Chapter 4 - Brand Development
IN THIS LESSON
Purple Cows, Pattern Interrupt
Developing a strong company message and finding your archetype is important, but it won’t guarantee you success. Marketing is supposed to be a means to an end, not the end itself. What drives long-term sales is not marketing, but a high quality, innovative product. In his book Purple Cow, Seth Godin highlights the challenges of advertising in a crowded marketplace. Buying ad inventory and waiting for sales isn’t enough anymore. Most long-term sales and brand equity are driven by word of mouth to accompany a strong product. Godin argues that companies need to constantly evolve. They need to find something unique about their message, colour scheme, etc. to grab the customer’s attention.
Purple cow refers to a thought experiment. If you were driving by a pasture and saw a herd of cows, that wouldn’t be remarkable. You would probably just keep on driving without even noticing and would not remember that you even saw them after a few minutes. However, if you saw that same herd of cows and one of them was purple, you’d probably stop, take a picture, and send it to all your friends. You would surely remember it long afterward.
That means simply picking an archetype and landing on a slogan isn’t enough. There are myriad slogans floating out there for every archetype. Most of them are bland and undescriptive, failing to grab the market’s attention. You must keep refining until you get to that differentiator, that purple cow that will get you noticed and keep you in someone’s mind. To that end, you need to use the archetype as a starting point, and then flesh out your brand, but it’s also critical to keep innovating and trying new things, even if you have a strong product. You need to keep at it until you get to that one thing that defines you and your place in the market.
Imitation is the strongest form of flattery and competitors will copy you if you give them enough time. Never rest on your laurels and take your success for granted. Companies like Kodak, Xerox, and GE all made that mistake and now are shadows of their former prominence. Their products were still great, but their brand wasn’t. If you want to figure out how to start a company, or how to start a business figure out what makes you special and keep innovating.
You should never stop looking for ways in which you can take advantage of opportunities in the market. Place yourself where you can differentiate from the many other people and companies that would seek to compete with you. Take advantage of everything. By the time others catch on to what you’re doing and copy it, you should be on to the next thing that you can point to that makes you different. That makes you a purple cow.