We’ve had adtech, martech, and now we can welcome ‘Createch’ to the party. The digital world sure likes its portmanteau, so what is Createch?

Createch - creative technologies - is the term used to address the emerging field in which technology enables the creative sector to produce new products, services or experiences – and vice versa.

At this year’s virtual CogX 2020 conference, the Creative Industries Minister, Caroline Dinenage, made it clear that in “economic terms, the creative industries punch far above their weight. Before coronavirus, they were worth £112bn to our economy in 2018, and their contribution has grown twice as fast as the rest of the economy since 2010. In total, the Creative Industries are now bigger than UK Life Sciences, Aerospace and Automotive sectors combined.”

If you’re wondering, ‘Well, if it’s that significant, where are all these businesses?’, then I’m here to tell you that there are almost 50 clusters of creative businesses around the UK - from Dundee’s games hub all the way down to Silicon Beach in Brighton.

One particular element of Createch that’s getting lots of people feverish with excitement is the Audiences of the Future programme, which is “harnessing the power of immersive tech to help double the UK’s share of the global creative immersive content market by 2025,” Dinenage says.

Through new immersive technologies such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality you, dear reader, will soon be able to become totally immersed in your favourite TV programme, production, sport or museum exhibit, following government investment to support the best UK storytellers creating ground-breaking immersive experiences.

The need for fast-paced services and the move towards sustainability has become the focus of the creative and technological industries. Createch has emerged as the solution to these industries’ demands; indeed - to take just one element - the benefits of AR are already becoming apparent. Having purchased the AR beauty company, Modiface, L'Oréal is using the result of Createch innovation on their app, allowing the customer to see what their products will look like on themselves before purchasing. This cuts down on product wastage and provides a heightened social experience for those using the app. 

According to a study by the Business School for the Creative Industries, University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, Createch is growing 10 times faster than the Creative Industries sector average and will possibly account for nearly 40 percent of employment in the sector by 2030 - though the study’s authors do advise that the study's forecasts will be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they added: "The pandemic has shown that the value of the CI sector is beyond its monetary value and is acting as a showcase for the ingenuity of UK creatives."