Valley PR Blog

A Purple (Possibly Little Green) Cow in Flagstaff

By Dan Wool on December 27th, 2007 In Marketing

On Sunday, we took the kids to the snow in Flagstaff. We stayed at the Quality Inn. As an international motel brand situated in at the intersection of I-17 and I-40 it doesn’t really need to do a lot to stand out.

But the QI in Flag has a leg up — what marketing guru Seth Godin calls a Purple Cow – it proudly welcomes Martians (and, according to its builletin board, Shriners and Ramones).

I asked the desk clerk if this was related to Lowell Obervatory. “Not really,” she said. “It’s a way for us to stand out but it’s really about our values of non-discrimination. We welcome anyone here and we’ll provide you a great experience no matter who you are — even if you’re a Martian.”

Comments

I’m always up for standing out. Doing something unusual makes people talk about you, and it’s exactly that type of word-of-mouth technique I teach my clients. Let me just say, I do like their position now that I know what it means. But, I really didn’t know what it meant when I first saw it. Seems like they could have used something more clear like, “Everyone welcome, even Martians.” Just a thought from the trenches.

Talking of discrimination, have you seen the PRSA officer roster on another page? Why are 95 percent of PR jobs in Phoenix held by WHITE women? If PRSA WERE truly a professional organization, they would work to reverse that. That holds for IABC and AMA - the marketing group.

Add your Comment

Want Your Picture Icon? Go to gravatar.com and set a picture up to your email address for free. It also works on thousands of other websites, too!