How much does creativity matter in business? According to the research of Micael Dahlén, a professor at Stockholm School of Economics, a company’s success in terms of sales, market share, profitability and customer satisfaction is highly correlated to two areas: creativity in marketing and creativity in product development.

Some numbers to illustrate: if a company invests in marketing at a new product launch, the value will increase from 405 million dollars to 929 million dollars. If it doesn’t it will decrease to 122 million dollars.

The importance of marketing vis-a-vis product development is explained by the fact that most new products are incremental innovations on mature markets.

Money talks, and creativity should therefore not be taken lightly.

[Thanks to Camilla for the tip]