Sipahh--the Purple Cow

I am inspired.. Rather the entrepreneur/marketer in me is inspired. A while back, I red a book called 'The Purple Cow' by Seth Godin which basically said that marketing is not something you 'do' to a product to make it sell more, rather marketing is about the product design itself. I was thrilled to find one such example of it right in my neighbourhood dry-fruit store!

Its called Sipahh, imported from Australia and consists of 'flavoured' straws. Basically, these are straws coated on the inside with yummy flavourings like cookies-n-cream, mint, strawberry etc. Like a tim-tam slam, you dip the straw into a glass of plain cold milk and sip your milk through it and enjoy the delicious flavour. The packaging claims that each straw has only 1/2 a spoon of sugar, so its relatively less unhealthy than other milk flavourings. I checked out the website www.sipahh.com and was amazed to see that its available in a dozen odd countries around the world

As an aside, Aussies tend to pronounce all words that end in 'er' as 'ah' so "dipper" is pronounced "dippah" and "Mt Buller" as "Mt Bullah".. so sipahh is a clever adaptation of sipper

Given my current entrepreneurial leanings, I was really impressed by this simple product. This is really the stuff that the marketing textbooks talk about as being blue ocean(or sky, depending on what kind of person you are water or air!)If a new entrant wanted to find success in the milk-flavouring market, it would be impossible, as taking on the big brands like Horlicks, Boost, Complan etc would be not only formidable but probably foolish. An independent new brand could never match the marketing and advertising budgets of these giants, forget about getting consumers to switch fierce brand loyalty.

But quietly, a product like this manages to quickly carve out a niche for itself, providing a real alternative to the tried and tested products. Its sheer uniqueness, originality, 'innovativeness' and coolness factor are its biggest marketing weapons.
It stands out in the clutter, creates curiosity and in the process generates its own demand. Pricing? it doesn't have to worry about discounting and taking on the big brands. Its total uniqueness ensures there's no benchmark and any 'reasonable' pricing works effectively. On chatting with the sales staff, I was assured that the product is doing really well, with a strong repeat purchase factor.

You can spend years poring over marketing text-books or you can spend an hour at your neighbourhood store and come back a wiser marketer. Nothing quitelike seeing a strategy in action !

Cheers to Sipaah.. may the force be with you and may you inspire many more purple cows!