Monday, January 01, 2007

My Purple Cow

After reading Purple Cow by Seth Godin I am trying to come up with my own purple cow, or the thing that makes me remarkable. It's not easy. "Purple Cows do an outrageous job. They work on high profile projects. These people take risks, often resulting in big failures."

The main thesis of the book is that traditional advertising is dead and that marketing must be built into the product for it to be successful. A product itself must be so remarkable that it gets people to talk about it. Having a "purple cow" is at the heart of successful products like the iPod, Toyota Prius, and Whole Food stores.

Seth proposes that marketing must therefore be involved in not only developing the brand, but involved in HR, R&D, and customer service. If it's customer service that goes above and beyond and what people tell their friends about, then that is just as much a part of marketing as anything else. Seth suggests that although communicating a memorable message to consumers is becoming more difficult, the new environment creates opportunity for marketing to become more involved in different areas of the company. This makes marketers more valuable to an organization, and that is good news if you are a marketer.

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