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Archived in Are you happy being average? Or would you prefer to stand out from the herd? That was the challenge posed by digital marketing guru Seth Godin in his popular book ‘Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable‘.
His book’s theme is that, with markets full to bursting, you have to be remarkable if you want to get noticed and pulled out from all the other businesses milling around for attention.
What is a Purple Cow?
Seth’s definition of being a Purple Cow is to have ‘products, services and techniques so useful, interesting, outrageous, and noteworthy that the market will want to listen to what you have to say’.
So being a Purple Cow isn’t about being loud or quirky. It’s about finding a way to show that you’re more passionate, special and remarkable than your black and white spotted competitors.
What’s Purple Cow marketing?
Delivering superior products and services so amazing that people can’t stop talking about them can make you a Purple Cow. However, creating the perception that your products are exceptional can be equally as effective, which means your marketing needs to be superior instead.
A key theme in Seth’s ‘Purple Cow’ is that marketing needs to be remarkable because the ‘TV industrial complex’ is broken: people have been bombarded with so much mass targeted advertising that TV and print ads are failing to get noticed.
Whilst the effectiveness of traditional methods alone to launch a new product is questionable, TV and print advertising can still be effective for brand maintenance and keeping your jingle ringing in people’s ears whilst they’re browsing supermarket shelves.
However, for awareness campaigns targeted at specific sectors an integrated and personalised direct marketing campaign is the way to go.
How can I become a Purple Cow?
If you want your marketing to be remarkable, and stand out from the rest, then you need to think about how you can make your message more unique and special to your customers.
Here are a few ideas:
Promote your customer service as a differentiator – publish testimonials, case studies, reviews and feedback on your website. People look for the ‘social proof’ of a product by reading for comments in forums and review sites. Save them the effort and build trust in your credibility at the same time.
Start a blog – providing useful, insightful content helps build trust, gives your website a voice and can maintain contact with customers long after they’ve left.
Integrate your print and digital marketing – in surveys, the majority of consumers have said they prefer to receive offers in the post compared to email. Print is far from dead, and smart marketers know that integrating the two can make your marketing more effective, as well as remarkable.
One-to-one digital marketing – people like to be treated as individuals, rather than drones with credit cards. Delivering campaigns personalised to appeal to an individual’s interests enables your marketing to be more relevant and remarkable, compared to the lazy one-size-fits-all approach of your competition.
Purple Cows do exist
With so much average marketing in the world, it’s the Purple Cows that get noticed and rewarded. They haven’t become remarkable because their products are necessarily better, but because of the perception they’ve cultivated of being more unique, special and remarkable than the rest:
Innocent Drinks – witty copywriting on the packaging and the story of a small group of plucky upstarts taking on the multinationals won people’s hearts and sent their smoothies and fruit juices flying from the shelves. They now occupy 71% of the UK’s smoothie market, hold their own music festival and are launching a range of exotic vegetable snack jars.
Red Bull- launched a fizzy energy drink that’s as high in caffeine as it is in price. Its association with extreme sports and cool clubbers saw its appeal spread to the mass market. Buzz marketing and relevant sponsorship (Formula One and the Air Race World Series) has kept awake their global domination of the energy drinks market.
Riedel – traditional glass blowers with a long heritage of designing glasses to enhance the taste of any drink. Their story and the popular belief/myth that wine tastes better from a Riedel helped them sell millions of glasses to wine connoisseurs worldwide.
So what’s your remarkable story?
If you want to become a purple cow then start thinking about what’s unique, special or exceptional about you. What’s your background story? How can you make your product sound more noteworthy than the rest?
Once you’ve developed your remarkable story, start thinking about how your marketing can be remarkable too. How can you use the tools at your disposal to tell people an engaging story which will capture their interest, connect with them on an emotional level and be a tale they’ll eagerly share with others?
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:27 pm
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October 9th, 2008 at 2:16 am
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