We Don’t Appreciate the Gift of Creativity

Creativity. It’s good. Good for business. Good for building brands. Good for capturing attention. Good for winning advertising awards. But here’s a thought: maybe… just maybe, mind you, the benefits of creativity extend beyond its ability to drive effective advertising.

Maybe creativity is good for us in other ways?

Possibly?

And maybe the advertising industry should champion that?

That’s the thinking behind a partnership between London agency Uncommon Creative Studio and charity CREATE. CREATE was founded in 2002 by Nicky Goulder, a woman who believes that the arts and creativity can have a positive impact on the lives of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in society – a cause that resounded deeply with the team at Uncommon.

In adland, of course, creativity is a commodity to sell to clients – and creative education is championed in the context of the next generation of talent. But its benefits go much broader. “Creativity is being treated as if it’s only a commercial product and actually it has the ability to inspire far more than that,” says Uncommon co-founder and CEO Natalie Graeme. “At the World Economic Forum they’re all saying that creativity is going to be the third most important business skill, it’s great, but I think it goes even further than that.”

And that’s more than a hunch. There’s a wealth of psychological research that shows that the practice of creativity has a positive impact on mental well-being. One study from Dartmouth College showed that taking part in a drawing course helped students improve their ability to ‘think divergently’ (psychology speak for originality and the ability to think creatively) – and it even had an impact on the white matter in their prefrontal cortex. In other words it changed the brain.  Another shows that daily creative activities can lead to a more positive state of mind. The impact is particularly profound impact on people with mental health difficulties - research at a creative centre in Christchurch New Zealand established to help people cope with the aftermath of the earthquake that levelled the city found it helped them to develop resilience and to nurture more social connections. 

In the ad industry, when we talk about creativity having a positive social impact we are usually referring to creative campaigns built to tackle a particular issue or phenomenon. But the act of creation is in itself a social good. “It can help people use their imaginations to find their way out of problems or difficult periods in their life – and generally it helps raise the bar for the country,” says Natalie. “Obviously the UK is going through a difficult period at the moment, no one knows what’s going on with Brexit and you think… someone’s got to have an idea! That only comes from thinking laterally. And so it’s not just aboutd thinking that creativity has to be an artform or a commercial product - it can also be used to address so many of society’s ills.”

The Uncommon founders were first connected with CREATE during their year of gardening leave before launching the agency. A mutual friend from outside the industry realised that both organisations were passionate about harnessing the power of creativity – though were approaching that from markedly different perspectives. Seeing the work that Nicky and her team have been doing with vulnerable groups dealing with homelessness, mental health challenges, disability and such was, for Natalie, an experience that really re framed the importance of creativity.

“It made me realise how little we give back as an industry. I don’t think we realise how much of an opportunity we have to educate the whole of the UK about the power of creativity beyond its commercial power, and we don’t even do that well enough,” says Natalie.

Consider the fact that last year, 90% of secondary schools in the UK told the BBC that they were cutting back creative subjects due to funding pressures, it’s becoming harder for children and young people to experience the benefits of creativity. The situation isn’t much better across the pond, where arts agencies have suffered funding cuts at the hands of the Trump administration, and public schools have been rolling back their provision of art and music classes. The implications could be disastrous – not only from a creative talent perspective but on a societal level too. Therefore, reason the Uncommon team, it really is in all of our interests to champion the benefits of creativity – and those who have benefited from access to creative activities and experience should fight on behalf of those who have not.

The creative industries are perfectly positioned to lead this fight. “We are sitting on something , with creativity being our bread and butter. We have incredible connections. Collectively the industry has a lot of interesting minds and is able to cut across all of them, but we don’t often appreciate that gift,” says Natalie.

In order to help support the work that CREATE does, Uncommon will be hosting an art auction this week (Thursday 7th). There’s a live auction with a lot of lovely lots (try saying that after a few glasses of wine), including an original Ken Howard painting, VIP Chelsea tickets, and a 24-hour WeTransfer takeover. But you can also get involved online with the silent auction, where they will be selling art donated by the likes of Ben Eine and Mr Bingo. Uncommon have also created a pair of uncompromising billboards in London's Shoreditch challenging passers-by to reconsider the importance of creativity.

“This will hopefully raise some money on the night but there’s a wider message,” says Natalie. “We hope that people can understand the power of what they do every day to help society.”