Purple Cow by Seth Godin is a marketing book that emphasizes the importance of being remarkable to stand out in a crowded marketplace. While some readers found it insightful and thought-provoking, others felt it was repetitive and lacked concrete strategies. The book's core message—that businesses must create unique, noteworthy products to succeed—resonated with many, but its examples and approach may feel dated to modern readers. Despite mixed reviews, many found value in Godin's perspective on innovation and differentiation in business.
The Purple Cow: Be Remarkable or Be Invisible
Safe is Risky: Playing It Safe Is the Riskiest Strategy
The Death of the TV-Industrial Complex: Traditional Marketing Is Obsolete
Target the Edges: Focus on Early Adopters and Innovators
Build Remarkability into Your Product
Embrace the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Create for a Specific Audience, Not the Masses
Continuously Innovate to Stay Remarkable
Measure and Optimize Your Remarkability
Transform Your Career by Being Remarkable
"In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible."
Be exceptional or fade away. In today's oversaturated market, being good is no longer good enough. Consumers are bombarded with choices and have limited attention spans. To succeed, your product or service must be remarkable – worth talking about, like a purple cow in a field of brown cows.
Remarkable qualities:
Unique features
Innovative design
Exceptional performance
Surprising elements
Memorable experiences
The Purple Cow concept applies to all industries and sectors. Whether you're selling software, running a restaurant, or offering professional services, the key to success is creating something that stands out and gets people talking.
"The riskiest thing you can do now is be safe. The safe thing to do is to be at the fringes, be remarkable."
Embrace calculated risks. Counterintuitively, playing it safe in today's market is the riskiest strategy. By trying to appeal to everyone and avoiding controversy, you become unremarkable and easily ignored.
Risk-taking strategies:
Challenge industry norms
Adopt unconventional approaches
Take bold stances
Experiment with new ideas
Push boundaries in product design or service delivery
Companies that take calculated risks often reap significant rewards. They capture attention, spark conversations, and create loyal customer bases. While not every risk pays off, the potential for success is much higher than with a "play-it-safe" approach.
"Marketing in a post-TV world is no longer about making a product attractive or interesting or pretty or funny after it's designed and built—it's about designing the thing to be virus-worthy in the first place."
Integrate marketing into product design. The era of relying solely on mass media advertising to sell average products is over. Today's successful companies build remarkability into their products from the ground up.
Key shifts in marketing:
From interruption to permission
From mass appeal to niche focus
From product-centric to customer-centric
From one-way communication to engagement and conversation
Marketers must now work closely with product developers, designers, and customer service teams to create offerings that are inherently remarkable and shareable. The product itself becomes the primary marketing tool.
"Smart marketers realize this, and they work to minimize (but not eliminate) the risk from the process. They know that sometimes it's not going to work, but they accept the fact that that's okay."
Prioritize innovators and early adopters. These groups are more likely to try new things and spread the word about remarkable products. By focusing on the edges of the market, you can gain traction and eventually move towards the mainstream.
Characteristics of early adopters:
Open to new ideas
Willing to take risks
Influential within their networks
Eager to share discoveries
Less price-sensitive
Targeting early adopters allows you to refine your product and build buzz before attempting to capture the larger market. This strategy reduces risk and increases the chances of long-term success.
"If being a Purple Cow is such an easy, effective way to break through the clutter, why doesn't everyone do it? Why is it so hard to be Purple?"
Make your offering inherently noteworthy. Remarkability should be a core feature of your product or service, not an afterthought. This requires creativity, courage, and a deep understanding of your target audience.
Ways to build remarkability:
Solve a problem in an unexpected way
Offer extreme performance or features
Create a unique user experience
Challenge industry conventions
Combine unrelated concepts
Building remarkability often involves taking risks and making difficult choices. It may mean alienating some potential customers to strongly appeal to others. However, this focused approach is more likely to lead to success in today's crowded marketplace.
"Ideas that spread are more likely to succeed than those that don't. I call ideas that spread, ideaviruses."
Harness the power of organic spread. In the age of social media and interconnected networks, word-of-mouth has become more powerful than ever. Create products and experiences that people naturally want to share with others.
Elements of shareable ideas:
Emotional impact
Practical value
Social currency
Triggers for frequent sharing
Public visibility
Stories worth retelling
Encourage and facilitate sharing by making it easy for customers to spread the word. Provide exceptional experiences, create shareable content, and engage with your community to fuel organic growth.
"The way you break through to the mainstream is to target a niche instead of a huge market."
Focus on a well-defined niche. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, create products or services that deeply resonate with a specific group. This allows you to stand out and build a loyal following.
Benefits of niche focus:
Easier to become remarkable
More efficient use of resources
Higher customer loyalty
Less direct competition
Potential for premium pricing
By dominating a niche, you can establish a strong foundation for growth. As you succeed within your niche, you may find opportunities to expand or target adjacent markets.
"Once you've managed to create something truly remarkable, the challenge is to do two things simultaneously: Milk the Cow for everything it's worth... [and] Create an environment where you are likely to invent a new Purple Cow in time to replace the first one when its benefits inevitably trail off."
Maintain a culture of innovation. Being remarkable once is not enough. Markets evolve, competitors emerge, and what was once Purple can quickly become brown. Successful companies continuously innovate to stay ahead.
Innovation strategies:
Invest in research and development
Encourage creativity and risk-taking
Listen closely to customer feedback
Monitor industry trends and disruptors
Create systems for generating and testing new ideas
Balance exploiting current successes with exploring new opportunities. This dual focus helps ensure long-term relevance and growth.
"If you measure it, it will improve."
Track and refine your efforts. Use data and feedback to assess the impact of your Purple Cow strategies. Continuously optimize your products, services, and marketing approaches based on real-world results.
Key metrics to consider:
Customer acquisition rates
Word-of-mouth referrals
Social media engagement
Customer lifetime value
Brand sentiment
Market share growth
Implement systems for gathering and analyzing data. Use this information to make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and resource allocation.
"In your career, even more than for a brand, being safe is risky. The path to lifetime job security is to be remarkable."
Apply Purple Cow principles to your career. Stand out in your field by developing unique skills, taking on challenging projects, and creating remarkable work. Build a personal brand that makes you indispensable and sought-after.
Career strategies for remarkability:
Develop a unique combination of skills
Tackle high-visibility projects
Share your knowledge and insights
Build a strong professional network
Continuously learn and adapt
Create a distinctive personal brand
By making yourself remarkable, you increase your value in the job market and create opportunities for growth and advancement. Remember that playing it safe in your career can be the riskiest strategy of all.