What is your Purple Cow?

Purple Cow by Seth Godin, a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change - is deep purple. I love the colour purple. The book is binary – you are either a purple cow or not, or better said, you are remarkable or invisible. After the 4P's – the cardinal marketing rule of Product, Price, Promotion and Place, Seth Godin adds Purple Cow as the fifth element.

A Purple Cow, according to Seth Godin, is someone who doesn't stick to the rules, someone who stands out from the crowd, someone who creates their own niche. Being successful means being different. Purple Cow is nothing but a remarkable product or service. I specially liked Seth’s analogy of ‘IdeaViruses’ – an idea which spreads rapidly with minimum marketing effort, because of the remarkable aspect of the product. The Sneezers will help spread this ideavirus. Every market has these sneezers and it’s crucial to find and seek out such influencers.

Well, loosely compared, I found this chaiwala spreading IdeaViruses in train crossing this patch of Bihar, where he used to come with his popular tagline - ‘Pi lo Duniya ki sabse ghatiya chai’ – ‘take the world’s worst tea’ and passengers in the train would be a way too curious enough to order one for themselves. His way of selling tea would become a topic of discussion on trains. I had tasted his tea multiple times while on that stretch, and it was a really good, hot, creamy and perfect balance of sugar. I remember him even after 20 years, I guess, he was creating a purple cow for himself. Not sure, if he is still there.

I strongly recommend Purple Cow by Seth Godin.