Contrary to popular belief, the creative industry covers more than just design and advertising. Marketing, creative services, media and even public relations are some of the sub-sectors within its scope, shared Institute of Advertising Singapore (IAS) President Goh Shu Fen.
“The good thing about this industry is that it is very accessible to people across broad skillsets. Now, more than ever, the industry needs to be an attractive place to work for engineers, mathematicians, economists. Everyone can be creative. There should not be boundaries within our workforce that says an engineer cannot be creative,” said Shu Fen, an industry veteran who is co-founder and principal of her own marketing consultancy firm, R3 Worldwide.
Jobs in the sector are diverse and professionals can find opportunities with advertising agencies or in companies purchasing the services.
“Clients these days are expecting a creative consultant, that’s how they view the creative agency and will need a business-savvy solutions provider. Size doesn’t matter, what matters to the client is whoever can offer the best solution in the most painless and cost-effective way,” said Shu Fen.
The industry is on the lookout for talents who are not only technically skilled, but also possess a creative point of view and have the ability to communicate their ideas. These are some of the qualities that can help someone succeed in the industry, shared Shu Fen.
Working With The Labour Movement
Besides developing their own graduate training and mentorship programmes, IAS has also partnered NTUC to run the Marketing Leaders 2030 sectoral programme to help mid-level advertising and creative practitioners bridge skills gaps in digital marketing and bring them up-to-speed on the latest approaches and best practices in the industry. The programme is targeted at the local workforce and agencies.
“This programme is very important for our local talents who have the ambition for leadership roles to become well trained by top-notch industry professionals and stay on top of their game. This is on top of what they can pick up on the job,” shared Shu Fen.
She highlighted how IAS is exploring ways to work together with U Associate to reach out to a broader, younger segment of workers.
Opportunities Within An Industry In Transition
Traditionally, the creative industry is one that is manpower intensive. Technology though is changing the way things used to be done and agencies have to keep up with the changes.
“The creative process is not a mass manufacturing process so every brief needs resources and human labour to crack. It is pretty labour intensive. Whilst technology has made the process faster, it also means that clients can always change their minds,” said Shu Fen.
The complication here, is that despite the gains technology brings in accelerating and amplifying the creative outcome, the industry has not yet been able to fully benefit from this potential.
Shu Fen attributes this to traditional business models that are focused on labour and charging for it by the hour. While this may no longer be effective, there are ripe opportunities for agencies to innovate and create solutions that can allow them to leverage the benefits of technology to change the way things can be done. An example of such innovations is analytics solutions.
“That’s really the future. The intersection between digitalisation and creativity is to break out of the box,” she added.
