Marketing
Moody Purple Cow
In the highly regarded business book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, author Seth Godin talks about the concept of helping your business stand out from the crowd. He asserts that the accepted 4Ps of marketing: Product, Pricing, Promotion and Positioning, just aren’t enough anymore.
“Marketers can’t get the word out because jaded consumers refuse to share their attention,” he says. “The world has changed. There are far more choices, but less and less time to sort them out.”
Technology such as TiVo allows viewers to eliminate TV ads, and pop-up blockers prevent internet users from being barraged with annoying online advertising. How then do businesses get their message into the hands (and hearts, and minds) of potential customers?
Watch this ad and call me in the morning
One smart technique taking advantage of the ever increasing use of the internet both at home and work is the use of an ‘ideavirus’ or viral marketing using email.
Viral marketing exploits the fact that people will regularly pass on and share ‘cool and entertaining content’. Because this content is emailed between friends and known associates, the SPAM and security obstacles inherent in ordinary email marketing can be more readily overcome.
Often the ultimate goal of viral marketing campaigns is to generate media coverage via "offbeat" stories worth many times more than the campaigning company's advertising budget. Viral marketing is popular because of the ease of executing the marketing campaign; the relatively low-cost (compared to direct mail); and the high and rapid response rate.
A good example of the power of viral marketing is that of RaboDirect an online bank in Europe who used this technique to position themselves as “the straight talking bank”, when they launched in Ireland.
By employing a series of ads that emphasise how often we are faced with anything but ‘straight talk’ in our daily lives, RaboDirect confronts the stereotype of banks who baffle their customers with jargon and false promises. One ad for example shows the window of a florist shop called Moody Cow Florist, with a subheading underneath that says “Don’t know what you did? Say sorry anyway. Nearly 12 months later this ad is still doing the rounds via email, and still getting attention. Another shows a tradesman’s van with signage reading Clancy Plumbing: “We repair what your boyfriend fixed”.
This humorous and irreverent marketing approach helped RaboDirect attract almost ?50 million in deposits in the month following their launch, and secure ?300 million in deposits in their first six months of business, putting them six months ahead of their targets.
Another example of the power of viral marketing is the Australian ad made by the Foster’s Group for Carlton Draught beer ? the “Big Ad” used viral marketing techniques before being released on television. Just 24 hours later, the Big Ad had been downloaded 162,000 times and within two weeks it had been seen in more than 132 countries.
The viral release of the Big Ad was so successful that the television media budget was reduced so as not to overexpose the advertisement. Within days of the campaign being released, the Big Ad had achieved ten mentions in major newspapers around Australia, and many more on media sites in the US, the UK, and Europe.
This is the power of the internet and people’s desire to share something that’s funny, entertaining, and irreverent, acknowledges Trevor O’Hoy, President & Chief Executive Officer, Foster’s Group Limited. “The point of being different is that you stand out from the crowd. You play on your strengths, and you build success”.
Fosters experienced revenue growth of 6.2% in the six months following the release of this marketing campaign.
Criticism comes to those who stand out
While both RaboDirect and Carlton United were prepared to stand out, Seth Godin acknowledges that the “Purple Cow” approach may not be for everyone.
“If you’re remarkable some people won’t like you. That’s part of the definition of remarkable”, he says. “Nobody gets unanimous praise? ever. The best the timid can hope for is to be unnoticed. Criticism comes to those who stand out”.
So if you’re prepared to take some risks in your marketing, your products, your services or even the way you run your business, then you can stand out and you will be remarkable.
