Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

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[edit] Overview

In his book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, bestselling author, speaker and entrepreneur Seth Godin suggests that marketing as we have known it, dominated by what he refers to as the TV-industrial Complex churning out products to meet the market's need, and television advertising directing people to these products, is broken. The book claims that we have now moved into an era where markets are largely satisfied, and to be noticed a product and its marketing need to be remarkable to be seen at all, let alone to sell. This concept apparently worked for Mr. Godin himself, as the book caught the attention of numerous people, making it a best seller and purportedly the best selling marketing book of this decade.

[edit] Analysis

The book would seem to be rather oddly constructed with general concepts interspersed with practical examples. It seems that Godin is working his thinking through with the examples to then give us what he concludes from these examples. The book reads well, with so many practical examples illustrating the ideas; but to obtain a coherent set of principles one needs to review the book after reading to draw the points together and then determine a course of action in one's own professional activity. The book is part theory and part practical activity plans for implementation; digesting these is necessary before implementing them in a local setting.

The theory starts with the fact that marketing as we know it is broken, and that the only way now to gain attention in a market is to not only market a product in a remarkable manner, but also to have a remarkable product to market. For a product, or a marketing program to be remarkable Godin sets out the parameters of what has been remarkably done and indicates there is no use copying these but rather, that is what has gone before and from that position we need to move forward into more remarkable territory.

Godin suggests the book is:

". . . a manifesto for marketers who want to make a difference at their company by helping create products and services that are worth marketing in the first place. It is a plea for originality, for passion, guts, and daring. Not just because going through life with passion and guts beats the alternative (which it does), but also because it's the only way to be successful. Today, the one sure way to fail is to be boring. Your one chance for success is to be remarkable."

Godin wraps the concept up in a Ten Point Checklist that sets out how to create Purple Cow. This checklist is general enough to be applied to creating a product or a marketing program that is remarkable. However, the book is just a starter for thinking; the real innovation will be with you if you decide to create a Purple Cow. If its not remarkable then it is invisible.

[edit] A Web Enabled Book

Perhaps what was remarkable about Purple Cow was the way it was marketed. The first, self-published edition came packaged in a milk carton and was sold for just shipping and handling charges. This followed Godin's book "Unleashing the Ideavirus", in which the entire book was put on the web for free download. The coincidence of this launch with the rise of blogs led to the book becoming one of the bestselling marketing books of the year.

This marketing approach certainly indicated that Seth Godin knows marketing, and second that the concept of sneezers can seemingly work. As for this being a new era when 'television advertising' no longer works, and where the TV-industrial complex is broken is perhaps an overstatement. There are still many millions of dollars being spent and working reasonably well in the world of television and industry. However, the practical demonstration of online marketing as displayed by Godin is an indication he is perhaps onto something but not exactly as black and white as portrayed in the book.