Death of the Unique Selling Proposition
As marketers, we always talk about the unique selling proposition. What benefits and features make my product so unique that it stands out in the marketplace?
However, the market has become saturated. Today, the USP has become almost meaningless.
How many products out there have the same features? Let’s take for example, shoes. From Nike, to Puma, to Adidas. All these shoes can make you jump higher… accelerate your athletic abilities…but what’s the big deal? How different can a shoelace be? Is there really a unique feature? That’s the first thing I learned when I joined advertising – that the USP is dead.
We’re in a new capitalist era in which we are bombarded with new products and new businesses exploding everyday in a sea of competitors. The key here is to highlight and amplify the differences between products in the same niche.
The question you probably ask yourself every time you want to launch a new product is this: How do I stand out when I am in the midst of a sea of products – offering the same features and benefits?
What are the alternatives to a dying USP?
The USP has transitioned into the UEP – the unique emotional proposition. The progression has gone from "what does this product do?" to "how does this product make me feel?"
With the exception of perhaps technical products – where technological advances often do have a USP, UEP is becoming increasingly more and more important.
But do you know what? UEPs are already common in the branding world! As the UEP becomes saturated, a new marketing trend is emerging; the USP that gets you asking, "Who I Am?" It’s the unique spiritual proposition.
However, most people won’t reach this level in the next few years, but a lot of good branding you see has the U-Spiritual-P edge and this will likely become more common in future.
The progression from ‘how I feel’ to ‘who I am’ – defining one’s inner being – is almost subtle:
USP (what does this product do?) –>
UEP (what does this product make me feel?) –>
USP (how does this product determine who I am?).
Let’s go back to the shoe example. You don’t hear pitches like ‘these shoes make you 100% faster’, or ’1000% more productivity with your feet’. No, marketing now taps into one’s inner core.
- Nike says: Just do it.
- Adidas: Impossible is nothing.
- And even Reebok: I am what I am.
The key now is, don’t only think of a USP for your products. Always come up with a UEP as well. It’s the only way to keep abreast of today’s online market.
Nice! I don’t think the USP will ever die off completely but we are definitely headed towards an evolution of how we convince people to buy and separating yourself from the pack to do that.
[...] Death of the Unique Selling Proposition Interesting read that might make you want to test some different ad copy and landing pages. (tags: copywriting) [...]
The U-Spiritual-Proposition can be achieved nicely with a process currently called “ProtoMythology”. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but the main benefit it achieves is it gives MEANING to people’s lives. Or, YOU do, through the context you create.
Religions have dominated this sphere for millenia… but now these concepts are becoming more and more available and, in the future, will dominate the business landscape.
And, if you look, you can already see it beginning to happen.
Hmmm Undertouchables — protomythology sounds interesting… could you elaborate more if you don’t mind? =)
hey kenneth, this is a great point to bring up. thanks.
everything we really want stems from a desired emotional outcome. “I don’t want running shoes so i can run fast… i want them so i will be victorious.” connect with that inner emotional desire and you win them over – heart and mind.
in regards to spiritual… do you think that it’s applicable to every product/service?
Kenneth:some insight and feedback oin your Death of USP article:
what you describe sounds a lot like a longtime a stragegy called selling hope, which has been used for decades if not centuries in the cosmetic and parfume industries. In addition, And I am sorry, but I just don’t buy the running shoe example in B2B environment. I don’t think we care emotionally my company is compared to my competitors or my company’s product compared to a competitor’s product. However I would love to hear B2B examples of U Spiritual Props in the B2B arena.
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