Purple Cow Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

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Brief Summary

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin emphasizes the importance of creating remarkable products and services that stand out in a crowded market. Using the metaphor of a "purple cow"—something unique and noticeable—Godin argues that in today's saturated marketplace, traditional marketing is no longer enough. Instead, businesses must innovate and create products that are worth talking about to capture attention and succeed. The book is a call to embrace creativity, take risks, and focus on remarkable differentiation.

About the Author

Seth Godin is an American author and dot com business executive. He is the founder of Seth Godin Productions, a book packaging business, which he sold to his employees to focus on his next startup. He and Mark Hurst then founded Yoyodyne, where he promoted the concept of permission marketing. He sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo for about $30 million and became Yahoo’s vice president of direct marketing. In 2006, he launched Squidoo, one of the 500 most visited sites in the world. He eventually sold Squidoo to HubPages. He graduated from Tufts University and Stanford.

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Key Insights

Do you ever wonder what makes a company succeed?

What makes them truly stand out?

How can you make your business truly special and unique?

In, “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable” Seth Godin shares his secrets to the purple cow success. Or, in other words, a company that sticks out, grabs attention and is something truly remarkable.

“In your career, even more than for a brand, being safe is risky. The path to lifetime job security is to be remarkable.” - Seth Godin

Godin takes you step-by-step to share the magic of the purple cow. And, helps you to utilize these strategies in your own workplace.

Because, let’s face it, being ordinary will not bring you success. You must be doing something different in order to gain the extraordinary reputation your company deserves.

Advertising

The power of advertising has been decreasing for years. Back in the day, advertisements were mighty and powerful ways for companies to get consumers to use their products. However, now, advertisements are seen everywhere from our TVs to YouTube to social media. That makes them insignificant and also overwhelms the consumer.

Because of this overwhelming amount of advertisements, it is practically impossible to grab the consumer’s attention. And, that’s because people tend to ignore all marketing ploys unless it meets their specific needs. You have to think, it’s not the number of people you’re reaching, it’s the demographic of people that are seeing your advertisements.

“The old rule was this: CREATE SAFE, ORDINARY PRODUCTS AND COMBINE THEM WITH GREAT MARKETING. The new rule is: CREATE REMARKABLE PRODUCTS THAT THE RIGHT PEOPLE SEEK OUT.”- Seth Godin

To successfully utilize advertisements you have to ask three questions:

Who would want your product?

Who isn’t happy with the rival products in the market?

Who will listen to you about your product and actually buy it?

By asking those questions you will find your ideal audience for your advertisements.

Your Product Must Be Remarkable

There are three stages in the history of marketing:

Before: When everything was word-of-mouth.

During: When advertising was new and people based their lives on what products were advertised.

After: This is where we are now. Word-of-mouth in a social media world. The word of products spread quickly via Twitter, Facebook feeds, and Instagram.

Because people see product advertisements via social media, the product needs to really stand out in order to stop people from scrolling past it in their newsfeeds.

Take Risks

A lot of companies are afraid to try something new because they are afraid of failing. But, in this day in age, it’s better to take risks to improve rather than staying average and ordinary.

That’s because there is no place for average products in the current market. No one will buy them. If your product isn’t remarkable, it is invisible. Following the leader of other products in your market will never make you a leader.

If companies choose to follow the lead of other companies, they will eventually get stuck behind in the times because they are unwilling to try a new and different path to success.