Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Marketers for years have talked about the five Ps of marketing..." (more)
Key Phrases: Krispy Kreme, New York, Postal Service (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The world is changing ever more rapidly, and the rules of marketing are no different, writes Godin, the field's reigning guru. The old ways-run-of-the-mill TV commercials, ads in the Wall Street Journal and so on-don't work like they used to, because such messages are so plentiful that consumers have tuned them out. This means you have to toss out everything you know and do something "remarkable" (the way a purple cow in a field of Guernseys would be remarkable) to have any effect at all, writes Godin (Permission Marketing; Unleashing the Ideavirus). He cites companies like HBO, Starbucks and JetBlue, all of which created new ways of doing old businesses and saw their brands sizzle as a result. Godin's style is punchy and irreverent, using short, sharp messages to drive his points home. As a result the book is fiery, but not entirely cohesive; at times it resembles a stream-of-consciousness monologue. Still, his wide-ranging advice-be outrageous, tell the truth, test the limits and never settle for just "very good"-is solid and timely.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

You're either a Purple Cow or you're not. You're either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice.

What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired 'P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed -Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few-aren't working anymore. There's an exceptionally important 'P' that has to be added to the list. It's Purple Cow.

Cows, after you've seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though...now that would be something. 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 it's not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It's built right in, or it's not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It's a manifesto for marketers who want to help create products that are worth marketing in the first place.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover; 1 edition (May 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159184021X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591840213
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (203 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,552 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

371 of 401 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Brief Essay Stretched into a Short Book, January 14, 2004

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Purple Cow is probably the most overrated business book published in 2003.

Let me save you money and time. Read the summary below rather than buying and reading this book:

Marketing should begin with a differentiated product or service that gets attention (like a purple cow does among a field of brown ones). Be sure that those who care deeply about that differentiation learn about your product or service (as Krispy Kreme does by providing free donuts when it opens a new store). Those who care will e-mail and tell everyone they know (the ideavirus concept Mr. Godin has written about before). Keep adding new differentiated enhancements to your product or service (pretty soon you don't find a purple cow so interesting). Start looking for totally new business models that provide a breakthrough like your first purple cow did. Don't waste your time and money on advertising. Alternatively, it's dangerous not to do this because your product or service will be lost among all of the other brown cows (undifferentiated offerings).

I congratulate Mr. Godin on his marketing skill. Turning these few old saws with a few new examples into a best seller is outstanding marketing. Otherwise, I would grade this book as a one star effort. It will only be of value to those who have never read anything about the power of business model innovation. To learn how to do successful business model innovation, you will have to look elsewhere. I was particularly disappointed that he relied on examples that are so old. Starbucks, HBO and Krispy Kreme, for instance, haven't done a business model innovation in years. Only the JetBlue example is recent. Yet the world is full of new examples he could have talked about.

Actually, the book's key metaphor is flawed. While a purple cow (like the title and cover of this book) will certainly get your attention (and may get you to spend a few dollars to investigate it), is there really anyone out there who wants an actual purple cow because it provides any value other than uniqueness? The example reminds me of the old-time professional wrestler, Gorgeous George, who always wore purple and used that color in everything he owned (including his car and turkeys on his ranch near Yucaipa, California). Yes, the purple attracted your attention . . . but unless you liked his wrestling, that one glance was the end of it. I remember driving to his ranch to see a purple turkey, but never went back. Actually, the charity cows that are painted and decorated by different artists and then auctioned off in different cities would have made a better metaphor for this book.

Like much of what pretends to be new and different in business books today, this book is simply dressed up on modern clothes and new terms. I suggest you read Strategy Maps, the Innovator's Solution and Corporate Creativity if you want to learn how create these changes successfully in a company.

As I finished the book, I began to realize that much of what is wrong with business gurus today is that they love to tell their own ideas . . . but are seldom willing to do the hard work necessary to locate and measure how to do what they espouse. It made me realize that I should always "walk my talk to teaching people how to do what I encourage them to do."

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It is what it is . . . know what you're getting into, October 14, 2003

By	"dave29898" (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews

Cutesy . . . disjointed . . . reads like a monologue . . . powerful . . . simplistic. It's all true. I don't think that author Seth Godin would argue with many of the comments that even the negative reviewers have made here.

My advice is to simply understand what you're getting into with this one. Looking for some light reading that might fire off some creative synapses? Got a few hours on a plane & the ability to take some thought-starters and generate your own applications? This book is for you.

And yes, it is geared towards creative types. Or at least someone who's willing to let a simple, fun book with lots of colorful case studies get the juices flowing.

Interesting that there's such a binary ranking system with this book. Most readers seem to either love it or hate it. Are you a serious executive looking for practical ways to transform? Start with Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Looking for something more unique, but still thick with practical ways to transform a business in a huge way? Try Winning in FastTime by John Warden.

Purple Cow is fun, simple, and powerful. There's practically nothing that's been written in these reviews that I don't agree with. But some of are fortunate enough to have an equal balance between left-brain and right-brain.

This book MAY not be for you, but it was for me.

144 of 175 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Particuarly New Here, and a Slightly Flawed Premise, January 14, 2004

By	James Sadler (Plano, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a not highly originally book which is apparently using a gimmicky title and cover to make itself stand out. I'm not sure why because Seth Godin has written better books and it's not like he necessarily needs to go the gimmicky "look-at-me, look-at-me" route to sell books.

All Godin has done here is write a book on branding an positioning. Godin is trying very hard here to sell us on the idea that what he suggests is new and different and that the old ways of marketing do not work. Hate to tell him this, but talk to people who are genuinely out there fighting for customers in the marketplace and you find that the old ways still work quite well. P&G has managed to stay pretty successful (not that they don't have an occasional bump in the road) sticking to a tired-and-true marketing formula, as have many other companies.

This book is simply about product or service differentiation that attracts attention (as a purple cow in a field of brown ones would). It's not necessarily new and different, and some of his example s may well be flawed. For example, JetBlue is a marvelous success (and I wish that would come to our part of the country), but all they did was build on the Southwest Airlines template for success. JetBlue also had the marked advantage of being one of the best financed start-ups in airline history. I think their success is more the result of good management more than anything else. And for the most part, Godin seems to use examples of companies that are now well-established in the marketplace, e.g., Starbucks, HBO and Krispy Kreme. While I think he's use of JetBlue does not necessarily support his premise, at least it is a relatively new entity. Why did he not use more examples of newer companies? Would that not have supported his "Purple Cow" premise more readily? Too much of what Godin is writing about here is reminiscent of the internet boom and busts, where so many companies were simply about an eye-catching marketing idea rather than a good business plan and business model.

That is an essential flaw in the overall premise also. Just standing out is not enough to make a company profitable and successful. Corporate history is replete with companies that stood out and then quickly flamed out. A company still needs to be well managed and actually have a product or service people are interested in. Godin has written better books with better ideas. This one simply seems to be based on a gimmick with little substantive evidence behind it.