Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

From the Publisher

You're either a Purple Cow or you're not. You're either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.

What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired 'P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed -Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few-aren't working anymore. There's an exceptionally important 'P' that has to be added to the list. It's Purple Cow.

Cows, after you've seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though...now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff-a lot of brown cows-but you can bet they won't forget a Purple Cow. And it's not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It's built right in, or it's not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It's a manifesto for marketers who want to help create products that are worth marketing in the first place.


About the Author

Seth Godin is the worldwide bestselling author of Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, and Survival is not Enough. He is a renowned public speaker, has started several successful companies, and is a contributing editor at Fast Company Magazine.

Publishers Weekly

The world is changing ever more rapidly, and the rules of marketing are no different, writes Godin, the field's reigning guru. The old ways-run-of-the-mill TV commercials, ads in the Wall Street Journal and so on-don't work like they used to, because such messages are so plentiful that consumers have tuned them out. This means you have to toss out everything you know and do something "remarkable" (the way a purple cow in a field of Guernseys would be remarkable) to have any effect at all, writes Godin (Permission Marketing; Unleashing the Ideavirus). He cites companies like HBO, Starbucks and JetBlue, all of which created new ways of doing old businesses and saw their brands sizzle as a result. Godin's style is punchy and irreverent, using short, sharp messages to drive his points home. As a result the book is fiery, but not entirely cohesive; at times it resembles a stream-of-consciousness monologue. Still, his wide-ranging advice-be outrageous, tell the truth, test the limits and never settle for just "very good"-is solid and timely. (May 12) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Following the traditional rules of marketing just isn't enough anymore. In today's competitive economy, companies that want to create a successful new product must create a remarkable new product. According to bestselling author and marketing guru Seth Godin, such a product is a Purple Cow, a product or service that is worth making a remark about.

The impact of advertising in newspapers and magazines is fading — people are overwhelmed with information and have stopped paying attention to most media messages. To create Purple Cow products, Godin advises companies to stop advertising and start innovating. Godin recommends that marketers target a niche, and he describes effective ways to spread your idea to the consumers who are most likely to buy your product.

Godin claims there isn't a shortage of remarkable ideas — every business has opportunities to do great things — there's a shortage of the will to execute those ideas.

For many years, marketers have used the five (or more) Ps as guidelines for selling their product and achieving their company's goals. Some of the Ps include: Product, Pricing, Promotion, Positioning, Publicity, Packaging, Permission, and Pass-along. According to the popular theory, if these elements aren't all in place, the marketing message is unclear and ineffective. Making the right marketing moves does not guarantee success, but the prevailing wisdom used to be that if your Ps were right, you had a better chance of succeeding in the marketplace.

But at a certain point in the evolution of marketing, it became clear that following the Ps just isn't enough. This book tells about a new P — Purple Cow — that is extremely important to marketers in today's fast-paced, highly competitive business environment.

Purple Cow refers to a product or service that is different from the rest and somehow remarkable.Purple Cow tells about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable. Remarkable marketing is the process of building things into your product or service that are worth noticing. Not adding marketing to your product or service at the last minute, but understanding that if what you're offering isn't remarkable, it is invisible in the marketplace.

Whether you are marketing a product or service to consumers or corporations, the sad truths about marketing are that:

• Most people can't buy your product — they don't have the money, don't have the time, or simply don't want it.
• If consumers don't have enough money to buy what you are selling at the price you are selling it for, you don't have a market for your product or service.
• If consumers don't have time to listen to and understand your marketing pitch, your product or service is invisible to them.
• If consumers take the time to hear your pitch but decide they don't want what you are selling, you are not going to be successful.

TV commercials are the most effective selling tool ever devised. A large part of America's economic success in this century is due to the fact that our companies have perfected this medium and used it extensively. Cars, cigarettes, clothing, food — anything that was advertised well on television was changed by the medium. Marketers not only used television to promote products, but television changed the way products were created and marketed. Because of this, the marketing Ps changed to take advantage of the dynamic between creating products and capturing consumers' attention on television.

The impact of advertising on television and in newspapers and magazines is fading too, just like any form of media that interrupts any form of consumer activity. Individuals and businesses have just stopped paying attention.

The old rule was: CREATE SAFE, ORDINARY PRODUCTS AND COMBINE THEM WITH GREAT MARKETING.

The new rule is: CREATE REMARKABLE PRODUCTS THAT THE RIGHT PEOPLE SEEK OUT.

There isn't a shortage of remarkable ideas — every business has opportunities to do great things — there's a shortage of the will to execute them. Since the old ways of doing things have become obsolete, it's actually safer to take the risk inherent in trying to create remarkable things. Your best bet is to take the steps necessary to create Purple Cows.

Until an actual product or service is created, a brand or new product is nothing more than an idea. Ideas that spread rapidly — "ideaviruses" — are more likely to succeed than ideas that don't.

"Sneezers" are the people who launch and spread an ideavirus. These people are the experts who tell all their colleagues and friends about a new product or service that they are knowledgeable about. Every market has a few sneezers — finding and seducing these sneezers is essential to creating an ideavirus.

To create an idea (and a product or service) that spreads, don't try to make a product for everybody, because that is a product for nobody. Since the sneezers in today's huge marketplace have too many choices and are fairly satisfied, an "everybody" product probably won't capture their interest.

To connect with the mainstream, you must target a niche instead of a huge market. In targeting a niche, you approach a segment of the mainstream and create an ideavirus so focused that it overwhelms that small section of the market and those people will respond. The sneezers in this niche are more likely to talk about your product, and best of all, the market is small enough that just a few sneezers can spread the word to the number of people you need to create an ideavirus. Copyright © 2003 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

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