Arnold on ethical marketing

CHRIS ARNOLD

In January this year an article by Martin Bright in the New Statesmen started a new movement, ‘A New Deal of the Mind’. Its aim is to boost employment in Britain's creative sector - for the good of the entire nation. This quickly resulted in a gathering of top names (none from advertising though) at 11 Downing Street in late March. The agenda was to discuss how cultivating creative talent and investing in the creative industries would help Britain get out of recession and build a stronger economy.

This may sounds like the pipe dreams of a bunch of artists and designers, but far from it. Some of the most respected names in the creative and associated industries attending and debated the issues with politicians. Alan Yentob (BBC Creative Director), Adam Thorpe (Creative Director, St Martin’s Design Against Crime Research Centre), Jude Kelly (Artistic Director, Southbank Centre), Peter Cleg (architect) and Michael Wolff (Wolff Olins) were a few creative names. This impressive meeting of minds is a plethora of initiatives aiming to stimulate employment in the creative industries.

The theory is not fantasy, but based on historic experience. The New Deal of the Mind is inspired by the cultural programmes of President Roosevelt’s 1930s Works Progress Administration (WPA), which employed artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning and writers such as Saul Bellow, John Cheever and Ralph Ellison. Economic evidence shows that investing in the creative industries grows economy, manufacturing is a black hole by comparison. As for banking ...well the less said the better.

What started out as an article and a gathering has snowballed into a coalition of like minds with a powerful agenda and a lot of political support. It has captured the imaginations of many writers, artists, designers, musicians, film makers, innovators, inventors, entrepreneurs and teachers.

Having met Martin Bright, we share the same views and philosophy, he is passionate and not surprisingly very bright (well he was editor of the New Statesmen). I have little doubt that this movement will enter the history books and really deliver change.

Having recently taken this same thinking – that we need to cultivate creativity – and put it into action in Creative Orchestra, I certainly welcome this movement. At the moment there’s little to no government money that’s easily accessible to start up creative ventures. What monies are available will require an army of clerics to fill out the forms. Sadly, given the fact the government spends billions across the creative industries none goes into startups.

In fact you need three years of accounts to get on any roster. Ironically, it should be the other way, if the government invested in new creative businesses it’d not only get more talent for it’s money (younger companies tend to be more creative) but most would grow the economy. Throwing money at established businesses is good for them but adds less to the economy than to shareholders, many who live abroad. With the growing preference for social enterprises (pushed by Ed Miliband), even the government is starting to look at where their money goes long term. Companies delivering big bucks to shareholders could find themselves on the wrong side, while Social Enterprise could be best placed to pick up government spending.

Given the current recession within the creative industries, I think we all know victims of recent redundancies, it’s a fair point to ask exactly what our industry is doing to cultivate future talent and help the current thousands of young creatives grads get jobs? “Not a lot” most would say. Unlike the design industry who has picked this up quickly and is running already with ideas.

The words of the Works Progress Administration founder Harry Hopkins has become a rallying cry for NDM. “Give a man a dole, and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit.”

In a time when we are putting people out of work we need to ask the moral question, “it’s not what the recession is doing to us but what we can do to beat the recession”. Cultivating creativity seems to be the answer.