In Praise of the Purple Cow
Remarkably honest ideas (and remarkably useful case studies) about making and marketing remarkable products.
By Seth Godin

For years, marketers have talked about the “five P s” (actually, there are more than five, but everyone picks their favorite handful): product, pricing, promotion, positioning, publicity, packaging, pass along, permission. Sound familiar? This has become the basic marketing checklist, a quick way to make sure that you’ve done your job. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but it used to be that if you dotted your i s and paid attention to your five P s, then you were more likely than not to succeed.

No longer. It’s time to add an exceptionally important new P to the list: Purple Cow. Weird? Let me explain.

While driving through France a few years ago, my family and I were enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows grazing in lovely pastures right next to the road. For dozens of kilometers, we all gazed out the window, marveling at the beauty. Then, within a few minutes, we started ignoring the cows. The new cows were just like the old cows, and what was once amazing was now common. Worse than common: It was boring.

Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be well-bred cows, Six Sigma cows, cows lit by a beautiful light, but they are still boring. A Purple Cow, though: Now, that would really stand out. The essence of the Purple Cow — the reason it would shine among a crowd of perfectly competent, even undeniably excellent cows — is that it would be remarkable. Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.

The world is full of boring stuff — brown cows — which is why so few people pay attention. Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not just slapping on the marketing function as a last-minute add-on, but also understanding from the outset that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, then it’s invisible — no matter how much you spend on well-crafted advertising.

via fastcompany.com

* Sell what people are buying
* Focus on the early adopters and sneezers
* Make it remarkable enough for them to pay attention
* Make it easy for them to spread
* Let it work its own way to the mass market.

Tags: development, five p's, marketing, products