Purple Cow
Purple Cow! Transform Your Business by Being ... - QuBranx.com
Purple Cow! Transform Your Business by Being ... - QuBranx.com
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<strong>Purple</strong> <strong>Cow</strong><br />
The Death of the<br />
TV-Industrial Complex<br />
Remember the much-maligned “military-industrial complex”?<br />
The idea behind it was simple. The government<br />
spent money on weapons. Companies received tax dollars<br />
to build weapons. These companies hired labor. They paid<br />
taxes. The taxes were used to buy more weapons. A virtuous<br />
cycle was created: The government got bigger,<br />
employment went up, and it appeared that everyone was a<br />
winner.<br />
The military-industrial complex was likely responsible<br />
for many of the world’s ills, but it was undeniably a symbiotic<br />
system. As one half of it grew and prospered, so did<br />
the other.<br />
Little noticed over the past fifty years was a very different<br />
symbiotic relationship, one that arguably created far<br />
more wealth (with large side effects) than the militaryindustrial<br />
complex did. I call it the TV-industrial complex. The<br />
reason we need to worry about it is that it’s dying. We built<br />
a huge economic engine around the idea of this system,<br />
and now it’s going away. The death of the complex is<br />
responsible for much of the turmoil at our companies<br />
today.<br />
The system was simple. Find a large market niche that’s<br />
growing and not yet dominated. Build a factory. Buy a<br />
lot of TV ads. The ads will lead to retail distribution and<br />
to sales. The sales will keep the factory busy and create<br />
profits.<br />
Astute businesses then used all the profits to buy more<br />
ads. This led to more distribution and more factories.<br />
Soon the virtuous cycle was in place, and a large, profitable<br />
brand was built.<br />
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