Across our industry, whether it’s advertising, public relations or medical education, the word most often seen on a brief is surely ‘creative’. Of course, the work must also be on message, compliant, hit the right audience and blow the competition out of the water, but clients often expect creativity above all else.
But what exactly is creativity in healthcare communications? Colloquially, creativity implies something new, that looks or feels different from what went before. In our line of work, however, with its cycles of demand and delivery, agencies hit a certain comfort zone – earn a certain reputation – and clients come looking for a solution with their expectations already firmly set.
So how do we punch through these boundaries, to get back to that simple definition of creativity, and make something that truly stands out? How do we create something bold and vibrant, that uses all the power of original thought and unexpected delivery to make a disproportionate impact for our clients?
The best way to go about this is surely to bring together people with fresh perspectives. Ask yourself how you might enrol children in a clinical trial, help to understand and improve the patient treatment experience, or leverage the most recent clinical data to show an oncologist that treatments are evolving.
These problems are not the same, and it stands to reason that an agency with a single discipline focus might not be positioned to address each problem with the same range of creativity that each demands. Bringing together diverse minds, with unique yet complimentary backgrounds, ranging from designers to dermatologists, allows us to look at things from a fresh perspective, combine established industry knowledge with innovative ideas, apply solutions across disciplines, and challenge, question and refine the creative output.
Creativity exists not just in the delivery of a brief, but in its conception, planning and implementation. Bringing together a range of people from different cultural, educational and professional backgrounds, with experience in medical education, advertising, clinical trials and public relations, will create synergies that help to fill that blank space. A space from which a creative, impactful and well-communicated message can help to build healthier futures.
Julia Crawford is Associate Director at Publicis Resolute and Tom Wordley is Associate Creative Director at Publicis Life Brands
