Purple Cow

Seth Godin
There is actually a contest for the loudest car stereo.
These stereos are so loud that you can’t get into the car –
you’d go deaf. The current champ is eight times louder than
a 747 jet. Yet people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars
in their quest for the loudest stereo. And thousands of
other people buy the winning brands – not to play them
quite that loud, but just to know they could.
At the other end of the spectrum, people pay
extraordinary premiums for the last decibel of noise
reduction if they believe it matters to them. Quiet windows,
buildings, neighborhoods, laptops, cars– in each
case, the amount spent for each incremental decibel of
noise reduction is often double what the previous one
cost. Watch one traveler busy selling a seatmate on the
Bose noise-limiting headphones, and you can see the
ideavirus at work.
IKEA is not just another cheap furniture store.
There are plenty of places to buy stuff that’s cheap. But
most of them can’t offer the brilliant combination of form
and function you get for the same price at IKEA. Last
year, the chain sold more than 25 percent of all the furniture
sold in its price range in Europe and the United
States. That stunning figure isn’t the result of advertising.
It’s clearly a response to IKEA’s market-beating combination
of quality and price.
Lottery tickets offer low investment and a big win.
When the jackpot hits record levels ($100 million is
remarkable money, even to a millionaire), ticket sales go up
exponentially. Ironically, the odds of winning are even
worse than usual, so buying when there’s a $20 million jack-
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