It’s a survey designed to help australian media, marketing, and advertising teams benchmark their levels of creativity against the broader industry.

The degree of how creative something is will always be subjective. Largely the job of measurement is left to award wins of campaign creative. It's measurement after the fact.

Creativity is the practice. It's the blend of the science and art. It's about what kind of culture operates in the offices and homes of the people who make the work. This is not strictly the domain of creative agencies. It comes from all parts of the ecosystem. Marketing teams at brands, media agencies, creative agencies, content & communication agencies, production agencies, media publishers - are all relevant players in the space of Creativity.

So we decided to focus on something we believe we could measure. The say-do gap. We know that all parts of the chain love talking up creativity as an important pillar of great work. But does the punchy quote by the CEO in the trade press talking about creativity match what is actually happening on the ground? Does having more inspo quotes painted on the wall really match the degree in which the team in that same office can contribute their ideas?

The role of The Creative Census is to hold up a mirror. Take the temperature as it were, of how the people doing the work, feel about the core aspects of creative practice.