Creative Industries and the financial crisis

Tom Fleming

The whole rhetoric about the creative industries has been about economics, about growth. Then we had the crash. The economic crisis has forced us to reconsider the role of the creative industries and to try to understand how the sector is operating now in comparison to how it worked before the crisis. What we’re finding is a mixed picture. Certain parts of the creative industry sector really struggled, such as advertising and software. These are the sectors that are very closely linked to and depended on the financial services and the wider economy. But we’re also seeing a lot of resilience in other sectors, such as design and fashion. These are the sectors where in the time of crisis people are likely to think more carefully about how they spend their money and will perhaps make one relatively expensive purchase rather than lots of less expensive ones. It is interesting to see that some creative businesses are doing even better because of the crisis. What is most significant is that we’re seeing a real shift in the economic structure of the creative industries where a lot of people who lost their jobs in other sectors, such as financial services, are setting up businesses to do the things they always wanted to do. So since about mid-2010 as we start coming out of the crisis, we have been seeing a real growth in people setting up small businesses in the creative industries in design, in fashion, in music etc. It will be interesting to see over the years whether the people continue to pursue their dream or go back to what they were doing before. I am quite confident that the creative industries are quite resilient and will grow bigger and stronger after the crisis than they were before it. 

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Tom Fleming

Tom Fleming

Director of Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy in East London, United Kingdom

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