Marrying creativity and accountability in PR

Last month, I had the opportunity to attend a Public Relations Society of America conference where Fred Cook, CEO of Golin, was the keynote speaker. One question plagued me that day: Why did public relations practitioners who attended the working sessions express concern about being labeled “creatives” while PR’s most notable creativity evangelizer was the keynote speaker?

In two sessions I attended, the presenters noted that PR practitioners are often known internally as “creatives” or “idea people.” The inference was that being perceived as a creative was a bad thing, that PR wasn’t taken seriously and that marketing departments were somehow the favorite child in organizations because they were more fluent in executive speak. Among attendees it seemed to be understood that creativity and the accountability were mutually exclusive, or at least perceived to be by organizational leadership.