Creative Genius

My friend, the senior marketing director of a big Japanese electrical and imaging company, says her agency only shows her YouTube clips and can’t even be bothered to say that the idea they’re showing will, eventually, look a bit like the clip. They say that the idea will actually be the clip: a sort of rent an idea without the rent – and without the idea.

Peter Fisk has produced a heavily researched volume that is rich in stories about people with vision who have had brilliant ideas and stuck to them against all advice and probability, yet have prevailed. The problem for us ordinary folk looking for inspiration on YouTube, or in this book, is that once we’ve read about Dick Rutan, the rocket man or James Dyson – or any other geniuses – we think the effect will rub off on us.

After reading you will still be unable to think of the next big online phenomenon or the formula for recycling squashed flies on a car windscreen.

Although there is much to inspire, you will have to be an admirer of process, scenario planning and ideas toolkits to enjoy Creative Genius as a full read, but there are plenty of nice ditties to add good cheer: ‘Sex is 50% what you’ve got and 50% what people think you’ve got.’ This was not said by Einstein, but by Sophia Loren in a random yet philosophical moment.

AJ Lafley’s turnaround story is told where, at P&G, he inherited brand decline and after five years bought out the competitors (Clairol for $5bn, Wella for $7bn and Gillette for $54bn) and transformed P&G’s psyche from tired to inspired.

Also, you must have Steve Jobs on your board. Forget about his other small enterprise, it seems that he is Disney’s largest individual shareholder through the acquisition of Pixar and by being the architect of Disney’s push into the new age.

What most of us in the marketing industry do is to wake up and find that innocent drinks, Apple, Dove, Dyson or Honda have done something brilliant and we react as follows:

1) claim it on our CV; 2) copy it as fast as we can; 3) read another self-help book.

Creative Genius will inspire you to think how to change the world and will prove that, in most cases, the situation is hopeless.

Creative Genius, Peter Fisk, Capstone, £16.99 Join The Marketing Society Book Club. If you are a member of The Marketing Society you could write a 300-word review for the Marketing Society’s blog.