The Purple Cow... (And I Only Got to Know it via Running Man)

I've got to know about this elusive cow from an unlikely source.

While I was watching my weekly dose of Running Man, when suddenly Jae-Suk answered a quiz, he quipped the answer - the purple cow.

That piqued my curiosity. A quick search bring me to a book that was published back in 2002, nearly 20 years ago.  

So, what is this Purple Cow? In short, the writer pushed in a new marketing term in the mix marketing strategy. Other that the traditional 4Ps of the marketing mix strategy which are Product, Price, Promotion, and Place; he pushed in another element of success factor in the strategy - the Purple Cow.

In the book, the writer Seth Godin made a very stunning assumption in opening his argument. He started the book by arguing that advertising isn't as effective than it has been, especially if compared to the TV-industrial complex in the 1960s to 1990s.

And for any product to success in their marketing strategy, he proposed another P in the mix, which is the Purple Cow. In short, any product that had the element of capturing the attention of their customers have the Purple Cow in their marketing strategy; not unlike if you're to see a literal purple cow in the field mixed together with the other normal cows.

I've found 3 stages to integrate the Purple Cow concept into the product. It'll start as early at the product development stage. Instead of alienate the marketing department from the product engineering process, integrating them will pushed the product further. The marketing personnel should understand the product while the product engineers should understand what the sells in he market.

There is one mantra that Seth Godin repeat over and over again, "Today, the one sure way to fail is to be boring. Your one chance for success is to be remarkable."

The 2nd process comes into how the product need to sells itself. Instead of targeting everyone, the writer proposed to seek the small group of niche customers that the product can serve. The product in itself will find their otakus, while being remarkable. While Apple still didn't produced their iPhone yet when this book was published, it seems that this strategy worked for them.

The last process that the writer want to emphasize that the Purple Cow effect will not last forever. It is a continuous process to keep discovering the new Purple Cow to sell after dry milking out the old Purple Cow. There are companies that had found their Purple Cow moment once, but can't managed to sustain due to failure to discover their new Purple Cow.

In explaining the process, he wade through into a lot of examples. Most of them are great examples actually. Since the book had been published in 2002, there are a lot of anecdotes of companies that isn't even exist in their original form in the year 2020.

In the top 100 brands of 2002, there are some notable names that missing in 2020. Nokia, Compaq, Kodak are defuncts, while HP, Merrill Lynch, Yahoo! are all just a shell compared to their giant self back then.

For the readers, the elements of the Purple Cow concept isn't really explained clearly in the book. The writer himself admits that he can't really pin point the exact method to adopt the Purple Cow to the products. The best that he could do in the book was explained the process how developed the Purple Cow into the products.

The book itself isn't without criticism. The main criticism related to the book's key assumption that advertising is broken. Researches have been shown contradictory results to the assumption made by the book.  

Does this marketing help book in itself is just a glorified self help book? It depend on how the readers' perspective. 

On one hand, all the elements of the proposed Purple Cow does seems vague in the book. The book itself was just full with product marketing histories to convey the message.

On another hand, the writer did push the idea that for a product to be a success, it must be remarkable. Success will not come with the magic of marketing alone. He advocates that companies to produce remarkable products that target people who are likely to spread word of mouth about the product. 

And it'll be as attention grabbing as seeing a purple cow.