The Creative Curve

Marketing guru Allen Gannett overturns the mythology around creative genius, and reveals the real secret behind breakthrough commercial success--achieving the right balance between the unique and the familiar.

We have been lied to about the source of creative genius. We have been spoon-fed the notion throughout our lives that creativity is the province of a brilliant few. And that moments of insight come to us unbidden, in flashes of genius--through our dreams, or in the shower, or in a sudden moment of divine inspiration. We are told about the young Mozart, whose effortless genius trumps the methodical and hardworking Salieri; or the creation of Paul McCartney's song "Yesterday," perhaps the most popular single in music history, which came to him in a dream one morning; or J. K. Rowling's inspiration for the Harry Potter books, which came to her while sitting in a delayed train bound for London. What we aren't told is the real background story behind such hits.

Recent research has revealed the science behind increasing our odds of achieving commercial success, whether in music, in writing, in creating a startup company, or in orchestrating an effective marketing campaign. Psychologically, human beings are enticed by the novel and unfamiliar, which attracts us like honey to a bee; but when a song or idea is too novel, too far outside our experience, instead of enticing us, it pushes us away. Because there is a second, equally powerful drive in us--for the safe and familiar. The key to achieving commercial success is to find that sweet spot between the novel and the familiar. In The Creative Curve, that is what Allen Gannett shows us how to do.