Title: Purple Cow

Recommendation: 7.6/10

Summary:

Marketing has changed.

The old way was to create safe ordinary products, advertise to anyone, long cycles, small change, and fear of failure.

The new way is to create remarkable products, advertise to the early adopters, fear of fear, quick cycles, and big changes.

Why the change?

Firstly, attention, more than ever, must be treated as a precious asset, not one to be stripped and abandoned.

Secondly, the best way to attract attention is to build something remarkable and advertise it to early adopters who are likely to spread your products to others – and incentivizing that as well.

It’s not a matter of print vs digital, it’s a matter of being remarkable vs. unremarkable, this is what Seth brands “the Purple Cow.”

Highlights:

If you’re remarkable, it’s likely that some people won’t like you. That’s part of the definition of remarkable. Nobody gets unanimous praise–ever. The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out.

Nobody says, “I’d like to set myself up for some serious criticism!” Yet, that is the only way to be remarkable is to do just that.

Boring always leads to failure – except when being boring is, in and of itself, remarkable.