Purple Cow
Seth Godin · 2003
Purple Cow (2003) is a book by Seth Godin on Marketing. Seth Godin argues that in a world drowning in advertising, the only marketing that works is a product so remarkable it markets itself. Be a Purple Cow in a field of brown cows, or be invisible.
Argues that remarkable products market themselves; a quintessential actionable marketing read.
Three of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of Purple Cow pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.
- Build remarkability into the product itself, not the ad campaign. Marketing is no longer something you bolt on at the end; the decision to be remarkable has to happen in design, engineering, and the way the thing actually works.
- Stop advertising to everyone and target the few who care. Aim your product squarely at early adopters and obsessives (the 'otaku') who are hungry for something new and will evangelize it for you.
- Design for word of mouth by making your product easy to talk about. If there is nothing surprising or worth retelling, no amount of paid promotion will spread it; engineer a built-in story your fans can pass along.
The other 4 — and the full 10-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 8 chapters
The whole summary runs about 10 minutes, read or listened to.
- The Brown Cow Is Invisible
- The Death of the TV-Industrial Complex
- Walking Through the Adoption Curve
- Sneezers and the Ideavirus
- Otaku and the Power of Obsession
- Run the Eight Ps to the Edges
- Safe Is the Riskiest Choice
- Milk the Cow, Then Build the Next One
Finish Purple Cow tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 10 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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