The New Addition to the 5 P's: The Purple Cow
I've been taking business classes throughout the entirety of my high school career. A lot of the information I learned in these has blurred into the abyss of knowledge I acquired thought my our years at BHS. With that in mind, the 5 P's of marking still remain clear in my head: Product, Place, Price, Promotion, and People. What does this all mean? These 5 p's are the core of a marketing plan. A successful business HAS to make sure that all 5 p's are covered and running smoothly. Gordin suggests that there is a 6th p. How can you add a 6th p to the 5 p's of marketing? My lingering question was quickly answered: The Purple Cow.
You're probably wondering what the heck "The purple cow" means. Gordin coined the term after going on a road trip with his family. While driving in some rural part of France, they came upon a long strip of pastures filled with cows. The first few minutes, the family was enthralled by the sheer number of brown cows scattered across the fields. After a few minutes, the cows became boring and part of the background. They had lost their lustrous awe-factor and became just brown cows. Gordin states that this 6th p would be a purple cow: A cow that would standout among its fellow cows and never lose its awe-factor.
Now, relating this back to marketing, the purple cow is used as a metaphor for companies in the twenty-first century. Now a-days, companies need to put innovative thinking into the marketing of their products to make themselves "remarkable." Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable plots out the steps needed to achieve this 6th p: The Purple Cow.
Gordin mentions the invention of sliced bread. Nowadays, this seems like a pretty basic necessity in life. When sliced bread was first created, it was hardly noticed. It took the creative marketing of Wonder Bread to give sliced bread the awe-factor it needed to survive. It stood out among its fellow competitors, and to this day is a huge company in the market. This would have never happened if Wonder Bread never cultivated the 6th p and marketed the "wonder " of Wonder Bread.
This is a neat book; I'm glad you're reading it. Trying to figure out how to create a purple cow that's remembered as "cool" rather than as "weird" or "freakish" is not easy. Novel ideas and products can scare customers away; people are far more comfortable with what is (relatively) familiar. People are willing to try eggs in brown shells (for example) because brown eggs are relatively close in color to eggs in white shells. But would they try eggs in purple shells? I wonder.
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