Stellar Concepts latest PR agency to appoint creative director
Public relations firm Stellar Concepts has appointed Henry Biggs as its new creative and content director.
Biggs has previously worked across public relations, journalism and advertising, having recently moved to Australia from the United Kingdom.
“We now have a never-before opportunity for brands to engage in a two-way dialogue directly with its customers. It is only PR companies that have the communications experience to start those conversations and create, build and manage relationships,” said Biggs.
“Digital and social platforms mean that earned media has huge consumer confidence and engagement so it makes sense that PR agencies take the creative lead and develop the strategy and messaging across all the communications channels that prompts people to Tweet, Share and Like.”
Australian PR agencies are increasingly moving to appoint creative directors. Recently leading PR agency One Green Bean became the first major PR agency to appoint an executive creative director, with founder Kat Thomas moving into the role last month.
Nic Christensen
Couldn’t agree more with Henry’s comments regarding PR people as having the right skill set and experience to manage content and conversation in social channels. Kat’s movement into a more creative role just demonstrates how different we are from advertising suits; how creative we must be in order to succeed. Before her new role she grew an agency of epic reputation in record time.
PR executives must be both great at client facing (winning business) AND deliver creative ideas. Oh, and we also must be hyper aware of consumers reactions because we already know if there’s fall out it’ll be ours to manage. So proud of our craft and hope this new trend further highlights to other agencies types and clients the value we do, can and will continue to add in the creative space.
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Creative value has previously been handed over by PR’s as just something they do.
It’s great to see that with the movement of appointing creative directors and offering brand and communication strategy across all platforms – PR’s will have this opportunity to grow their business by commercialising their new service offering.
Intellectual Property – the ‘ideas’ themselves – will become more relevant, and like their advertising and design counterparts – Agency seniors will need to learn all about protecting, selling, and licensing their IP rights.
Very exciting times.
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You make a really valid point Kathryn: that we’ve been giving this thinking away for too long.
Working in an integrated agency I often hear ‘wow – that’s better than what creative came up with.’
Hopefully we’ll reach a stage where we can commericalise our creativity to a greater level and get more respect for these skills within the broader marketing industry.
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