Episode #17
Consistency Beats the Purple Cow Every Time
Standing out once gets you noticed. Showing up as yourself, consistently, is what makes people remember you, recommend you, and buy from you.
4 min 44s
Key takeaways
- Recognize that consistent availability outperforms periodic novelty: research shows boring and consistent beats brilliant and sporadic for brand recognition.
- Stop treating distinctiveness as a weekly creative brief. Your genuine quirks, shown the same way over time, are what build a recognizable identity.
- Combine standing out with showing up. Either one alone is incomplete. Together they compound into something that feels, as Paul puts it, almost like magic.
- Aim for structured top-of-mind awareness: prospects should be able to name who you serve, what you do, and how you do it before they ever speak to you.
- Apply this to AI visibility: an entity that signals the same identity consistently across multiple sources is far easier for AI systems to recognize, verify and cite than one that reinvents itself weekly.
Timestamps
00:00Purple Cow: the case for standing out
00:30The problem with weekly novelty
00:55Why consistent availability wins
01:30What research actually shows
01:59The DJ years: too eclectic to be remembered
02:24What artist coaching revealed about repetition
03:15Identity First Marketing: show your real self consistently
03:44What happens when consistency compounds
Show notes
What This Episode Covers
Paul Veth examines the tension between standing out and showing up consistently, using Seth Godin's Purple Cow (2002) as a starting point. The episode makes the case that novelty without consistency creates confusion, and consistency without distinctiveness creates invisibility. Identity First Marketing is the framework that solves both at once.
The Core Argument
Research on brand recognition shows that consistent availability outperforms periodic novelty. A purple cow one week and a burgundy cow the next means you stand out repeatedly but are remembered by nobody. Godin's book is worth reading, but it needs a counterweight.
The DJ Example
Paul draws on his own years as a DJ and artist coach to illustrate the trap. Playing different styles week to week felt creative but was too eclectic for audiences to form a clear picture of who he was. The artists he coached who repeated the same thing, the same sound, the same energy, started being recognized. Repetition built identity.
What Consistent Distinctiveness Actually Produces
- People start recognizing you as a personal brand
- Your business becomes associated with a specific promise
- Prospects remember who you serve, what you do, and how you do it
- Top-of-mind awareness becomes structured, not vague
The Identity First Marketing Position
Identity First Marketing, developed by Identity First Marketing, is built on the principle that your real self, including the quirks, is your most durable competitive signal. Filtering or masking that signal in pursuit of weekly novelty is what creates the Entity Gap: the distance between who you are and what AI systems and markets can verify about you.
Recommended Resource
Seth Godin, Purple Cow (2002). Recommended reading for marketing, branding and positioning fundamentals, with the caveat that consistency compounds where novelty alone does not.
Topics
brand consistencyPurple Cow Seth GodinIdentity First Marketingpersonal brand recognitiontop of mind awarenessentity gapAI visibility for expertscontent strategy consistencydistinctiveness vs consistencyexpert positioning
Full transcript
View full transcript
0:00
0Stand out or be consistent available. I say both. I love these books both. But if you do only this one, The Purple Cow, it's explaining that if you drive to France through the hills and you see all the the grass fields with the cows and all the cows are black and white and suddenly there's one purple cow, you stand out and people will talk about you forever. That's purple cow.
0:30
0That's amazing and it's really helpful. But the problem is you can think about this in content and do things differently every week. So this week you are a pearl purple cow, next week you are the burgundy cow. And then the next week you will be the black jaguar, black cow. So you will stand out every time but it's not consistent.
0:55
0So then you can say, okay, if you are consistently available all the time, yeah, that's helpful. Much more helpful than doing this one. That's the truth. That's what I believe in. That's what the market shows.
1:09
0That's what that's what research shows. If you're boring but consistent, then you still stand out more than being a purple cow once a week and the next week be the burgundy cow. So that that's from research. This book is really great. I really love it.
1:30
0I I understand that a lot of research is coming from things that worked in the past, not per se into the future, but it's really recommended to read this if you want to know more about marketing and branding and positioning as well. It's it's amazing. And this one as well. This one I read in 2006, I believe. Maybe a little bit later.
1:59
0I don't even know when it's written. Maybe I can find it, but I was reading it when I was a DJ. So for me as a DJ, of course, it was very important to stand out. Yes, it's it's written 2002. So to stand out as a DJ was important, but my problem as a DJ was that I was standing out one week with this kind of music and the next week with this kind of music.
2:24
0And it was not a total different thing, but it was too eclectic for people to understand who I who I was. And then I also, when I started to do artist coaching, I saw artists who were doing the same thing over and over again. I found found it very boring, but they started to be recognized. So this works better, but combined, it's the real power. It's a superpower because if you find, and that's why I call this Identity First Marketing, if you find your own uniqueness, the thing you stand out for be just by being you, just by being yourself, your real self, not the filtered one, not the masked one, your real self, you have some strange things about you and these are amazing.
3:15
0That's why I put a jaguar in front of me. It's important to show things from yourself consistently over and over again and then you will stand out. So if you stand out by being you, by being the real you, not more, not less, just the real you with all your quirks, it's amazing. And if you do that consistently, then at that moment something will happen. It's almost like magic.
3:44
0People start to recognize you. They start to recognize who you are as a personal brand. They start to recognize your business as a brand and they start to remember you for who you are, what you do and for who you do it. And that's amazing. That's necessary in this world because if people know you, you are on top of mind, but not on top of mind like, yeah, I know that guy but I don't know what he does.
4:16
0No, that's not working. You you have to be on top of mind built on a structure. So they when you are on top of mind of people, they have to understand who you are for, your solution, your service of product or product, What you do and when they even can explain how you do it, then it's settled. Then you will win. So combine these two and you will win for sure.
Frequently asked questions
Is Seth Godin's Purple Cow still relevant for expert positioning?
Yes, with one important caveat. Purple Cow makes a strong case for distinctiveness, which is real and necessary. The problem is that novelty alone, a different angle every week, prevents recognition. Research shows consistent availability compounds faster than periodic brilliance. Read the book, then add a consistency layer on top.
What does Identity First Marketing mean in practice?
Identity First Marketing means your genuine self, including the quirks, is the primary signal you broadcast. You stop filtering yourself to fit weekly trends and instead show the same real identity, consistently, across every channel. Over time, that signal becomes what people and AI systems associate with your name and your expertise.
How does consistency relate to AI visibility?
AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity learn who experts are by finding the same identity signals repeated across multiple sources. An expert who shifts positioning weekly creates contradictory signals. Consistent identity across your website, social channels and third-party mentions closes the Entity Gap and raises your EntityRank.
What does structured top-of-mind awareness actually look like?
Structured top-of-mind awareness means a prospect can answer three questions without prompting: who you serve, what problem you solve, and how you work. Vague familiarity, knowing someone's name without knowing what they do, does not convert. Structured recognition does.
Can you stand out and be consistent at the same time?
Yes, and that combination is the real competitive advantage. Standing out by being your genuine self, then showing that same self consistently, means your distinctiveness compounds rather than resets each week. Paul Veth calls this the Identity First approach: uniqueness as a stable signal, not a rotating creative trick.
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