Olivia: Everything you've been taught about business success—play it safe, appeal to everyone, make a 'very good' product—is wrong. In fact, following that advice is the fastest way to fail. The real secret? Be a little bit weird. Jackson: That sounds like a recipe for getting fired, not getting promoted. But it also sounds a lot more fun. Where is this delightful chaos coming from? Olivia: It's the radical idea at the heart of Seth Godin's classic, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable. And he’s been challenging this kind of thinking for decades. Jackson: Seth Godin, the marketing guru. I remember when this book first came out, it was literally sold in a milk carton. He was practicing what he preached from day one, which is pretty remarkable in itself. Olivia: Exactly. And the whole idea started from a very simple observation. Godin describes driving through the French countryside with his family. At first, they were enchanted by the picturesque pastures filled with cows. It was beautiful, idyllic. Jackson: I can picture it. Very serene. Olivia: For about twenty minutes. Then, they were just… cows. Hundreds of them, all looking the same. They became boring. Invisible. But, he thought, what if one of them was purple? You’d slam on the brakes. You’d get out of the car. You’d tell everyone you knew. That, in a nutshell, is the Purple Cow. Jackson: Huh. So it’s not about being the best brown cow, it’s about being the one that makes people stop and stare. Olivia: Precisely. And Godin’s argument is that in today's market, if you’re not a Purple Cow, you’re invisible.

Jackson: Wait, so being 'very good' is bad? That goes against everything we learn in business school, in our jobs. The goal is always quality, right? To be better than the competition. Olivia: That used to be the goal, and it used to work. Godin calls the old system the "TV-Industrial Complex." It was a simple, beautiful loop: you build a factory, make a safe, ordinary product, then you buy a ton of TV ads. The ads drive sales, you use the profits to buy more ads, which drives more sales. For decades, that was the engine of the economy. Jackson: The "As Seen on TV" model. I get it. It built massive brands like Tide, Coca-Cola, all the household names. Olivia: Right. But that engine is broken. As consumers, we’re overwhelmed. We have too many choices and too little time. We've gotten incredibly good at ignoring ads. So that safe, average, "very good" product that relies on advertising to get noticed? It just becomes part of the background noise. It’s another brown cow. Jackson: Okay, that makes sense. We’re all drowning in options. But what’s the alternative? You can’t just be weird for the sake of being weird. Olivia: You have to be remarkable. And a perfect example from the book is the original Volkswagen Beetle in America. Think about the U.S. auto market in the mid-20th century. It was all about big, powerful, gas-guzzling cars. They were symbols of American prosperity. Jackson: Big fins, lots of chrome. The bigger, the better. Olivia: Exactly. And into this world comes this tiny, strange, bug-shaped car from Germany. It was the opposite of everything American consumers were told they wanted. It was small, it was underpowered, it was… weird. It was a Purple Cow. Jackson: And it was a huge success. But hold on, the book also mentions that the Beetle's success was really ignited by its legendary "Think Small" advertising campaign. Doesn't that prove that advertising is the key, and it contradicts his whole 'advertising is dead' argument? Olivia: That’s the brilliant nuance here. The advertising worked so well because the product was already remarkable. The car itself was the story. The ads didn't have to invent a reason to buy it; they just had to point at the car's inherent weirdness and frame it as a benefit. They were talking to a small group of people—the early adopters, the "sneezers" as Godin calls them—who were tired of the status quo and looking for something different. Jackson: Ah, so the remarkability came first. The product created the audience, and the ads just gave that audience a slogan. The ads weren't shouting at everyone; they were whispering to the right people. Olivia: You've got it. The car was so different that it created its own conversation. The ads just joined in. If VW had tried to launch another generic, big sedan, no amount of clever advertising would have made it stand out. Being safe would have been the riskiest move they could make. Jackson: That’s a total mind-bender. The idea that playing it safe is the actual risk. It feels true, though. When you think about it, the most forgettable products are the ones that try to be for everyone. They’re just… fine. And nobody talks about 'fine'. Olivia: Nobody talks about 'fine'. "Very good," Godin says, is the opposite of remarkable. It's the enemy of growth. Because 'very good' is what everyone expects. It's the price of admission, not the reason people choose you.

Olivia: And that's the perfect pivot to the second big idea. The Beetle wasn't a lucky accident. Godin argues that this kind of remarkability can, and must, be engineered. It’s a deliberate process. Jackson: Okay, now I'm skeptical again. How do you 'engineer' something remarkable? It sounds like trying to bottle lightning. You can't just have a committee meeting and decide to be brilliant. The book even mentions that parody is a sign you're doing it right, with examples like the J. Peterman catalog on Seinfeld. That feels like pure chance. Olivia: It feels like chance, but Godin breaks it down. He says the key is to stop thinking like a marketer and start thinking like a designer. The marketing isn't something you bolt on at the end. The marketing is the product. The design, the function, the packaging—that's where the remarkability lives. Jackson: Can you give me an example? Something less iconic than a car. Olivia: Absolutely. Let's talk about something incredibly boring: paint cans. For decades, paint came in the same terrible metal can. You needed a screwdriver to pry it open, it was hard to carry, it dripped everywhere when you poured it, and sealing it again was a nightmare. Jackson: Oh, I know that pain. You hammer the lid back on and get paint all over yourself and the hammer. It's a universally bad design. Olivia: Right? Everyone just accepted it as the way things were. Then the company Dutch Boy came along and asked, "Why?" They realized people don't buy paint; they buy a painted wall. The can is part of the product experience. So they created a plastic paint jug. It had a handle, a screw-top lid, and a pour spout. It was simple, but it was revolutionary. Jackson: That's brilliant. It’s like how OXO redesigned kitchen tools for people with arthritis and ended up making them better for everyone. They didn't invent the vegetable peeler, they just made it not suck. So the 'product' isn't just the paint, it's the whole interaction. Olivia: Exactly! Dutch Boy became a Purple Cow in the most boring industry imaginable. They didn't change the paint; they changed the experience of painting. And sales soared. That’s engineering remarkability. It’s about finding an edge—price, service, design, packaging—and pushing it to an extreme. Jackson: I can see how that works for a physical product. But is this always possible? What about a truly boring commodity, like salt? You can't really redesign salt. Olivia: That's a great challenge, and Godin addresses it directly. He says, "Is your product more boring than salt? Unlikely." For years, Morton Salt was the only name in the game. Salt was just salt. Then, suddenly, you had French artisans harvesting fleur de sel by hand, which sells for twenty dollars a pound. You have Hawaiian black lava salt. You have pink Himalayan salt. They took the most boring commodity on earth and made it remarkable by focusing on a tiny niche of foodies—the "otaku," as Godin calls them. Jackson: What exactly is 'otaku'? Is that just a fancy word for a superfan? Olivia: It's a Japanese term for something that's more than a hobby, but less than an obsession. It's that group of people who care deeply about a specific thing, whether it's hot sauce, stereo equipment, or artisanal salt. They are the ones who will seek out your Purple Cow, and more importantly, they are the "sneezers" who will tell everyone else about it. The goal isn't to market to everyone. The goal is to make something irresistible to a small, passionate group and let them do the marketing for you. Jackson: That feels so relevant today, especially with the internet. This book came out in 2003, right at the dawn of social media. In the age of TikTok and influencers, this 'sneezer' idea seems more powerful than ever. Olivia: It's become the entire game. And it's why Godin's ideas have had such a lasting influence. He saw that the world was shifting from a monologue, where companies broadcasted at us, to a dialogue, where consumers talk to each other. In that world, the only thing that gets talked about is the remarkable.

Jackson: So the big takeaway isn't just 'be different.' It's that in a world of infinite choice, the only rational strategy is to be so specifically useful, or delightful, or strange for a small group of people that they have no choice but to talk about you. The risk isn't being weird; the risk is being ignored. Olivia: Exactly. And it's a tough pill to swallow for a lot of businesses. It requires courage. Godin points out that the biggest problem with the Purple Cow is fear. Fear of being criticized, fear of failing, fear of not appealing to everyone. But he argues that boring is always the riskiest strategy of all. Jackson: It’s a powerful message. It feels like it applies to more than just products. It applies to careers, to art, to how you live your life. Don't just be another resume in the pile. Olivia: That's the ultimate point. And Godin's challenge, which is as relevant today as it was in 2003, is to look at your own work, your own product, your own career, and ask the hard question: Are you a purple cow, or just another brown one in a field of thousands? What's one 'safe' rule in your industry that's just begging to be broken? Jackson: That is a fantastic question to end on. It makes you want to go out and find something to shake up. Olivia: We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What's a Purple Cow you've seen recently? A product, a service, a person that just made you stop and take notice? Find us on our socials and let us know. Jackson: We're always looking for more purple in our lives. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.