Purple Cow (2 page)
David Packard
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Charles H. Duell, 1899,
U.S. Commissioner of Patents
U.S. Commissioner of Patents
Not Enough
P
s
P
s
Marketers for years have talked about the five
P
s of marketing. (There are more than five of them, but everyone has their favorite five.) Some of them include:
P
s of marketing. (There are more than five of them, but everyone has their favorite five.) Some of them include:
• Product
• Pricing
• Promotion
• Positioning
• Publicity
• Packaging
• Pass-along
• Permission
This is the marketing checklist: a quick way to make sure you’ve done your job, a way to describe how you’re going to go about getting people to buy what the factory just made. If the elements are out of whack with each other (for example, puréed meals that you market to senior citizens but taste like baby food), then the marketing message is blurred and ultimately ineffective.
Marketing isn’t guaranteed to work, but the way things used to be, if you got all your Ps right, you were more likely than not to succeed.
Something disturbing has happened, though. The Ps just aren’t enough. This is a book about a new
P
, a P that is suddenly exceptionally important.
P
, a P that is suddenly exceptionally important.
The New
P
P
The new P is “Purple Cow.”
When my family and I were driving through France a few years ago, we were enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows grazing on picturesque pastures right next to the highway. For dozens of kilometers, we all gazed out the window, marveling about how beautiful everything was.
Then, within twenty minutes, we started ignoring the cows. The new cows were just like the old cows, and what once was amazing was now common. Worse than common. It was boring.
Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by beautiful light, but they’re still boring.
A Purple Cow, though. Now
that
would be interesting. (For a while.)
that
would be interesting. (For a while.)
The essence of the Purple Cow is that it must be remarkable. In fact, if “remarkable” started with a
P,
I could probably dispense with the cow subterfuge, but what can you do?
P,
I could probably dispense with the cow subterfuge, but what can you do?
This book is about the why, the what, and the how of
remarkable.
remarkable.
Boldfaced Words and Gutsy Assertions
Something
remarkable
is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.
remarkable
is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional. New. Interesting. It’s a Purple Cow. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.
Remarkable marketing
is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last-minute add-on, but understanding that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.
is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last-minute add-on, but understanding that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.
The
TV-industrial complex
was the symbiotic relationship between consumer demand, TV advertising, and ever-growing companies that were built around investments in ever-increasing marketing expenditures.
TV-industrial complex
was the symbiotic relationship between consumer demand, TV advertising, and ever-growing companies that were built around investments in ever-increasing marketing expenditures.
The
postconsumption consumer
is out of things to buy. We have what we need, we want very little, and we’re too busy to spend a lot of time researching something you’ve worked hard to create for us.
postconsumption consumer
is out of things to buy. We have what we need, we want very little, and we’re too busy to spend a lot of time researching something you’ve worked hard to create for us.
The
marketing department
takes a nearly finished product or service and spends money to communicate its special benefits to a target audience. This approach no longer works.
marketing department
takes a nearly finished product or service and spends money to communicate its special benefits to a target audience. This approach no longer works.
I believe we’ve now reached the point where we can no longer market directly to the masses. We’ve created a world where most products are invisible. Over the past two decades, smart business writers have pointed out that the dynamic of marketing is changing. Marketers have read and talked about those ideas, and even used some of them, but have maintained the essence of their old marketing strategies. The traditional approaches are now obsolete, though. One hundred years of marketing thought are gone. Alternative approaches aren’t a novelty—they are all we’ve got left.
This is a book about why you need to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, why TV and mass media are no longer your secret weapons, and why the profession of marketing has been changed forever.
Stop advertising and start innovating.
Before, During, and After
Before Advertising,
there was word of mouth. Products and services that could solve a problem got talked about and eventually got purchased.
there was word of mouth. Products and services that could solve a problem got talked about and eventually got purchased.
The best vegetable seller at the market had a reputation, and her booth was always crowded.
During Advertising,
the combination of increasing prosperity, seemingly endless consumer desire, and the power of television and mass media led to a magic formula: If you advertised directly to the consumer (every consumer), sales would go up.
the combination of increasing prosperity, seemingly endless consumer desire, and the power of television and mass media led to a magic formula: If you advertised directly to the consumer (every consumer), sales would go up.
A partnership with the right ad agency and the right banker meant you could drive a company to be almost as big as you could imagine.
After Advertising,
we’re almost back where we started. But instead of products succeeding by slow and awkward word of mouth, the power of our new networks allows remarkable ideas to diffuse through segments of the population at rocket speed.
we’re almost back where we started. But instead of products succeeding by slow and awkward word of mouth, the power of our new networks allows remarkable ideas to diffuse through segments of the population at rocket speed.
As marketers, we know the old stuff isn’t working. And we know why: because as consumers, we’re too busy to pay attention to advertising, but we’re desperate to find good stuff that solves our problems.
The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread
In 1912, Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented sliced bread. What a great idea: a simple machine that could take a loaf of bread and ... slice it. The machine was a complete failure. This was the beginning of the advertising age, and that meant that a good product with lousy marketing had very little chance of success.
It wasn’t until about twenty years later—when a new brand called Wonder started marketing sliced bread—that the invention caught on. It was the packaging and the advertising (“builds strong bodies twelve ways”) that worked, not the sheer convenience and innovation of pre-slicing bread.
Did You Notice the Revolution?
Over the past twenty years, a quiet revolution has changed the way some people think about marketing.
Tom Peters took the first whack with
The Pursuit of Wow,
a visionary book that described why the only products with a future were those created by passionate people. Too often, big companies are scared companies, and they work to minimize any variation—including the good stuff that happens when people who care create something special.
The Pursuit of Wow,
a visionary book that described why the only products with a future were those created by passionate people. Too often, big companies are scared companies, and they work to minimize any variation—including the good stuff that happens when people who care create something special.
Peppers and Rogers, in
The One to One Future,
took a simple truth—that it’s cheaper to keep an old customer than it is to get a new one—and articulated the entire field of customer relationship management. They showed that there are only four kinds of people (prospects, customers, loyal customers, and former customers) and that loyal customers are often happy to spend more money with you.
The One to One Future,
took a simple truth—that it’s cheaper to keep an old customer than it is to get a new one—and articulated the entire field of customer relationship management. They showed that there are only four kinds of people (prospects, customers, loyal customers, and former customers) and that loyal customers are often happy to spend more money with you.
In
Crossing the Chasm,
Geoff Moore outlined how new products and new ideas move through a population. They follow a curve, beginning with innovators and early adopters, growing into the majority, and eventually reaching the laggards. While Moore focused on technology products, his insights about the curve apply to just about every product or service offered to any audience.
Crossing the Chasm,
Geoff Moore outlined how new products and new ideas move through a population. They follow a curve, beginning with innovators and early adopters, growing into the majority, and eventually reaching the laggards. While Moore focused on technology products, his insights about the curve apply to just about every product or service offered to any audience.
Moore’s
idea diffusion
curve shows how a successful business innovation moves
—
fromleft to right
—
andaffects ever more consumers until it finally reaches everyone. The x-axis, along the bottom, shows the different groups an idea encounters over time, while the y-axis shows how many people are in each group.
idea diffusion
curve shows how a successful business innovation moves
—
fromleft to right
—
andaffects ever more consumers until it finally reaches everyone. The x-axis, along the bottom, shows the different groups an idea encounters over time, while the y-axis shows how many people are in each group.
In
The Tipping Point,
Malcolm Gladwell clearly articulated how ideas spread through populations, from one person to another. In
Unleashing
the
Ideavirus,
I pushed this idea even further, describing how the most effective business ideas are the ones that spread.
The Tipping Point,
Malcolm Gladwell clearly articulated how ideas spread through populations, from one person to another. In
Unleashing
the
Ideavirus,
I pushed this idea even further, describing how the most effective business ideas are the ones that spread.
And finally, in
Permission Marketing,
I outlined the ever- growing attention deficit that marketers face. I also discussed how companies win when they treat the attention of their prospects as an asset, not as a resource to be strip-mined and then abandoned.
Permission Marketing,
I outlined the ever- growing attention deficit that marketers face. I also discussed how companies win when they treat the attention of their prospects as an asset, not as a resource to be strip-mined and then abandoned.
At many companies, most of these proven ideas have been treated as novelties. My friend Nancy is the head of “new media” at one of the largest packaged-goods companies in the world. Guess what? She’s in charge (she’s a department of one) of all of these new ideas. “New media” has become a synonym for “no budget.”
Instead of accepting that the old ways are fading away (fast), most companies with a product to market are treating these proven new techniques as interesting fads—worth another look but not worth using as the center of their strategy.
The squeeze play. Marketers can’t get the word out because jaded consumers refuse to share their attention. Customers rely on their tried-and-true suppliers or on their network of smart friends instead of studying the ads on TV
.
.
Why You Need the Purple Cow
Forty years ago, Ron Simek, owner of the Tombstone Tap (a bar named for the cemetery next door), decided to offer a frozen version of his pizza to his customers. It caught on, and before long, Tombstone Pizza was dominating your grocer’s freezer. Kraft Foods bought the brand in 1986, advertised it like crazy, and made billions. This was a great American success stor—nvent a product everyone wants, advertise it to the masses, and make a lot of money.
This strategy didn’t just work for pizza. It worked for almost everything in your house, including aspirin.
Imagine how much fun it must have been to be the first person to market aspirin. Here was a product that just about every person on earth needed and wanted. A product that was inexpensive, easy to try, and immediately beneficial.
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