Creativity for a new world

Not many of us are willing to admit it, but PR and advertising are going through a mid-life crisis.

We’re failing to keep up to speed with how society is changing and are therefore finding it increasingly hard to build a cost effective bridge between brands and consumers.

15 years ago people were reliant on traditional media to stay connected to the world and therefore couldn’t ignore it, so it made sense for PR to ‘earn’ media advertising to ‘pay’ for it.

But people now only pay attention to what they want to. And because today, a Gen Z teenager can create more shareable content than many brands with massive marketing budgets, brands can no longer force themselves to be seen and heard.

Presenting at Mumbrella CommsCon yesterday

News print circulation revenues have declined, with print’s share of the news audience shrinking to just 18% by 2025. Trust in Australian media has fallen significantly, with a 67% decline in confidence reported in 2025. 80% of ads fail to reach the attention threshold that means people don’t actually register as having seen them.

Peer-to-peer media continues to grow in size and influence. Tapping into it can mean exponential reach and attention, however, you can’t pay for that. You have to earn it by being relevant to people’s interests, what’s happening in culture, and showing up at exactly the right time.

This is not an advertising skillset. And, despite our inclination to think in an earned way, it’s not necessarily a traditional PR skillset either. In my opinion it’s actually a new creative skillset which combines both PR and advertising thinking, as well as emerging disciplines around culture, community and creator.

Hence the birth of the ‘Earned Creative’ a currently rare breed of creative mind that understands the nuances of earning attention, as well as how to communicate brand messages creatively through the line.

What is ‘earned creative’?

‘Earned creative’ is work that drives disproportionate and outsized attention by leveraging culture, conversation and content in media and forums that money can’t always buy.

Earned creative is not simply:

• Engaging editorial media (though creativity plays a role).
• Designing media/influencer events or product send-outs (though these can amplify an idea).
• Writing press releases.
• The easy way out

These are valuable tools, but earned creativity is something more profound. Earned creativity is the development of an idea that:

• Makes your brand message unignorable.
• Resonates with your audience.
• Taps into culture, driving shareability.
• Clearly communicate your brand message.
• Generates organic media coverage through audience engagement, not just media relations.

Successfully executing all these elements leads to disproportionate results for your budget, boosting brand salience and consideration far beyond the reach of most ads, even those backed by significant budgets.

What are some powerful examples of great ‘earned creative’?

Golin in the UK made history recently by being the first ever PR agency to win a Cannes PR Lion Grand Prix with its ‘Misheard’ campaign for Specsavers. The song they created using ‘misheard’ lyrics was played 20 million times in just 8 hours, increasing hearing test booking by 1220% above target.

Poem’s ‘Australia’s Ultimate 2nd Car’ campaign for Uber Carshare with Valtteri Bottas, won Mumbrella Social, Influencer and Ad campaign of the year in 2024, driving 30m+ organic views on social channels with zero media spend.

In Feb 2025, Duo Lingo shocked the Internet by killing its owl and then bringing them back again, gaining roughly 3m followers with an average engagement rate of 16.5% (compared to the industry average of 4.15%).

Why is earning attention so powerful?

Earning consumer attention first has a wealth of untapped benefits.

Organic Discovery: Earned media makes content easier to find, driving digital and social search, and ultimately contributing to SEO for brands, on traditional and non-traditional search platforms.

Trust and Credibility: Word-of-mouth is far more impactful than what you say about yourself – and so earned attention tends to deliver better trust results.

Memorability: When people actually spent time engaged in your content, they’re far more likely to remember it – and the content people choose to spend time with is rarely ads.

Short- and Long-Term Ad Efficiency: Earned media that triggers a positive emotional response is proven to amplify the effectiveness of subsequent paid ads – from performance to broadcast.

Amplified Reach: Obviously, people share and talk about earned content, extending reach beyond paid media and giving disproportionate impact to budget.

And perhaps most importantly:

ROI: every earned piece of attention increases your share of voice disproportionate to the size of your budget, you need to earn people’s attention first.

If earning attention is the holy grail. Earned creativity is the new superpower.

Every kind of agency, from advertising to media to social, is trying to crack the code. Agencies with strong credentials in PR are uniquely positioned, but to succeed, we need to understand what earned creativity really is – and the specifics of the problems that face us.

What are the key characteristics of what makes good ‘earned creative’?

How do we achieve this?

Engage active subcultures: Smaller, passionate communities can be powerful catalysts. Pass the “pub test”: Can you explain the idea concisely? If not, it won’t be shared. Use paid media as fuel, not the fire: Amplify earned content with strategic paid support. Be culturally relevant: Connect with the conversations and trends that matter. Be responsive: Capitalize on trending topics (authentically).

The challenge and the opportunity

Why are earned creative campaigns relatively rare?

1. Because they’re harder to do and it’s a developing skillset: It requires genuine connection to culture. It requires brands, and agencies, to relax some of our traditional perceptions. It is often less repeatable, which means more time in strategy and creative. It requires talent who want to make it happen.

2. Because we haven’t shown their value: PR, social and influencer all share a similar problem – that we haven’t demonstrated the effectiveness of our work as well as more performance led channels We rely on metrics like OTS that can’t be verified and don’t reflect actual engagement.

3. Because we haven’t grown the talent pool: We haven’t made earned a place people want to work. We haven’t made it easy to learn the skills. We haven’t set up the pathways to join the industry that encourage creativity.

All that means that, ultimately, the earned creative pond is a reasonably small one.

Many creatives are drawn to advertising, where paid media is the default, because of its historic dominance as the more creative discipline. They lose the opportunity to develop an “earned” mindset. The nature of their job – for better or worse – encourages them to think brand first, instead of leaning into digital culture and consumer behaviour.

It doesn’t help that the most accepted ways of joining the creative department are through AWARD School and AD School, two training programs that place less emphasis on earned than modern work demands. . And historically, advertising has offered bigger budgets and higher wages for creatives that win advertising awards – and those awards are primed to reward work that is familiar

What can we do?

Find, recruit, and mentor young creatives: Nurture their natural “earned” mindset. Establish dedicated training programs: Create our own “Ad School” for earned creativity. Champion earned creative: Demonstrate its effectiveness to secure larger budgets and attract top talent. Think beyond editorial: Master the art of earning consumer attention and creating shareable content.

Prove the value of earned creative and embrace the challenge!

We live in an increasingly consumer-culture first world. Traditional media-centric PR and advertising are becoming more expensive and less effective.

Brands must earn attention first, which requires an “earned media first” mindset. But in order to do so, we need to foster and find more “earned creatives” and collectively measure and prove the worth of what we do more so that we can compete for bigger budgets.

My biggest piece of advice for future PR experts and earned creatives, is to stop thinking about how to earn media coverage and start thinking about how to earn consumer attention first.

You can do this by having a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in culture and thinking about how your client’s brand or product can be relevant to what people are already interested in. Then let the consumer do the hard work of letting other people know about it.

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