• Purple Cow

  • Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
  • By: Seth Godin
  • Narrated by: Seth Godin
  • Length: 2 hrs and 58 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (3,600 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Purple Cow  By  cover art

Purple Cow

By: Seth Godin
Narrated by: Seth Godin
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $8.58

Buy for $8.58

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

You're either a Purple Cow or you're not. You're either remarkable or invisible. Make your choice. What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last?

Face it, the checklist of tired P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed - Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few -aren't working anymore. There's an exceptionally important P that has to be added to the list. It's Purple Cow. Cows, after you've seen one, or two, or 10, are boring. A Purple Cow, though...now that would be something.

Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat-out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff - a lot of brown cows - but you can bet they won't forget a Purple Cow. And it's not a marketing function that you can slap on to your product or service. Purple Cow is inherent. It's built right in, or it's not there. Period.

In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It's a manifesto for marketers.

©2002 Do You Zoom Inc. (P)2009 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"Take Leo Burnett,David Oglivy, Bill Bernbach and Mark Twain. Combine their brains and shave their heads. What's left? Seth Godin." (Jay Levinson, author of Guerrilla Marketing)
"Godin's style is punchy and irreverent, using short, sharp messages to drive his points home. ....[H]is wide-ranging advice - be outrageous, tell the truth, test the limits and never settle for just 'very good' - is solid and timely." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Purple Cow

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,159
  • 4 Stars
    928
  • 3 Stars
    359
  • 2 Stars
    110
  • 1 Stars
    44
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,837
  • 4 Stars
    638
  • 3 Stars
    231
  • 2 Stars
    65
  • 1 Stars
    32
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,731
  • 4 Stars
    665
  • 3 Stars
    268
  • 2 Stars
    84
  • 1 Stars
    42

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

!!!! Good !!!!! Should be a chapter, not book!!

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would and have recommended to friends, only because I agree with the concept; the delivery was long winded way of saying 'make your products unique' so that your talked about and remembered.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent

I found this book so informative and interesting, that I listened to it twice. It is easy to listen to, and full of insight. I highly recommend this book to anyone in any line of work, especially small business owners.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A must read for all entrepreneurs

If there is a required reading list for entrepreneurs, this book should be at the top.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Classic Seth Godin

I've become a big fan of Seth Godin in recent months, and this audiobook didn't disappoint. The Purple Cow is the truly unique and remarkable product, service, benefit or feature that can make your brand stand apart from the countless boring - and floundering - brands out there.

Godin's very good at weaving together his advice, anecdotes and theories, and I came away from Purple Cow feeling newly energized with creative and innovative ideas. The man himself is a living demonstration of the power of creative brand-building, and I hope his ideas keep flowing freely for a long time yet.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Possibly Seth's best work to date

I am a big fan of Seth Godin. I am on Tribes on Ning, I have interviewed him in my blog, and I read most things he posts or publishes.

And for me, this is probably his best work to date. The entire concept of the purple cow is simple - be remarkable. But as always he supports this with many layers of examples, tactics and case studies.

I am a consultant and for me this book has helped a heck of a lot.


Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
  • c
  • 02-08-14

A quick review for a quick book...

What would have made Purple Cow better?

The value of the The Purple Cow is entirely in its premise: you need an outstanding product or service or not only will you not sell anything, but you will be ignored.

Another reviewer succinctly warned that the book was all repetition and not to bother with a purchase. Well, I like to think for myself and often take reviews lightly as sometimes reviewers have agendas that aren't apparent. My loss.

Seth probably wrote the whole concept with all branches in a page of single spaced 10 pitch font. His discussion, I think, is intended to make him look like he is a Purple Cow. I had the audio speed at 1.25 but should have bumped it up higher. I would have lost nothing.

Sorry Seth, but shallow sells as well as boring. Your next book will be hard to pick out in the vast Audible library.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Delightful, Engaging and Insightful

I love this guy's work. It's not just that he's a marketing visionary - he's a brilliant communicator too.

I'm amazed at how well the book works in the audio medium. It's almost as if he wrote it with audio in mind.

Strongly recommended. Very, very useful if you have your own business.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Long, Boring and Dated

I was having a hard time just staying awake during this audiobook. While 3 hours doesn't seem like a long book, the information here could have been provided in less than 20 minutes.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Makes you rethink your marketing

Seth provides many great examples and ideas about how one could go about making themselves or their product/service remarkable. I found the statements around making a product remarkable from inception to be really enlightening.

I'm seriously rethinking how I'm running my business and marketing my services. I'm playing it way too safe (which makes me much less successful than I could be) if Seth is right and I suspect he is.

I highly recommend this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

wholly unremarkable

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Not really, it just seemed like the really interesting point to this book is that the title is a Purple cow, after that, not too much that stands out.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful