For years, marketers have talked and continue to talk about the “five Ps” (in fact, there are more than five, but everyone picks their favorite ones): product, pricing, promotion, positioning, publicity, packaging, pass along, permission…etc.
With time these became the components of a basic marketing checklist, a formula that people followed time and again to make sure they’ve done their job, and hopefully create success.
Seth Godin argues that it’s time to add an exceptionally important new P to the list: Purple Cow.
In his book “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable“, he makes the point that cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though…now that would be something, that would definitely stand out and grab your attention.
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 he argues that it’s not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service; Purple Cow is inherent, It’s built right into the product from the beginning, or it’s not there.
In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges everyone to put a Purple Cow into everything they build, and everything they do, to create something truly noticeable, that basically markets itself and makes people want to talk about it and spread it.
Purple Cow is a fun and really interesting book to read for anyone involved in building new products and launching them, offering an exciting way of looking at things and approaching product definition, development and marketing.
[Amazon: Purple Cow (Seth Godin)]
My friend Hervé Cuviliez, Founder and Managing Director of