I just heard Greg Dyke interviewed on Radio 5. He’s been commissioned by the Conservative Party to look at the needs of ‘The Creative Industries’ for their next election manifesto. He was asked to define ‘The Creative Industries’ and his response surprised me. He said “ we are only really talking about those industries affected by the digital boom, so are not really looking at Fashion and the like”
This statement led me back to where I was last week when I attended the first CIN Board meeting (which I have to say was very enjoyable). I wondered if anyone had dared to fix this down and define what ‘The Creative Industries’ are? The other week I was doing some work for a provider who wanted me to treat ‘The Creative Industries’ as any business where a creative process was involved, although I suspect that this was because it meant a wider client base for their particular contract!
At CIN we define ‘The Creative Industries’ as the 13 areas listed by the DCMS at: http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/creative_industries/default.aspx
These are:
- Advertising
- Film and video
- Architecture
- Music
- Art and antiques markets
- Performing arts
- Computer and video games
- Publishing
- Crafts
- Software
- Design
- Television and radio
- Designer fashion
But it strikes me that as The Creative Industries continue to enjoy considerable growth there is a tendency to jump on the CI bandwagon and use the term as a replacement for innovation, which surely exists in all areas of business.
In his book entitled ‘Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art And Commerce’ Richard Caves attempts to identify some distinguishing characteristics that creative industries have in common. He ties it down to seven economic properties:
1. Nobody knows principle: Demand uncertainty exists because the consumers’ reaction to a product are neither known beforehand, nor easily understood afterward.
2. Art for art’s sake: Workers care about originality, technical professional skill, harmony, etc. of creative goods and are willing to settle for lower wages than offered by ‘humdrum’ jobs.
3. Motley crew principle: For relatively complex creative products (e.g., films), the production requires diversely skilled inputs. Each skilled input must be present and perform at some minimum level to produce a valuable outcome.
4. Infinite variety: Products are differentiated by quality and uniqueness; each product is a distinct combination of inputs leading to infinite variety options (e.g., works of creative writing, whether poetry, novel, screenplays or otherwise).
5. A list/B list: Skills are vertically differentiated. Artists are ranked on their skills, originality, and proficiency in creative processes and/or products. Small differences in skills and talent may yield huge differences in (financial) success.
6. Time flies: When coordinating complex projects with diversely skilled inputs, time is of the essence.
7. Ars longa: Some creative products have durability aspects that invoke copyright protection, allowing a creator or performer to collect rents.
I found these ‘criteria’ very interesting and wonder if we apply them to our own businesses whether we still consider ourselves to be in the Creative Industries or not. I’d be really interested in your thoughts on this. Maybe the criteria set down by Caves are a little rigid,, I’m sure we will all be able to think of exceptions, but they are a good starting point for discussion me thinks!……or Not?
John Hart
