Seth Godin

I love to read a blog by a guy named Seth Godin. He's a marketing guru who has some really cool things to say. For example, he asserts that everyone is so busy these days that "traditional marketing" doesn't work anymore. Ten years ago, a company could create an average product, buy up a remarkably large amount of TV advertisement, and have a decent chance at creating buzz for the product. These days, you'd better create a remarkable product that is capable of creating it's own buzz so that "traditional marketing" is only a supplement. He calls this remarkable product a "purple cow."

Think about it this way, if you're driving down the road and you begin seeing cows in a field, you might notice them for a minute or two...but it probably wouldn't have an impact on you. If you keep seeing cows, you begin to ignore them. But then, you come up on a purple cow. That would be remarkable. You'd remember it. It would have an impact on you.

The iPod is an example of a Purple Cow. A new brand of asprin would be an example of the opposite of a purple cow. There are 1,000's of brands of asprin out there. Another one in the mix would just get lost. We're too busy to even notice it...even if they buy millions of dollars in advertising.

Anyways, if you're in to this type of thing, Seth's blog is at: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/