This makes it nearly irrelevant if you as an agency focus on advertising, PR, social media or, for instance, content marketing. Everything has grown together anyways.

So there’s a connection between creativity and impact?

Of course! And this connection is becoming more and more apparent. The EFFIE Gala recently took place in Leipzig. When it comes to the EFFIE, a high-calibre jury distinguishes the campaigns with the highest proven impact. What’s noticeable is that over the past few years, campaigns and projects are the ones winning more and more EFFIEs, whereas before they were winning creative awards – such as at the ADC Festival or Cannes Lions Festival. This shows that creativity is making a huge impact! Today, we need creativity and creative ideas more than ever to ignite an effect. Simply – like in the past – by sharing information in a press release, for instance, or filling advertising spaces sold with replaceable content just doesn’t cut it anymore. Yes, even in the area of internal communication do you have to come up with something special today to reach employees and take them along on the journey. The employee app can, after all, be found immediately next the TikTok, Instagram or WhatsApp apps on the smartphone.

Has this development then also changed agencies with a PR DNA?

Yes. Twenty years ago, there was hardly an agency that had strategists and creatives. PR consultants did these jobs more or less. But this is not enough anymore and doesn’t work today. For campaigns that make a maximum impact, you need strong insights for each – which is what specialised strategists are responsible for – and a strong creative idea that conjures up lots of emotion. And you need specialised creatives for such ideas. A remarkable idea can earn visibility and attention, which could otherwise be purchased for lots of money. Creativity creates buzz and earned media, while a budget without a creative idea can only buy paid media.

You often talk of “storydoing” in this context. What does that mean?

There are times when companies and brands first have to do something remarkable before they have something exciting to tell. They have to create something amazing, do something impressive, produce something special so that this something is reported on and talked about. This goes beyond storytelling. The Sun Warning Flag project, which we realised together with HeimatTBWA\ for Deutsche Krebshilfe, is a good example of this. Of course, you can warn about the dangers of intensive sunbathing using a press release and via the media. But you can also create a unique and completely new flag which warns about the strong UV radiation at the beaches. The latter is storydoing. Such a holistic, new warning flag at the beach simply leads to more reporting, more talks and more curiosity.