Creativity is a shared human quality that can be easily accessed by every Australian, according to top curator at one the nation’s most historic art galleries.

With the rigour, skills and unbridled creativity of the advertising and communications design community in Australia now on show as part of an artworld first, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) curator of contemporary design and architecture, Gemma Savio, said there’s no better way for visitors to get a view into the minds of the creative professionals whose skills are used by multinational brands and organisations to influence and inform through communications media.

Agencies from Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, DDB Group Melbourne, Leo Burnett Australia, TBWA\Melbourne, The Royals, Thinkerbell, Frost*collective and Gilimbaa were invited to submit their interpretation of the transformational power of advertising and communication design as part of The Rigg Design Prize 2022.

The work is now live in the Melbourne-based gallery, with Ms Savio telling The Growth Agenda she was thoroughly impressed by the concepts developed by the agencies, and encouraged the public to check out the unique and inspiring entries.

“Every team extended the brief to develop niche and hyper-engaging ways of convincing the Australian public of the value of creativity,” Ms Savio said.

“From augmented reality environments to live websites, interactive social media campaigns and physical objects to engage with in the gallery, every agency executed their advertising strategy to the highest standard – reflecting the rigour of the advertising and communications design community in Australia.”

From an ASX-style creative index and online shop selling hypothetical versions of some of society’s greatest inventions to an invaluable scratch card, Ms Savio said she hopes the immersive and interactive exhibition will leave visitors feeling inspired to express their own creativity, and truly appreciative of Australia’s creative potential.

The Rigg Design Prize is Australia’s highest national accolade for contemporary design granted by an Australian public gallery, and is the first major exhibition of advertising and communication design in the NGV’s history.

For the exhibition, each of the eight agencies developed a suite of assets – including billboards, street posters and moving images – to represent a call to action for Australia to realise its ‘creative potential’.

“Creativity is not only valuable, but it is the essential force behind every human-made thing or idea we encounter,” Ms Savio explained.

“The Rigg Design Prize 2022 entries point to the fact that creativity is a shared human quality that can be easily accessed by every Australian.”

DDB Group Melbourne spearheaded the first financial index tracking the economic value of Australia’s greatest natural resource, the $580 billion commodity driving the country’s top companies: creativity.

Created in conjunction with investment and advisory group Jarden, the Creative Index gives creativity a live market value for the first time by aggregating Australia’s top ASX200-listed creative companies using historical and live ASX share price data, from 2012 to now.

Companies including Medibank, Treasury Wine Estates, Seek, Cochlear, News Corp, REA Group, Nine, Domain, oOh!media, and carsales.com.au all feature on the Creative Index, selected for prioritising creative thinking to drive their innovation and growth.

DDB’s effort aims to hit home that creativity’s value is not just cultural, but economic, with billboards that read: “Coal. Commodities. Cartoon Dogs”, “Tin. Telcos. TikTokers”, and “Australia’s bull market is not in oil. It’s in ideas.”

DDB Group Melbourne executive creative director Psembi Kinstan explained to The Growth Agenda that the concept lives beyond the NGV and can be a powerful tool to prove the economical benefits of creativity.

“Until now, creativity’s value has been defined as cultural, not economic, because it hasn’t been easily quantified,” said Mr Kinstan.

“The Creative Index’s true potential lives beyond the gallery. We want it to be most impactful in boardrooms, so business leaders know the commercial case for investing in creativity.

Mr Kinstan said if brands see creativity’s value tracked with the rigour and respect it deserves, that can only help marketers position brand building as the growth engine it is, “deserving the board’s backing and the business’ investment”.

One concept, from Leo Burnett Australia, centred on a blood donation campaign with each asset designed to trigger an emotional response – anger, joy, fear or disgust – that could prompt Australians to commit to giving blood.

Other ideas included Clemenger’s campaign using striking imagery and emotive storytelling to communicate that creativity is responsible for so much more than is immediately apparent; the ‘Invaluable scratchie’, which reimagines the scratch card by replacing the typical hidden dollar value of the prize with ‘creativity’ – something that isn’t possible to put a price on, by Thinkerbell, and TBWA urged corporate Australia and government agencies to look beyond conventional data linked to economic growth by presenting a series of graphs, charts and diagrams amended to include creativity.

The Rigg Design Prize 2022 will be on display until 29 January 2023 and the winning campaign will be announced later this week.

First published via The Australian