Picture the beautiful French countryside. Majestic nature and picturesque views. Just breathing in the fresh French air makes you feel classy. Your peace is halted by a scream of a child in the backseat of the car. “LOOK! There’s a cow!” The New Yorkers are amazed by the presence of the cow, which is something that isn’t seen in the concrete jungle.
The car comes to a stop. The family hop out and excitedly pull out their cameras. They approach the cow and then flashes aplenty. The cow enjoys a free photo-shoot as the family click away on their cameras. It’s truly a remarkable moment, however the moment passes and Seth and his family hop back into the car to continue their journey.
As time passes the family come across another cow, and another, and even another one after that. Kids being kids, they continue to shout and show the love to each and every cow that they pass, however Mom and Dad do not share the sentiment. This is the point where Seth, maybe wished he left his kids back in New York, but came to a realisation of something. A realisation that is bad news for cows.
Seth had a long time to think on this ride. He realised that only moments ago he was so excited about the cows, but as time went on and they spotted more and more cows, it became boring. The cows became unremarkable. Not only is this bad news for the cows, because bye-bye attention, but it is also bad news for brands. Like yours potentially?
At first, businesses come out of the gates and everybody is excited and can’t seem to stop talking about them. Eventually everyone becomes used to the brand, nothing in the businesses changes, and suddenly the talking stops. The brand becomes boring. Seth asked himself an important question during this time, which was, how do we make the cows interesting again?
Price, Planet, People… Purple!
As a brilliant marketing man, Seth always thought about the P’s of marketing. Planet, people, profit, and so on. He wondered what P could apply to the idea of not being boring. He landed on the word “Purple” because ultimately if he drove by and saw a purple cow on the side of the rode, it would make him excited and stop the car again.
This led to the writing of the book Purple Cow by Seth Godin, which is the book this atomic talk is based on. Before we get to the talk, think about this for a moment, “The essence of the purple cow is that it must be remarkable.”. This quote is straight out of the book and encapsulates the exact way of thinking you and your team need to have in order to be remarkable.
This is the principle Seth implemented in the marketing of this very book when it was first released. It could simply have been another marketing book on any other shelf, but no, Seth wanted to be remarkable. The only way one could buy this book was off his website and nowhere else. Plus, the book was encased in an actual purple milk carton that came in a set of eleven. Just so that you would have one and have to share the other books with ten other people.
Break down that word. You need to make people able to remark about your business or else you fall in with the rest of the boring plain cows. Become a purple cow and embrace the power of being different. In order for this to happen you need your team to have this same line of thinking as well. For that you need to deliver a talk.
On Atomic Talks (Free sign up) you get a free coaching tutorial and free rehearsal deck that enables you to practice and deliver a talk based on the principles in the Purple Cow book. Impart these principles into the minds of your team so that they can share and apply this way of thinking. In no time, you’ll have a bunch of purple cows walking around the office daring not to be boring and standing out in an overcrowded world. The next step is yours.
