White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 10Public relations and corporate communicationsAdriana Mavellia, President of the Services Group for Corporate Communication, AssolombardaCorporate communications and public relations make a twofold contribution to theeconomy of creativity: they are used in corporate advertising and in marketing, but havealso given rise to the communications consulting industry in addition to specificcompany departments.The communications industry supplies professional consulting and services throughagencies, integrated communications groups, professional studios, and individualconsultants who work through professional figures and employees with strongly inclinedto creativity either because of their educational background, ad hoc training or personalattitudes and skills.From this we can easily understand how the educational chain entails acquiring skills inschools and universities (specialist degrees, master’s degrees, professional courses, etc.).The second element of creativity acting within the communications groups and smallerentrepreneurial structures lies in the design of corporate strategies: creative projectsdevised to solve the problems of external and internal communications of clientcompanies. Here induced activities are generated by the supply chain of creativityspecialists who often act by checking the feasibility of the projects. On thecommunications users side (public and private enterprise), there can also be acontribution to the economy of creativity, albeit to a lesser degree, through someprofiles of company employees involved in communications management. Whenstrategies and projects are implemented by the companies it generates a long chain ofclassic creativity (design, <strong>paper</strong> products, video, installations, stage designs, objects) orinnovative forms of creativity (web, guerrilla advertising, etc.).Lastly, although more difficult to quantify, we should not underestimate the creativecontribution that corporate communicators make to company management, includingproducts and services as a company’s response to tuning into the requirements of societyand the market.Of course, including corporatecommunications in the framework ofcreativity applied to relational dynamicsin companies is well circumscribed bythe concept of “communicationalcompetence” which describes “the setof linguistic and extra-linguistic abilities(the latter of a social and semiotictype), and consolidates in them all thatis indispensable for efficient, effectivecommunication” (Morelli, 2003).Trends in public communicationsAdvertising it is not only concernedwith promoting the name of a brand.There is also a well structured sectorcalled public communications(Rolando, 2003), or communications ofpublic utility (Rolando, 2004) or alsonon-profit communications, including“the set of communications activitiesimplemented by a public or privateplayer to promote non-profit aims”WHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 243