First off, here’s a reminder of point eight of our own #MoMaMa:

We believe we need creativity just as much as we need technology. We need storytelling just as much as we need data. We believe in the power of emotions and the irrational just as much as the rational.

If our marketing is to be modern we need the passion, creativity and craftsmanship of the right brain just as much as the analysis and logic of the left brain.

The digital age is providing increasingly ubiquitous access to everything. In this context we need innovation and creativity in our product and service design, as well as our marketing, to make an impression.

The Creative Manifesto

Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), the UK charity initially funded by the National Lottery, has set some practical goals with its manifesto.

Nesta seeks to identify what ‘policymakers, educators, businesses and regulators need to do to ensure that the UK’s creative economy thrives in the coming decade’.

The manifesto sets out a ten point plan for bolstering the fast growing creative economy at a time when digital is disrupting many well-established business models.

Some of the salient points are run-down below. Geoff Mulgan, CEO of Nesta, writes in the foreword to the manifesto:

..digital revolution is now very much underway, and almost certainly accelerating…It demands a radical rethink of policies far beyond the traditional boundaries of the arts, encompassing everything from schools to competition policy.

Availability of risk-free funding, incentives for innovation, education to address a skills gap, and leadership from publicly-funded ‘powerhouses’ such as the BBC will be the keys to the UK maintaining its position in this sector.

Top priorities highlighted by Nesta. Where policy refreshment is urgent:

  • Ensure that the next generation of the internet is truly open. Creative economy markets should be well supervised by competition authorities that can act speedily and effectively upon concerns about market abuse
  • All teenagers should have the opportunity to learn creative skills – e.g. designing apps, and games, and experience the fusion of tech with art, maths, science and the humanities.
  • Policy tools (tax relief to procurement rules) to incentivise innovation should be adapted to the creative economy.
  • Publicly funded powerhouses in UK should make the most out of the next generation of digital technology.

Salient points for the digital industry

  • R&D tax relief proposed to be made more accessible to creative businesses.
  • Regulations should help the development of financial internet platforms (such as crowdfunding sites).
  • The treasury and DCMS should undertake a broad-based assessment of the value of public arts and cultural spending in UK, drawing upon similar work on the natural environment.
  • Funders should incentivise experimentation with digital technologies by arts and cultural organisations and allocate a sustained % of resources to digital R&D. The BBC should publish in 2013 a strategy to reflect its Digital Public Purpose.
  • Ofcom should be given powers to gather information in all internet markets to work towards a truly open internet.
  • UK copyright rules and exceptions should be re-balanced. Increased and more efficient rights licensing transactions.
  • Schools digital pledge to ensure curriculum is brought up to date.

Nesta was founded in 1998, meaning it’s ideally placed to look at the impact of the commercial internet over its lifespan. The context to its manifesto is given as the UK having developed World-leading industries previously, in chemicals and steel, to name two, then losing these to Germany and the US.

The UK’s success in creative content, fuelled by public policy and public service broadcasting, as well as our widely spoken language, could now be threatened.

Despite 2.5m jobs in creative industries (growing four times as fast as the workforce as a whole), business models are in danger if they aren’t adapted to take account of, in the not distant future, the internet of things, wearable computers and big data.

At the same time, digital is lowering the barriers to entry into creative markets through services such as Amazon’s S3, and businesses can more widely take up progressive business models such as the freemium model. 

Are you a creative business? What do you consider to be your threats and opportunities? What sub-points should be included in the creative section of Econsultancy’s Modern Marketing Manifesto?