Free Essay with the Book Report: Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Seth Godin is regarded as one of the best authors of the twentieth century specializing in business and management aspects. His book titled Purple Cow Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable addresses the need for uniqueness in business (Godin, 2002). The essay offers a summary of the book, an account of the opinions and use by other authors and a reflection of the essence of the content of the book in the subject of its setting and beyond.

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Summary of the Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

The author commenced the documentation of the book by stating a brief tale. It begins by the account of the author's trip to France. As they drove through the countryside of France, they saw cows on the roadside grazing. Most of the cows were brown and black-colored. At first, the sight of the cows was exciting. It was a motivation for the coverage of the miles. However, after a while and continuous sight of the cows on the roadside after coverage of small distances, it became boring (Godin, 2002). It was no longer exciting to see the same color of cows. Thus, the writer relates the sight of the cows to the context of business marketing. He imagined the sight of a purple cow. He said that it would be exciting to see a cow of unique color instead of the ordinary black and brown. At one point, the book states that the black and brown cows had become invisible, albeit figuratively.

Contextually, in marketing, there are five Ps that have existed since the invention of the concept of marketing. They are product, price, place, promotion, and people. Over the years, businesses have focused their marketing efforts in mass media channels, social media platforms such as Facebook and billboards in addition to posters that intend to familiarize the market of the product on sale. Thus, the author notes that the traditional marketing efforts have yielded in the comparison of the obvious marketing efforts to the black and grey cows (Godin, 2002). Therefore, the author identifies them as the invisible marketing channels. They state that since close of all companies focuses their marketing efforts on the obvious channels such as social media and mass media, they fail to separate their products from the rest of those on the market. Thus, the description provides the merit of the comparison of the firms to the black and grey cows on the roadside in France.

The author notes that the purple cow concept emphasizes the development of unique marketing efforts to distinguish the subject product from the rest of the market. Thus, the synonymity of the purple aspect is identified in the term 'remarkable.' The book emphasizes the remarkability of the product and the marketing ideas encompassing their creativity in ensuring their sales (Godin, 2002). Therefore, the P in the word purple lead to the construction of the 6Ps aspect. The writer sums that the remarkability of the product should be emphasized before, during and after marketing. For instance, before the official commencement of the marketing, there ought to be constructive word-of-mouth about the effectiveness of the product in a solution of a specific problem, during the marketing program, the channels chosen ought to be unique and personalized. Finally, there ought to be the practical guarantee of the effectiveness of the product after marketing which is preceded by significant sales. The boom offers an example of the innovation of the sliced bread in 1912 by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. It states that although the idea was valuable, its lousy marketing led to its eventual failure (Godin, 2002). Twenty years later, Wonder, a new brand, marketed the sliced bread idea resulting in insurmountable sales. Thus, according to Seth Godin, the remarkability of marketing is determinate of the sales and the uniqueness of the product's reception on the market.

Opinions and Application of other Authors

Jason Ratcliffe wrote a book titled Making your brand remarkable: targeting early adopters and innovators. It addresses the issue of the market ignoring the traditional marketing efforts. Throughout the text, the author identifies the relevance of Seth Godin's text on the need for remarkability in marketing and product design. The majority of the text avails details of the essence of adopting a unique marketing strategy to enhance the marketability of the subject goods and services (Ratcliffe, 2016). Since their book was published more than a decade after the insights of Seth Godin, they applaud the latter for their prediction of the circumstances that would mark the better part of the following two decades.

The book addresses the innovators and entrepreneurs' brands. They noted Seth Godin's tale of the sliced bread in efforts to highlight their respect for the book. They stated that the adoption of the sliced bread by Wonder Brad is synonymous with their idea of the importance of creativity in marketing in distinguishing the product from its competitors (Ratcliffe, 2016). The case is described as a case of adoption of a business idea. Therefore, according to the author, Seth provided the most relevant examples to emphasize their focus on the need for uniqueness in marketing. Additionally, Bowman (2016), an entrepreneurial approach, they quoted Seth Godin's text about Starbucks and JetBlue. The two companies adopted approaches that were distantly contrasting the marketing ideas of the veteran firms in their respective industries. Therefore, Jason Ratcliffe applies Seth Godin's text, quoting specific excerpts to the illustration of their admiration of the relevance of the text.

Reid Shane, Jeremy Short, and David Ketchen Jnr wrote an article titled Reading the room: Leveraging popular business books to enhance organizational performance. It utilizes the idea detailed by Seth Godin in the literature industry to show their approval of the concepts of the purple cow. The article talks of the need for strategic management, organizational performance and the drafting of a boom that address the unique problems to ensure their sales. It talks of the ideas that the authors of contemporary literature ought to adopt. In quoting Seth Godin, Ratcliff & Terra (2016) highlighted are leadership and management books. Therefore, the authors credit Seth Godin for the insight and indicate their appreciation for the uniqueness of the idea and the inspiration it offers to the authorship industry (Ratcliff & Terra, 2016). As a result, the above authors acknowledge Seth God's book, highlighting its multi-industrial relevance and applicability.

Reflection to Purple Cow

The purple cow idea reflects contract from the normal occurrence. I believe for a person or product to be noticed on any platform, they ought to stand out, which counts for being remarkable. The subject uniqueness entails the emphasis of the need to be different from the processes of production, packaging, and marketing as well as the firm's interaction with the clients after the sale. It should be somewhat of a DNA instilled throughout the organization's human resource to illustrate consistency.

Two years ago, I started a movie shop in my local town center. Notably, there were seven other movie shops within the town. At first, I was discouraged because of the existent competition in the business and the fact that I would have added just another shop selling two movies a day. Therefore, to counter the disadvantage, I ventured in children's movies. Most of my product weas cartoons and other non-PG-rated films. It was a gamble, but I endeavored to try as I had harbored the idea of a children's movie shop since I was in high school. I had observed my younger brother travel more than three miles to get to the nearest children's movie shop. Fellow movie shop owners believed it was an erratic decision bound to fail sooner rather than later. However, close to three years down the line, I believe my shop is the best seller in the town.

My experience with the application of unique ideas shows that the purple cow idea is bound to work provided it solves a pertinent problem within the society in which it is tested. I marketed my movie shop by informing the children and their parents through a door-to-door mini-campaign. It was arguably ridiculous but remarkable. In the end, the personalization of the marketing effort led to the influx of customers. Therefore, I believe the relevance of the idea of the purple cow can be realized if the marketer attempts to solve a problem through channels that are unique and client-focused. Thus, Seth Godin's text is practical in the present-day product marketing strategy formulation.

References

Bowman, T. (2016). 88 Ideas to Teach More Effectively: Forget Being the Favourite!. Routledge.

Godin, S. (2002). Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. New York: Penguin.

Ratcliff, A., & Terra, R. (2016). You should stand out like a purple cow. Australian and New Zealand Grapegrower and Winemaker, (633), 44.

Ratcliffe, J. (2016). Making your brand remarkable: targeting early adopters and innovators. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 5(3), 150-151.

Reid, S. W., Short, J. C., & Ketchen Jr, D. J. (2018). Reading the room: Leveraging popular business books to enhance organizational performance. Business Horizons, 61(2), 191-197.