Smarter in :60 II: How Music Can Milk Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow”

“INDIE BAND ROCKETS TO STARDOM OPENING FOR AEROSMITH AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN WHILE STANDING IN SILENCE FOR 3 MINUTES — 3.5M HITS ON YOUTUBE”

U must b da Purple Cow.

What, you didn’t hear about this!?

Don’t bother Googling the story. It didn’t really happen. But wouldn’t it be cool if it did? You’d certainly stand way out in the crowd for that stunt if you were that band. Why, it might be like driving down a winding country lane, through miles of cow pastures and suddenly coming across a Purple Cow.

The Purple Cow is a book by bestselling author, Seth Godin. It tells amazing stories of some very creative people from places you might not expect, who went way out on a limb to make their mark on the world. I was asked by Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, if I would be willing to read this book, which was part of a five-book box set by Seth about the “new marketing” concepts that are reshaping our world. I was to blog about them from the perspective of how a working musician, actively playing and promoting their music might apply these principles to their own career.

Whether you’re an artist, producer, online app startup, studio, engineer or anything else, The Purple Cow is all about standing out from your competition, seeking out what ‘just isn’t done’ in your field and then doing just that. It’s about knowing there is no guarantee whatsoever that your crazy idea will even succeed and doing it anyway. That’s risky for sure. You might even risk FAILURE. RIDICULE. BANISHMENT TO OBSCURITY.

Some now famous music industry Purple Cow Examples:

— Radiohead’s “Pay what you wish” campaign for In Rainbows without a major label was a huge Purple Cow. Looking back, there was no guarantee how that was going to play out — it was a huge marketing risk but of course, we now know how that story ends (digital and physical sales in the millions).

— Sheryl Crow crashes a Michael Jackson audition for background singers. She could have very easily been escorted out by security but in fact, she got the gig and the rest is history.

But here is one guarantee: Playing it safe and doing what everyone else in your field is doing in the present all access to everything-24/7-attention deficit culture we live in may be the riskiest thing you could ever do.

Look, nobody’s watching TV anymore (on TV), nobody’s listening to the radio (on the radio), nobody’s reading print newspaper or magazine ads and nobody cares about what you’re selling. They only care about what they want. The Purple Cow states that Very good = Obscurity. If you want to stand out in today’s market, you will need to be truly remarkable AND you will need a Purple Cow.

Here’s a great Purple Cow that is happening as we speak. Have you heard about this band, Hollerado? First of all if you haven’t seen the video, check this out:

Any artist who says that the reason they’re still unknown is because they don’t have a manager or a booking agent or a devout following that will lift them up and carry them on their shoulders to stardom needs to seriously get over themselves and check out this band’s story.

These guys are from a little town in Ontario, Canada. They decide they want to tour the States but no one will book them because they’re unknown. So they decide to drive as far away from home into America as they could get. Then they would walk into a club where a band was playing and make up some story to the manager that they’re 2000 miles from home, had a gig down the street but it fell through. So they would ask if they could play a short set and miraculously, IT WORKED! They did this countless times but might have only gotten a few drinks or pizza out of the deal.

They still needed gas money. So they’d go to the mall, get a CD burner and a few spindles of blank CDs. They’d burn 100 CDs in the parking lot and stand outside the Hot Topic with a discman, asking anyone to listen to their demos. If they liked it, they got a CD in a ziplock bag with some goodies for $5. The band made $4.50 off the deal. They did this for two years and made it home!

Then they decide to release their new CD, Record In A Bag, in 2009 (packaged exactly as from the U.S. tour). To promote the CD, they took the concept of a residency gig, where you play the same club once a week and pumped steroids into it. They launched their RESIDENCY TOUR, playing a show in seven different cities for each night of the week for a month. So Sunday night it’s Boston, Monday it’s Pianos’ in NYC, Tuesday was Quebec, followed by Hamilton, Ontario, Toronto, Ottowa and Montreal. Then: Repeat 4 times. 12,000 brutal Canadian winter miles in 28 days!

They finally found a distributor who would take on their special “packaging” and to date, have sold more than 10,000 copies of their CD and have reached the Top 5 on Canadian Alternative radio.

Still waiting to hear back from that entertainment lawyer? So go ahead, Harold. Take that purple crayon, find a unique pasture and go paint your own Purple Cow. There are no road maps to certainty. But it sure beats living safely in obscurity.

Peace,

Mark Hermann

NYC-based producer/artist/engineer/more Mark Hermann spends his life in the professional service of music. He has toured the world with rock legends, produced hit artists, and licensed music for numerous TV/film placements. Hermann also owns a recording studio in a 100-year old Harlem Brownstone. Keep up with him at his homepage.

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