Elon Musk, Supreme, and Doja Cat: The Purple Cow Flamethrower

"Building Pits, Flamethrowers, and AI"

Elon Musk has become a force to be reckoned with. Dabbling from large scale technological advancements in Electric Cars, AI, and materializing ideas to help better the world on a scale so grand, you'd be wise to avoid his cross-hairs. Here at Content Caliber we tend to avoid placing individuals on a pedestal but this happens to be a case where his arsenal of ideas is so complex, innovative, and mind opening its hard to provide a clear cut defense against his sharpshooting skills.

My attention was immediately hijacked. In awe of how simple yet intuitive his content marketing strategy for his newly launched Boring Company. The idea stemmed from a joke that Elon had no intention of actually pursuing. Gathering inspiration from movies like "Space Balls" and the minimalist image of embodying everything boring, he ended up creating the complete opposite. Products that are so outlandish, it stimulates the Purple Cow factor that really stands out.

Its outlandish, has shock value, and is so preposterous that it actually has gained traction. The center focus of this company began at bringing awareness to his latest endeavor of building a tunnel in Los Angeles to help ease traffic congestion. Why? Because he hates the traffic. What does he hope to gain from it? Nothing. He just felt like it. Sure, the project is almost complete, but what exactly makes this content marketing worthy?

The Purple Cow Factor. Essentially the Purple Cow factor is anything unusual that stands out amongst the crowd. Definitely anything that makes you stop as say "What the f- did i just see?" It was through this that he began to push merchandise. You might be wondering how a company that's centered around building what he calls a Pit might be able to generate any feasible income from merch. Quite simply put, the man's a genius. One of his recent products release on the site, with little to no advertising campaigns was a make-shift flamethrower. Yes, A flamethrower. Which he then sold 20,000 units at $500 a pop. Surprisingly he pushed all merchandise within a record 4 days. He grossed a total of $10,000,000. Let that sink in. Setting that aside, he hasn't exactly reinvented the wheel. A clear example of this would be a brand like Supreme.

The merchandise section focuses on selling one product at a time. Generating a sense of exclusivity. People have always sought after materialistic objects or experience for bragging rights, a sort of "Status Symbol," if you will. Supreme has created an army of Evangelists from Musicians, to common super consumers alike all from releasing exclusive limited edition clothing that people then resell for exuberant prices. Their most notable sales stemming from their purple cow items like an actual brick with their logo on it, followed by the later release of an all red crowbar. You can easily spot bidding wars on Ebay for some of their products that can easily escalate into the thousands.

Whatever the actual business objectives are in regards to content, as long as your content can insight the presence of a growing community that gives birth to a slue of earned media, you've hit the jack pot. But the power of the Purple Cow Method is that the same way it can be used as a defense to set yourself apart from competitors, it can also be used as a well executed offense to generate brand awareness and draw more controversy and discussion towards just about anything you'd like to launch your campaign about.

"B- I'm a Cow" Warning: NSFW and Parental Discretion is Advised

Prior to Doja Cat's release of this music video, she had a respectable following that took several years to amass. One day, Doja's audience was blindsided by a surprise release music video that her social media curators and content marketers decided not to launch a campaign on. The video featured comical lyrics, risque attire, and some questionable visual from what is perceived to be Japanese animated pornography.

Clearly, her main goal here was shock value. So shocking in fact that the video amassed 18 million views, 649K likes, and 35K dislikes. Within a week, she jumped a quick 50k to 100k followers. Genius. The video didn't take long to go viral, obtaining hundreds of earned media. We're talking about Memes, Reaction videos, shares, comments, you name it. With the diverse facets that Earned Media holds I might make a post diving deeper into the different types and categories next post.

There you have it: Elon Musk is a flame throwing genius, Supreme continues to dominate with their dedicated Evangelists, and Doja Cat... Well, she IS the Purple Cow.

Our verdict: 3 / 3 Shells