General Business: Unique Selling Proposition

At first I thought the answer was no, but after a bit more thought...I think the answer is most certainly yes, good marketing can be the USP itself.

One word: Image.

Lets say you have two identical fashion labels. Idental clothing, identical factories, identical EVERYTHING...except marketing. One label uses popular celebrities and sports icons to promote their apparel while the other doesn't. Who's going to have the biggest following?

If you give your product a unique 'image' from marketing, then people will choose you, not the competition, to get that popular, fashionista appeal from the brand name.

This can be applied to all sorts of different industries. Another example would be coffee. Starbucks coffee is god awful (IMO) - it's overroasted and bitter, not to mentioned extremely overpriced. Most of the espresso stands along the street offer a better cup of coffee for less. But Starbucks has marketed itself as the fashionable place to sit and shoot the shit with friends, do homework, listen to coffee lounge music, and waste time. So where do they go? The mom and pop cafe or the Starbucks? More than likely they'll enjoy a crappy latte in exchange for the ability to "look cool".

You guys both said a mouthful and I pretty much agree with it. Great replies.

The term, Unique Selling Proposition, was coined at a time when there weren't 400 types of cars to choose from. So in today's day and age, finding something in a pre-existing product that can be emphasized as unique is very difficult. If you're involved in the process of creating the product or company, you than have the opportunity to analyze the competiton. While doing so, don't focus on what they do, focus on what they don't do, which'll result in increasing the odds you'll find a USP.

Marketing and advertising have greatly evolved over the past decade, and while doing so the necessity to have a USP has decreased. It's about having two other kinds of SP's..........an SMP and ESP.

The first is a Single Minded Proposition. This is the selling point that'll focus on one thing. You're not everything to everyone, so decide which -est you are and emphasize it in everything you do. (fastest, tastiest, cheapest, coolest, darkest, etc...)

The second is an Emotional Selling Proposition. These are what Coke and Pepsi live off of. They sell the same product, with nothing more than a different colour and personality associated with it. Young vs Old, blue vs red, etc.... So they use ESPs to create an experience in the viewer's minds that they'll hope will make their tastebuds tingle and dash to the cooler with money in hand. These ESPs, much like those used in fashion ads among others, sold "The Joy of Life" and "The Real Thing", not caffeine + sugar water = yummy.

The issue that the majority of companies have is they'll find a USP about their company or product and plaster that all over everything, but it's something that makes them different from their competitors but doesn't matter to the consumers. Telling me, everywhere I look, that your powertools are 33% lighter doesn't mean anything if you don't show me that in a unique way. That way should involve the USP, SMP, and ESP-------we'll call it the USEMP (you-sump).

One recent example of a brilliant USEMP is Volkswagen's tv spots. Volvo has poured millions and millions of dollars over the years into associating the word "safety" with their brand and vehicles. But how many crash test dummy commercials until people start to get sick of that message? So in steps CP+B with VW. They want to not sell it as safe, they want to sell VW as SAFEST (there's that est I mentioned earlier). So they take a USP (side airbags), a SMP (safety), and throw in an ESP (driving scenarios that we've all experienced)...........and mash it all together in a way that we'd never expect or have seen before.

Here are the spots they came up with: One and two. (youtube seems to be down right now, so wait a bit to see those ads)