Free Purple Cow by Seth Godin Page B

Sales went way up—no surprise when you think about it. Not only did the new packaging increase sales, but it also got Dutch Boy paint more distribution (at a higher retail price!).

     
    A few obvious changes in the can meant a huge surge in sales for Dutch Boy. The obvious question: Why did it take so long?
     
    This is marketing done right. Marketing where the marketer changes the product, not the ads.
    Where does your product end and marketing hype begin? The Dutch Boy can is clearly product, not hype. Can you redefine what you sell in a similar way?
     

Case Study: Krispy Kreme
     
    There are two kinds of people—those who have heard the legend of Krispy Kreme donuts and assume that everyone knows it, and those who live somewhere where the donut dynasty hasn’t yet shown up.
    Krispy Kreme makes a good donut. No doubt about it. But is it a donut worth driving an hour for? Apparently, donut maniacs believe it is. And this very remarkable fact is at the core of Krispy Kreme’s success.

     
    Since the day of their IPO, Krispy Kreme has totally demolished all expectations, drastically outperforming just about every other stock. Why? Krispy Kreme understands how to manage the Cow.
     
    When Krispy Kreme opens in a new town, they begin by giving away thousands of donuts. Of course, the people most likely to show up for a free hot donut are those who have heard the legend of Krispy Kreme and are delighted that they’re finally in town.
    These sneezers are quick to tell their friends, sell their friends, even drag their friends to a store. And that’s where the second phase kicks in. Krispy Kreme is obsessed with dominating the donut conversation. Once they’ve opened their flagship stores in an area, they rush to do deals with gas stations, coffee shops, and delis. The goal? To make it easy for someone to stumble onto the product. They start with people who will drive twenty miles, and finish with people too lazy to cross the street.
    If the product stays remarkable (and Krispy Kreme is betting millions that it will), then some of those lazy people will be converted to the donut otaku. They will start the next wave of Krispy Kreme mania, spreading it in a new town until the chain arrives.
    It’s worth noting that this probably wouldn’t work with bagels or brownies. There’s something very visceral about the obsession that donut fans feel about Krispy Kreme, and discovering and leveraging that feeling is at the heart of this phenomenon. In other words, find the market niche first, and then make the remarkable product—not the other way around.

The Process and the Plan
     
    So is there a foolproof way to create a Purple Cow every time? Is there a secret formula, a ritual, an incantation that you can use to increase creativity at the same time you stay firmly grounded in reality?
    Of course not.
    There is no plan. The eventual slowdown of almost every Purple Cow company indicates that there’s no rule book listing things that always produce. That’s one reason that seeing the insight of the Cow is so difficult. Looking in our rear-view mirror, we can always say, “Of course that worked.” By definition, a genuine Purple Cow is something that was remarkable in just the right way. When we take our eyes off the rear-view mirror, though, creating a Purple Cow suddenly gets a lot more difficult.
    If you were looking to this book for a plan, I’m sorry to tell you that I don’t have one. I do, however, have a process. A system that has no given tactics but is as good as any.
    The system is pretty simple: Go for the edges. Challenge yourself and your team to describe what those edges are (not that you’d actually go there), and then test which edge is most likely to deliver the marketing and financial results you seek.
    By reviewing every other P —your pricing, your packaging, and so forth—you sketch out where your edges are... and where your competition is. Without understanding this landscape, you can’t go to